OTTAWA–With Prime Minister Stephen Harper demanding sanctions, Conservatives in the Senate have renewed efforts to suspend three senators with a proposed motion that would still allow them to keep their health benefits.

Though the circumstances of the alleged expense infractions levelled against Senators Patrick Brazeau, Mike Duffy, and Pamela Wallin vary, the three would suffer the same fate.

The motion would allow the three Senators to retain their health benefits and life insurance plans, despite being suspended for two years without pay. But unlike the sanctions being considered, which deal with each Senator individually, the new motion would force a single vote on all three.

It’s also a government motion, meaning it could put pressure on Conservative senators to toe the party line and vote for the suspensions.

“It’s one motion now, so the other proposition where you could have had a different vote on each case is no longer available — it’s all one motion,” said Conservative Sen. Hugh Segal, a vocal defender of Wallin.

The Conservatives are expected to bring forward the motion Thursday and move quickly to close debate in an attempt to force a vote before the weekend, but the opposition Liberals predict a vote early next week.

In the Commons Wednesday, opposition MPs continued to question Harper about the Conservative party’s decision to pay Duffy’s legal bills and why the senator needed a lawyer’s advice in the first place.

“Did the prime minister offer Mike Duffy a guarantee that, in turn for going along with the repayment scheme, the Conservative-controlled Senate would let him off the hook,” NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said during.

Harper sidestepped the question and, as he did the previous day, sought to keep the focus on the three senators at the centre of the spending controversy, saying they should be tossed from the Senate for their “breach of public trust.”

“There should be appropriate action taken to remove those senators from the public payroll,” Harper said.

As the Senate scandal drags on, a new poll shows that the three federal parties are caught in a three-way split. The Conservatives have 30 per cent, the Liberals are at 31 per cent and the New Democrats are at 31 per cent, according to the Ipsos Reid poll done for CTV.

But the poll numbers hold bad news for Harper — 27 per cent of Canadians do not believe the prime minister’s claims that he did not know about Wright’s cheque to Duffy.

Just 30 per cent believe the Harper government has done a good job and deserve re-election in 2015.

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The poll was done between Oct. 16 to Oct. 20 and Oct. 25 to Oct. 28 and surveyed a total of 2,144 Canadians. It is considered accurate, plus or minus 3.4 percentage points, 19 times out of 20.

With files from Bruce Campion-Smith

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