The Senate: Ottawa

Public Registry Dept: The reporter for weekly newspaper L'Etoile was told that he would have to physically come to Ottawa to look through the Senate attendance register, fat red binders with forms filed monthly by each senator, according to Winnipeg Free Press. Another public registry, detailing the financial and business interests of senators, has only been available four hours per weekday at the Office of the Senate Ethics Officer in Ottawa. The Senate voted in May to make the registry public, but the office said the transition won't be complete until 2013 and oTTAWA - When Moncton's Pascal Raiche-Nogue wanted to know how often senators from New Brunswick showed up for work, he found it near impossible to pull back the curtain on their attendance. The register, developed in 1998 following the scandal around truant Liberal Andrew Thompson, remains stubbornly stuck in pre-Internet, pre-open government times. The Senate website offers no information on how to access the registry or even where it is, although communications staff are helpful when one does arrive to take a peek in the downtown office building. (www.immigrantscanada.com). As reported in the news.