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An audit of the Senate: What took them so long?

My nephew is 8 years old.

His new favourite word is Duh!! (It's very pleasant, really.)

Well, I'm going to steal his word today: I''m going to say "Duh" to the Conservative call for a comprehensive audit of Senate expenses.

On Tuesday, Senator Marjory LeBreton, the Conservative leader in the Senate, put forward this motion in the upper chamber:

"That the Senate invite the Auditor General of Canada to conduct a comprehensive audit of Senate expenses including senator's expenses."

"This next step is actually to make sure [the scandal] doesn’t happen again and also indicates to the Canadian public that we are very serious about managing taxpayers’ dollars,” LeBreton said Tuesday, according to Global News.

"I’m sure at the end of the day, the Canadian taxpayer will be well satisfied and also the institution of the Senate will have started to recover some of its credibility."

[ Related: Liberals ask for a public inquiry into the Senate scandal ]

Incidentally, the motion could have passed on Tuesday but, according to the Globe and Mail, Liberal senators wanted more time to study it. It will now be debated on Wednesday.

Regardless, once the motion passes, it's expected that Auditor General Michael Ferguson and his team will review all the expense claims filed by individual senators.

We'll be able to find out which senators are making false claims, we'll get a count of the senators who campaigned for their respective political parties in the 2011 election campaign and maybe we'll get an idea of what $90 million of our money gets us.

[ Related: NDP pushes proposal to stop funding the Senate by Canada Day ]

"It’s great that the government is bringing in the auditor general to do a comprehensive audit of every senator. Can’t believe the Liberals would try to slow this down," the Canadian Taxpayer Federation's Gregory Thomas told Yahoo! Canada News.

"Justin Trudeau needs to read the riot act to the Liberals in the Senate – explain to them that they’re going to get themselves abolished if they don’t smarten up.

"It’s a no-brainer. Politicians haven’t acted until now because it’s been an old boys club where people like Duffy have been able to stuff their pockets with no accountability to the public."

Thomas adds that he hopes this isn't "a one-off" and that it extends to an audit of Parliamentarians in the House, as proposed by Liberal Senate leader James Cowan.

"[Make the] Senate permanently subject to the scrutiny of the Auditor General, with no further restrictions on the AG’s ability to investigate the senate, on his own initiative, at any time in the future," he said.

"Now the government needs to open up the books of the House of Commons to the Auditor General.

"It’s really scandalous that both the House and the Senate are not subject to the scrutiny of the Auditor General or the Access to Information Act. Politicians have essentially declared themselves to be above the law."

He also recommends mandatory disclosure of all financial data relating to the House and Senate, including all expense claims and receipts.

Now, doesn't that make sense?

To which my eight year old nephew responds: "Duh!!"

(Photo courtesy of the Canadian Press)

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