The rise of Conservative Senator Pamela Wallin

It was no real surprise to those aware of her important role when Prime Minister Stephen Harper stood to defend her so strongly after it emerged her travel expenses were being reviewed by external auditors, something he had not done when Conservative Senator Mike Duffy or Senator Patrick Brazeau, who he later expelled from caucus, faced similar questions about their living expenses.

Senate sources and observers say there is no question Wallin is ambitious — someone who built a strong career by “climbing ladders and breaking glass ceilings,” said one — and that while that is commendable, her way of going about it has rubbed some of her colleagues, on both sides of the Senate chamber, the wrong way.

One source described her as a polarizing person, who tends not to have as high a regard for hierarchy — with the exception of the Prime Minister who named her to the Senate — as she should.

Wallin, who was appointed in January 2009, became chair of the Senate committee on national security and defence after a year in which its members had made headlines for their dysfunctional squabbles.

After a video of one acrimonious meeting in June 2009 featuring a long argument between Conservative Senator Fabian Manning and Liberal Senator Colin Kenny, who was then the chair, surfaced on YouTube, Wallin accused Kenny of acting like a dictator.

“He tends to run roughshod over the system,” Wallin told the CBC. “Dictatorship is actually a word that I heard one of my Liberal colleagues use to describe this. I think this is a man who has had control of a committee, who is used to having his own way.”

When the Conservatives achieved a majority in the Senate and were able to seize control of more committees, Wallin became chair — she lobbied for the position, insiders say — and Kenny, who left the committee he had chaired for a decade entirely, shared what he really thought of his successor.

“I quite enjoyed it and we had a terrific staff and it wasn’t until last year when Wallin arrived that it became a pain in the ass,” Kenny told The Canadian Press in March 2010.

The committee had been known for publishing reports highly critical of government policy — both Liberal and Conservative — during the decade that Kenny was in charge, including one that involved both he and John Baird, who was transport minister at the time, personally testing security systems at Pearson International Airport.

The committee has arguably been much less critical during her tenure, with one report supporting a bill to establish a national day of remembrance for Canadian veterans of the Korean War and another recommending stable and predictable pay for military reservists.

The ascendancy has fuelled speculation in some circles in the red chamber that she has her eye on the top job, government leader in the Senate, a position that means she would be a member of cabinet.

Wallin flatly denied an interest in the post when asked about it Thursday.

“Senator Wallin wishes to say unequivocally that she has no interest whatsoever in being Government Leader in the Senate, and has never had such an interest,” her spokesman, Mark Fisher, wrote in an email.