Double standard for senators, lawyers say
Lawyers for the senators suspended from the upper chamber two years ago are accusing the Senate’s leadership of a conflict of interest and double standard for providing senators named in an explosive new audit with “due process” that, they say, wasn’t offered to Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau.
Nine current and former senators are identified in the auditor general’s report as having serious spending problems. Of those nine, two sitting senators — Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, who resigned Thursday from the Conservative caucus, and Liberal Colin Kenny — could be suspended as Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau were.
Another group of 21 senators — including Speaker Leo Housakos, Conservative Senate leader Claude Carignan and Liberal Senate leader James Cowan — are also named in Auditor General Michael Ferguson’s report.
Lawyers for Wallin, Brazeau and Duffy spoke out Friday, saying their clients were not offered the independent review process that’s now being provided to senators.
“It’s more than a little ironic that the very people who denied my client due process in the Senate have now put it in place for themselves, knowing what was coming down the pipe for them,” Wallin’s lawyer Terrence O’Sullivan said.
O’Sullivan said there appears to be a conflict by having the Senate call in former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie to act as a special arbitrator when the three most powerful senators — Housakos, Carignan and Cowan — all knew their own spending was being flagged as problematic.
Christian Deslauriers, who represents Brazeau, said it was unfair his client does not have access to the arbitration process