Expect The Expected

"There's no question that when this thing blew up, senators became far more careful. They don't want to live through what Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, [Patrick] Brazeau are living through at the moment -- they're living through hell. They'll want to avoid that all all costs."
Donald Savoie, Canada research chair, public administration and governance, University of Moncton, New Brunswick

"...At all costs...?" The 'cost' referred to is identifiable enough; exercising the restraint that would be employed if their own money was being used and their bank account slowly drained through lack of due diligence. The 'cost' refers to doing a little homework, shopping around for a good travel price, it's what most people would do, other than those who are able to expense their accounts.

After all, if it's a business that's paying, the prevailing attitude is that the business can absorb the freight.

In the case of the Senate of Canada, the 'business' that absorbed the freight of careless choices -- careless as in without care -- was the public purse, and that just happens to be represented by the Canadian taxpayer. Many of whom believe that government is a huge wastrel of public resources, many more who don't give much of a thought to the matter, simply relying on the fact that common sense among the superior creatures who work the halls of power will ensure care be taken in spending public money.

A new analysis courtesy of Postmedia News, relying on the study of senatorial expense claims indicates that 58 of the 88 senators who sat in the Senate in the years 2012 and 2013 made fewer and less expensive claims from March 1 to August 31, 2013 than during the comparable six months a year earlier. And what might have impelled the senators to exercise their prerogative to make fewer/less costly-to-the-taxpayer claims?

Caution winning out over unfortunate precedence. The precedence of the cavalier attitude that had led to four Senators being outed in disgrace for their unabashed, unwarranted entitlement claims to fatten their personal bottom line otherwise known as a bank account, appears to have given instruction to their peers in the venerable Senate of Canada.

Needless to say there would have been sitting senators quite cognizant of their ethical responsibility to their position of trust. Among that group there would have been no conceivable need to alter habits born of neglect of diligence.

The figure of now-disgraced Mike Duffy stands out as an offender-first-class; his claims for staff salaries, office expenses, travel and accommodations in the National Capital Region for the six-month period from March to August 2012 came to $174,262.00. Amazingly he billed a mere $59,658.26 for the same period a year later. Less amazing is the fact that he understood himself to be under scrutiny at that juncture.

Too late, however, to save him from complete revelations of his shady self-availment and the consequent sullying of his reputation. Thirty-eight other senators cut their spending by over $10,000, some significantly so, a handful charging in the range of $30,000 to $40,000 less. Take Liberal Senator Terry Mercer, for example; he managed to spend $38,217.20 less than a comparable period preceding his latest 6-month expenses by the simple expedient of travelling more cheaply.

"I haven't changed my travel, I just changed how I paid for tickets", he said modestly. As had Liberal Senator Elizabeth Hubley, who spent $45,501.26 less, mostly through purchasing Air Canada flight passes allowing the pass holder to travel less expensively.

And is it modesty, inattention, or indifference that led Liberal Senate Leader James Cowan, who also chose to adopt a travel pass, that he was not even aware he had spent $51,847.37 less than in 2012?

"There wasn't a conscious effort to cut back on it", he said. Oh. And why not, pray tell?