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OTTAWA – In a strange new twist to the Senate spending saga, former Conservative Sen. Patrick Brazeau said he was offered a backroom deal by Tory House leader Claude Carignan to wiggle free of a pending suspension.

Rising during the ongoing debate over motions to suspend three senators – him, Pamela Wallin and Mike Duffy – without pay, Brazeau said that Carignan told him the government would go easier on him in exchange for a public apology. He said the discussion happened at around 10 a.m. Friday.

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Brazeau has been adamant that he has done nothing wrong, and has demanded an open hearing into an audit of his expense claims.

“I was essentially offered a backroom deal,” he said. “The backroom deal was that if I stood in this chamber, apologized to Canadians and took responsibility for my actions, that my punishment would be lesser than what is being proposed.”

As senators listened, stunned, to the statement, an obviously angry Brazeau left the Senate.