The Senate still doesn’t get it

Not much good news in this week’s headlines for the Senate. From CBC News, we learned via an unnamed source that even Mike Duffy was worried about being appointed to represent Prince Edward Island, on account of not actually living there — not so worried that he didn’t immediately upon his appointment start claiming per diems as if he lived there, but worried nonetheless.

A different unnamed source then told CTV News that the CBC story was absolutely false. But in any event, a crucial opportunity to nip a disaster in the bud was missed. “The Senate has never disqualified anyone for being a ‘resident’ of their province of appointment, providing they own property there,’” soothed Christopher McCreery, an aide to Tory Senate leader Marjory LeBreton, in a memo to Duffy of Charlottetown and Pamela Wallin of Wadena, Sask. And so in Duffy went.

From Duffy’s criminal trial, we learned that the Senate conducted an audit of its members’ residency status at some point in 2012 or 2013, but that — wouldn’t you know it? — it isn’t interested in releasing it. Donald Bayne, Duffy’s lawyer, may appeal to the court to have its contents revealed. We wish him Godspeed.

Last, we learned the Senate’s board of internal economy was considering — behind closed doors, natch — a “quiet” process to respond to auditor general Michael Ferguson’s potentially explosive forthcoming report on its members’ expenses. “Senators whose expense claims are questioned by the auditor general will now be able to appeal to an independent arbitrator, ensuring senators aren’t judging their own,” the Ottawa Citizen reported Thursday.

Senators not judging their own is a good idea, but serious questions remain. Notably, the Citizen reported, an arbitrator might overturn the auditor general’s findings. That wouldn’t make much sense, given his mandate. Moreover, senators will be able to rid themselves of any ethical liabilities at any point in the Senate’s internal procedures simply by paying back the money. Canadians won’t necessarily be privy to details of repaid expenses — just the raw numbers. And fittingly enough, the entire process was debated and decided on Wednesday in secret, by the Senate’s board of internal economy.

That’s not good enough, and the Senate’s lingering affection for secrecy demonstrates, to put it mildly, that lessons remain to be learned. One Senate source even fretted to the Toronto Star this week that the new process might undermine the Senate’s cherished independence — which is awfully rich considering where its independence has brought us. The Senate is in no better position to insist upon its “independence” than a 16-year-old who’s just backed the family station wagon into a river.

Whatever becomes of this new process, once Ferguson’s findings finally wind their way through it, the Red Chamber will need to begin rebuilding itself. Only if it opens its committees, its books and its spending accounts to the nation it ostensibly serves can it hope to claw back any semblance of tolerance from the population.

As it stands, the Senate is about as popular as Jian Ghomeshi and cold sores. When Ferguson’s report drops, it may plumb yet further depths. (Imagine if it should find that many of the senators who two years ago voted to give high-profile miscreants like Duffy and Wallin the boot were themselves on the fiddle.) And no appeal to “the rules,” no technical absolution from an arbitrator, is going to help senators if Ferguson details clearly outrageous or deceitful spending. It’s not clear whether Senate rules prohibited Duffy from claiming at least some of the expenses he did; that doesn’t make it any less dishonest to claim travel expenses when you’re at home.

What the Senate needs is sunlight. It’s going to get it from Ferguson, like it or not, and suffer the consequences in the court of popular opinion. In the future, however — at a minimum — it should publish senators’ expenses online; then let them defend them on principle, discuss any problems they might reveal in open committee, and hope against hope the chamber might one day reattain its former status of occasionally useful obscurity.