Article content continued

We apologize, but this video has failed to load.

tap here to see other videos from our team. Try refreshing your browser, or

“As a group, senators are responsible for governing themselves and how the Senate functions,” reads the audit’s catchiest line, to my ear at least. “They design their own rules, choose whether to enforce those rules, and determine what, if any, information will be publicly disclosed.”

Has the Senate as a whole been exonerated? Not a bit. If anything, Duffy’s acquittal casts it in worse light than before. Will the reforms introduced thus far by Prime Minister Justin Trudeau — specifically his arms-length process to select non-partisan eminent persons, seven of whom were appointed last month — provide a permanent fix? It would be nice to think so. Realism suggests otherwise.

This is not to impugn the calibre of the seven new independent senators named thus far. On the contrary, the new process seems to be working as billed, to the extent that none of the seven – including Peter Harder, the government’s point man in the transition and now in the Senate – are Liberal hacks.

But the fact remains that, once named, every new Senator – and there are 18 further vacancies, with many more looming in the years ahead — has a guaranteed gig until death or age 75, whichever comes first. Tory senators remain nominally representatives of the Conservative party and, thus, accountable to its leader.

Former Liberal Senators, and even moreso the newly named independents, are accountable to no one — not even the PM who put them in the job. Moreover, we have now seen just how difficult it is — let’s call it impossible, in practical terms — to have a sitting senator removed.