Is Pamela Wallin Being Hung out to Dry?

In the tiny town of Wadena, Saskatchewan, people must be wondering just what is happening to their favourite hometown girl, Senator Pamela Wallin. For the celebrated former broadcaster, the news just keeps getting worse.

After a stellar career in journalism, a diplomatic post and brief stint as a quiz show host, Wallin has landed at the centre of another Senate controversy. On Tuesday the Senate's internal economy committee ordered her to pay back over $120,000 (plus interest) in travel expenses and referred her file to the RCMP.

Wallin must be asking herself why, with so many avenues open to her, she decided to take up Prime Minister's Stephen Harper's offer of a seat in the Red Chamber. Saying yes probably seemed like the obvious choice in 2009.

The problem is Wallin could never say no. Rarely was an invitation to speak sent to Wallin's office returned with a refusal. She addressed hundreds of associations, societies and leagues, always thinking that this is probably what a conscientious senator should do.

For decades, the Senate has been criticized for being a do-nothing institution that serves only to keep patronage appointments employed long after they stop serving a useful purpose in the real world. Senators, with a few exceptions from Alberta, are unelected and virtually unaccountable. Canadians have expressed outrage for years over Senators who rarely attend chamber business, are absent from Ottawa for much of the session, seem to have no political objectives and merely occupy an office in the gloomy corridors of East or Centre Block.

You can walk down those dark halls for a week and never see an open door or any sign of life in any of those plush offices.

Wallin had other plans: She would make sure that Canadians knew she took her senatorial obligations seriously and that, like the good journalist she always was, she would be out scouring the countryside for an interesting cause or pertinent issue.

Surely she wishes now she had just stayed home with the deadbeats, closed her door, collected her paycheques and avoided what has to be a career low.

Where's Harper?

If Wallin appears both bitter and blindsided in this controversy, she has every reason to be. Anyone who has ever worked on the Hill can tell you that there is a line between MPs and senators. Not only do they sit in a separate chambers, their safety is even monitored by a distinct security service. What's more, the rules and guidelines (always a nebulous word in the world of politics) that govern Senate activity -- specifically travel -- are ambiguous.

Perhaps because they are largely unelected, senators have not been subjected to the degree of media and government scrutiny directed at MPs. I can't believe that Wallin is so corrupt or stupid as to willfully abuse her office. I have to believe that she entered the Senate with a desire to serve the public. She could have made more money and travelled just as frequently in the private sector, where she is very well-connected and enjoys a lot of goodwill.

One matter needs clarification here: what constitutes 'politically partisan' business and what is 'legitimate' Senate business in the context of travel expenses. Arguably, any time a senator, MP or cabinet minister exits his or her Hill office for an engagement across town or across the country, there is some element of politics involved. The rules that govern MPs should also govern senators; obviously there is some lack of consistency and genuine elasticity within the rules.

What is curious (maybe not so curious) in this whole affair is the lack of comment from the prime minister or his office. Securing Wallin as a Conservative senator was an obvious triumph for Harper, who seeks eloquent spokespeople to advance the government's agenda on key issues like criminal justice and defence. Moreover, because Wallin had worked with a previous Liberal government -- she was appointed by Jean Chrétien as consul general in New York City -- she was seen as less destructively partisan than other potential (or actual) Senate choices who were obvious political favourites scooping up their lifetime achievement awards.

Wallin seemed like one of Harper's best and smartest choices for the Senate -- but he has done nothing since to defend her. For a man who (allegedly) is supremely committed to reforming the Senate, his silence and apparent disinterest in the current implosion in the upper chamber is somewhat unsettling.

Now that the file is before the RCMP, there will be a continued chorus of 'no comment' from Harper and the PMO. But regardless of the final verdict on Senator Wallin, those senators looking to do an honest day's work and actually contribute to public life should not have to guess if they are breaking the rules. They require clearer direction and better leadership from this government.