In House Panel: June 13

The Auditor General's report on Senate expenses has been making headlines for weeks now, but will the Senate scandal stick around for the election?

Mark Kennedy, Parliamentary bureau chief for the Ottawa Citizen, thinks that's a foregone certainty. 

"You've got death, you've got taxes, and you've got the Senate," Kennedy says on this week's In House panel.

​Tasha Kheiriddin, a columnist for the National Post and a regular panelist on Power and Politics, agrees that Canadians can count on the Senate to keep resurfacing as an election issue as the parties gear up for a long, hot summer on the campaign trail. 

"It's an entitlement issue," she says. "Who's better off than the senators? As we have seen, many of them feel very entitled to being well off."

But with one House (presumably) on its way to order, is it time for the Auditor General to focus his spotlight on the other one — and look at MPs and their expenses? 

The idea may strike fear in the hearts of every MP who's ever expensed a taxi ride, as Mark Kennedy opines, but Tasha Kheiriddin argues spot audits could go a long way in restoring public trust in their elected officials.