Speaker rules Senate expenses debate can’t be curtailed
Posted Oct 30, 2013 06:18:05 PM.
This article is more than 5 years old.
OTTAWA – The Harper government’s bid to shut down debate on motions to suspend three disgraced former Conservative senators has been scuttled by the Speaker of the upper chamber.
Noel Kinsella has ruled a closure motion to be out of order.
That virtually guarantees the suspension motions will not come to a vote before next week, leaving the Senate expense scandal cloud to hang over the entire Conservative party national convention, which starts Thursday evening in Calgary.
The ruling from Kinsella, himself a Conservative, makes it harder for the government to continue blaming Liberal stalling tactics for the repeated procedural snags that have helped the politically explosive debate drag on for almost two full weeks.
Deputy Liberal leader Ralph Goodale says Conservative ineptitude is 100 per cent responsible for what he calls the procedural chaos surrounding the government’s bid to suspend senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau without pay.
Government Senate leader Claude Carignan has sent confusing signals about whether the proposed suspensions could be softened to allow the trio to keep their medical and/or life insurance benefits.
