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Suspended Senator Pamela Wallin guest hosts on Toronto radio talk show

Unfortunately, we've heard a lot about Patrick Brazeau over the past few months.

The other suspended senators, however, have been out of the public spotlight.

On Thursday, Pamela Wallin — who was suspended and now under RCMP investigation for alleged inappropriate travel expenses — came out of hiding. The former broadcaster returned to her roots and re-appeared as a guest host, with Ryan Doyle on Toronto radio station NewsTalk 1010.

In the second hour of the three hour show, Wallin opened up about the Senate scandal, her suspension and her life outside the Senate.

She remains resolute that, while she should have been paying more attention to her expenses, she didn't do anything deliberately wrong and certainly nothing that should have gotten her booted out of the upper chamber.

"When you talk about the [Senate] rules...we did understand the rules. But what happened in my situation is that new rules were imposed in 2012," she said.

"So new rules were put in place and then those new rules were retroactively imposed on my expenses. So I couldn't, in 2009, have predicted what the rules in 2012 were going to be and behaved accordingly."

Last summer, the Senate finance committee charged that Wallin inappropriately claimed $121,348 in travel perks. She admitted to errors in the amount of $38,000 but ultimately repaid the whole amount. That's a decision she now regrets.

"I've paid [back] all of the money that I don't believe that I owe," she said noting she did it to appease her Senate colleagues who she referred to as her "team."

"I thought, okay, let's put this to rest. It's distracting everybody from doing their work. It's stopping me from doing my work. Other senators were resentful. The public was resentful.

"It's kind of used against you; people say you're just admitting [to it]."

Wallin continues to argue that her suspension was absent of due process and says that she hasn't heard anything about the RCMP investigation into her expenses.

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Doyle even asked Wallin, what it's like to be 'hated.'

"It's frustrating. It's frustrating particularly for somebody who [has] spent most of her life in the information business. Which is, you can't convert 34 million people one at a time," she responded.

"But I find when I took the time to answer the emails — and we got lots of hate email too —...but I would sit down at the end of the night and I would answer 10 or 15 emails and say 'perhaps you don't know how this system works and I would like to give you a couple of facts.'

"And I would get emails back from people [who say] 'oh my god. I didn't think you'd write be back. And you're right, I hadn't thought about that point and that's really interesting.'"

[ Related: Ruling from Supreme Court on Senate reform (or abolishment) coming next week ]

While she misses work, Wallin says that she's been able to find a silver lining in all of this.

"It's been a crazy time, a roller-coaster," she said.

"But the upside...I've spent a lot more time with family friends. Because when you're busy you never get to do that. And sometimes just slowing down a little bit is a useful exercise."

And maybe, radio could become Wallin's new gig.

According to the Globe and Mail, the radio station's management were 'hinting' at bigger, perhaps long-term, role for her.

The guest role came about after Ms. Wallin contacted program director Mike Bendixen in early April to discuss possible “opportunities,” Mr. Bendixen said. The station’s late-afternoon show had long been hosted by John Tory, who left in late February to run for mayor of Toronto.

“This was kind of an interesting opportunity for someone to come in and spend some time on the radio and we can see what the audience reaction is and she can put her name out there,” he said.

Wait — doesn't Wallin live in Saskatchewan?

That would be a pretty long commute to Toronto.

(Photo courtesy of The Canadian Press)

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