Liberal Senate leader to argue Harper’s office in contempt of Parliament

OTTAWA – The Liberals in the Senate are trying to trigger special parliamentary hearings in the hopes of forcing the prime minister’s former top aide and other Conservatives to testify.

Liberal Senate leader James Cowan is expected to argue that Stephen Harper’s office violated the sacrosanct privileges of parliamentarians.

Harper’s chief of staff Nigel Wright gave Sen. Mike Duffy $90,000 to pay off improper housing expenses. Wright resigned on Sunday, and Duffy from the Tory caucus on Thursday.

After that payment, Duffy stopped co-operating with an audit into his expenses, and sources say a Senate report into his claims was stripped of some of its most critical language.

Cowan will say that the executive branch interfered in the proceedings of the Senate committee tasked with studying Duffy’s expense claims.

If Senate speaker Noel Kinsella agrees that there was a breach of parliamentary privilege, he could send the issue to a special committee.