LIVE: Senate voting on suspension of Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau

OTTAWA— Three disgraced, former Conservative senators are learning their fates in the upper chamber today, with the Senate voting on the suspension motion that has gripped the chamber for two weeks.

Senators Pamela Wallin, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau are all at risk of losing their salaries and access to Senate resources. If the Conservative majority in the Senate passes the motion, they will still, however, have access to some medical benefits and life insurance.

All three stand accused of claiming inappropriate expenses.

One question remaining as the upper chamber prepares to vote is whether senators will vote once to sanction all three senators or if they will be able to vote each separately. As it stands, the Conservatives introduced one single motion to deal with all three. But they have indicated a chance of splitting it into three, meaning senators could vote to suspend one colleague while allowing another to continue sitting.

Figuring out exactly how the vote will go remains difficult, as some Liberals and Conservatives are expected either abstain or vote against the suspension motion. But with a strong Conservative majority in the chamber, the motion is expected to pass.

Brazeau took the floor late Monday night to make a last ditch effort to save his reputation and his job.

READ MORE: ‘I would have gone for expulsion’ frustrated Tory senator says

“I stand accused today in a shameless farce, a show trial, a gong show the likes of which has never been seen in Canadian history,” he said. “Time may run out before my side ever gets told in its entirety, but here for the record are the facts.”

Brazeau, who the Senate has accused of claiming housing allowances he shouldn’t have, began with what he has said before—he asked Senate administration to clarify the housing policy, then followed what employees there told him.

“I trusted my colleagues and I trusted Senate Finance,” he said, describing how the rules seemed to change when he was brought before a committee to defend his expenses. Brazeau says he brought documents to the committee that proved he was told he could collect the allowances.

“It is fortunate I did bring those documents along because the committee members had no idea what to ask to establish my residency under the senate rules,” he said. “If everything is so clear, why were they so stumped? … Either I was complied with the Senate policy or I was not. But they had no idea how to proceed.”

READ MORE: At some point Nigel Wright will reveal what he knows, says Kenney

Brazeau continued his story, alleging the Senate committee looking into his spending ignored the findings of an outside audit performed by Deloitte, which found flaws in Senate policy regulating housing allowance claims.

A senators whose “primary residence” is more than 100 kilometres from Ottawa is entitled to a housing allowance, worth up to $21,000 per year. But any definition of primary residence is lacking, Brazeau said.

“This is a huge indictment of Senate policy. Deloitte found the policy to be so fatally inadequate and incoherent that they were unable to even begin to address the status of my primary residence against any existing guidelines,” Brazeau said.

Still, the committee tabled a report finding the senator, who has also been charged with assault and sexual assault, acted against the rules and demanded he repay the expenses they deemed inappropriate, totalling $48,000.

“You then impose punitive measures on me without pointing to one single rule, one single policy or or single guideline breached by me, or giving me a chance to defend myself in this chamber or elsewhere,” he said.

After nine days of impassioned arguments and with the jobs and incomes of Brazeau, Wallin and Duffy on the line, Conservative leadership in the Senate successfully limited debate on the suspension motions Monday.

The debates that have occupied the Senate for nine sitting days have exposed division among the Conservative caucus, even as the prime minister has called repeatedly for harsh sanctions against Wallin, Brazeau and Duffy.

Even though the Conservatives passed the vote to shut down debate Monday, opinions on the Senate floor were not divided along party lines.

Conservative Senators Hugh Segal, Nancy Ruth and John Wallace voted against their leadership’s motion; their colleagues Don Plett and Don Meredith abstained.

Wallin, who left the Conservative caucus in May, also abstained from the vote. neither Brazeau nor Duffy were present.

Speaking after Brazeau Monday night, Segal, who has repeatedly come to Wallin’s defence, now passionately came to Brazeau’s. He argued that the government was moving to sentence the senators because it was convenient and because the debate has taken too much of the government’s time.

“I want to, first of all, indicate that the problem with the motion which I firmly oppose, as it lays before us, is that it moves to a consideration of punishment before the nuances about what might have constituted the violations, how they might have happened, why they might have happened, whether there was, in fact, significant confusion about the rules …  None of those matters have been addressed,” Segal said. “I am one of those people who happen to think that erring on the side of understanding is not a sign of weakness, erring on the side of greater comprehension of what had transpired.”

He then wondered out loud what ever happened to the idea of fairness and justice for everyone.

Speaking to reporters after the Senate rose past midnight, Segal explained why he became agitated in the chamber.

“In my eight and a half years, it’s the most intense and, if I may say, negative experience that I’ve been through in this place,” he said. “When you’re into a process whereby a chamber is passing a sentence before there has actually been anything like a discussion of what the issues are in a broad and open way with counsel and all that, it’s deeply problematic, and there’s a reason it’s never been done before.”

Liberal leader in the Senate James Cowan has proposed an amendment to the suspension motion, asking the Senate to refer it to a committee, where experts can weigh in on whether the upper chamber has the power to impose the proposed sanctions.

The Senate will vote that amendment Tuesday evening. If it doesn’t pass, senators will move to the main suspension motion.

Even if the Conservatives can pass the main motion, the party and the prime minister likely won’t be able to close the file on the Senate scandal; questions continue to swirl around funds the Prime Minister’s Office and Conservative party gave Duffy—the now-infamous $90,000 from the prime minister’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, and $13,560 from Conservative party lawyer Arthur Hamilton.

According to Duffy’s version of events he recently shared with the Senate, the Conservative party covered $13,560 in legal fees after Wright made the request.

The Prime Minister’s Office has said the Conservative party covered the legal fees on the assurance they were related to the audit of his questionable expenses.

Since Duffy revealed the second cheque during a speech to his Senate colleagues last week, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has repeatedly said there is nothing nefarious about a political party covering the legal fees of one of its caucus members.