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Government moves to suspend Duffy, Wallin from the Senate

OTTAWA — The Harper government moved Thursday to cauterize the open wound that is the Senate expenses scandal, coming down hard on three free-spending senators and promising to disclose how its MPs spend taxpayer dollars.

OTTAWA — The Harper government moved Thursday to cauterize the open wound that is the Senate expenses scandal, coming down hard on three free-spending senators and promising to disclose how its MPs spend taxpayer dollars.

But none of it was likely to make the controversy go away anytime soon, given fresh procedural tactics by the opposition, ongoing RCMP probes and a forthcoming Senate expense review by the auditor general.

The Conservatives announced motions to suspend Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, three former Tories appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper who were found to have made inappropriate expense claims.

The motions, to be debated next week, would strip the trio of their pay, benefits and Senate resources for the remainder of the parliamentary session — potentially as long as two years.

A fourth senator with improper expenses, former Liberal Mac Harb, resigned last month.

A handful of Liberal senators suggested the motions were patently unfair, given that Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau have not been charged with anything directly related to their expenses.

Government Senate leader Claude Carignan said the upper chamber was well within its rights to take disciplinary action against the senators for their “gross negligence.”

“When we occupy such privileged positions, we should respect citizens and we need to behave with dignity,” Carignan said outside the Senate chamber after the motions were introduced.

“I think the behaviour of these three colleagues were an affront to that dignity.”

An hour before Carignan’s announcement, Duffy issued a statement saying he was going on medical leave on his doctor’s orders because of a heart condition. Carignan said that would not have an impact on the suspension, should it pass.