Senate votes for suspensions

In Ottawa Tuesday night, the trio of Tory Senators caught in the middle of an embarrassing housing expense scandal have each been suspended from the upper chamber. In separate votes Tuesday evening, Senators voted to keep Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau out for the remainder of the parliamentary session, which could be another two years.

After the vote, Patrick Brazeau was silent as he rushed out of the red chamber in a blur of camera flashes. A clearly emotional Pamela Wallin did stop to say a few words before leaving:  “I think it’s an extremely sad day for Democracy. If we can’t expect the rule of law in Canada, then where on earth can we expect it?”

Don Plett was a Conservative Senator who abstained from voting: “I think we need to start working at rebuilding the Senate. I did no have the votes to win. There is no point continuing to fight when the battle was over.”

James Cowan is the Liberal Senate Leader: “We don’t respect the process. We don’t think it was a fair process, and we think it was more designed to suit the political purposes of the Prime Minister to shut these three Senators up.”

In each vote, around a dozen Senators abstained from voting. The three former members of the Conservative caucus will retain their health, dental and life insurance benefits, but will be barred from the upper chamber for up to two years.