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Wallin may be forced to repay thousands in travel expenses

Pamela Wallin, a senator from Saskatchewan, was back in the news this week, refusing to tell CBC News if she had repaid any expense money.

Globe investigation: The Ford family’s history with drug dealing

This investigative report reveals that: Doug Ford, Toronto Mayor Rob Ford’s brother, sold hashish for several years in the 1980s. Another brother, Randy, was also involved in the drug…

Will Rob Ford’s supporters leave Ford Nation?

The growing controversy over a purported video alleging to show Toronto Mayor Rob Ford smoking crack cocaine may be testing the faith of even his most die-hard supporters.

Delacourt: Canadian demographics may not favour the Conservatives

New Environics poll suggests Canadians, including newcomers, are more “progressive” than conservative. There are two ways to become a former Conservative in Canada these days. You can get tossed out, like senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau.

PMO won’t say whether Harper knew of Duffy’s DUI, disallowed expenses

Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office is refusing to reveal just how carefully it vetted Senator Mike Duffy before he was appointed to the Senate.

Ontario Liberals, Tories in dead heat, new poll shows

Ontario’s Liberals and Progressive Conservatives are in a statistical dead heat among decided voters, suggests a new poll, which shows Liberal support up despite the ongoing gas plant controversy.

Sask. premier says time to abolish Senate

Saskatchewan Premier Brad Wall, once a staunch supporter of a reformed federal Senate, has given up the fight.

It’s getting hard to do their job, senators agree

THE ongoing living and travel-expense scandals surrounding a trio of Canadian senators has made it increasingly difficult for the upper chamber to do its job, according to a pair of their colleagues.

The fabric of corruption and moral corrosion

A short history of scandals, lies and uproars that shook foundations of governmental power

Opposition demands to know role of Harper’s office in Mike Duffy audit

Federal opposition parties are demanding more information on how Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office was involved in the Senate’s handling of an audit of Sen. Mike Duffy’s improper expense claims.

NDP excited to grill Harper next week

The government was hounded Friday over allegations the Prime Minister’s Office steered key Tories on a secretive Senate committee to doctor a report into the Mike Duffy spending firestorm.

Five things to love about Canada’s Senate

As the Senate-expenses affair rocks Parliament Hill, it seems the right moment to point out some of the red chamber’s redeeming qualities.

Five named to blue-chip federal public service panel

The special advisory committee that has the ear of the prime minister on how to manage the public service has appointed five new expert members to help steer the “future development of the public service.”

Considering the scandals plaguing multiple levels of government, it seems accountability as a virtue is on the wane

Uncharitable mockery befell Conservative MP Joan Crockatt earlier this week when she welcomed the resignation of Stephen Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright, plus the removal from caucus of senators Mike Duffy and Pamela Wallin…

There is no easy fix for the Senate on the horizon

Chantal Hébert — Patience with the Senate has run out on Parliament Hill and beyond. With the exception of the Liberals who have been arguing that the main problem with the upper house is that Justin Trudeau is not appointing its members, every party agrees that business…

Wall, PM at odds over Senate

Murray Mandryk — It’s not surprising that Premier Brad Wall seemed so eager Friday to distance himself from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s raging Senate mess. The Harper-created Senate crisis is not only real – it’s radioactive. Short of those few who might still harbour dreams of being called…

The wheels of the bus go round and round

Stephen Maher — On May 9, the day the Senate released the audits of three senators who had received tens of thousands of dollars in entitlements to which they were not entitled, Senator Marjory LeBreton, the leader of the government in the Senate, read a statement to reporters.

Robocall ruling is victory for Conservatives but shadow of doubt still lingers

Andrew Coyne — Someone is trying to frame the Conservative Party of Canada. Either that, or the party is the victim of a theft, possibly by its own supporters. Someone, at any rate, hacked into the party’s closely guarded voter database in the closing hours of the 2011 election…

The road to the Senate is paved with warped intentions

Don Martin — The Prime Minister’s top senator describes an Ottawa populated by media lickspittles fawning over Liberals while relishing Conservative misfortunes. It’s nonsense, of course. But at the risk of being labeled one…

Senate and robocall scandals different versions of same pathology

Tom Walkom — Prime Minister Stephen Harper and his Conservatives play on the edge when their interests are at risk. They are the extreme fighters of the political world. We know this from the parliamentary spending scandal, where a $90,000 intervention by top Harper…

Senate scandal is a symptom, not the source, of Harper’s woes

Carol Goar — Nigel Wright is the third chief of staff to resign from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office in five years. At the same point in his tenure, Jean Chrétien still had his first one. Brian Mulroney was on his second. Parliamentary pundits have written off Wright, a Harvard…

The robocall ruling: Have we hit bottom yet?

Tasha Kheiriddin — Is there any integrity left in the Conservative party? If so, it’s getting harder and harder to find. Just as the Senate spending scandal was cresting in Ottawa and the prime minister was AWOL in South America, the Federal Court delivered a legal bombshell that…

Tories plead for ‘benefit of doubt’ on ethics lapses

David Akin — It has been a week without parallel in modern Canadian political history when it comes to the ethics of our political class — and while the Conservatives are reeling the most, reporters in the nation’s capital have been busy tracking ethically questionable behaviour in other parties.

Canadian journalists have moved the goalposts in pursuit of alleged Rob Ford crack scandal

Christie Blatchford — So distressing do I find the Rob Ford spectacle that covering a terrible murder trial in Ottawa, as I did for a couple of days this week and last, came almost as a reprieve, a step out of the gutter.

Stephen Harper’s very bad week

Sun Media — There’s only one Canadian politician who had a worse week than Stephen Harper who, like embattled Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, saw his right-hand man depart and faces a firestorm from the media that smells blood.

Scandal-wise, Canada’s got nothing on the United States

Conrad Black — In this column last week, I urged an end to the harassment of Nigel Wright, then Prime Minister Harper’s chief of staff, and Senator Mike Duffy. Not since I urged the election of Sarah Thomson as mayor of Toronto, bestowing my prophetic wisdom on the…

Rob Ford and civic embarrassment

Rick Salutin — There’s something to be said for the value of embarrassment. (There’d better be, considering how often it visits us.) I’m thinking especially of the civic value of embarrassment, in the Rob Ford context. This week it came at us from Jon Stewart on The Daily Showand…

Digitizing a fake Rob Ford in a video is a technical impossibility

Navneet Alang — As news of the allegations against Toronto Mayor Rob Ford rolls and roils its way across the globe, a contingent of skeptics has cast doubt on the story of his alleged crack smoking by claiming the video purporting to show it could have been doctored or faked.