Canada's Senate speaker passes away

The Speaker of Canada's Senate Pierre Claude Nolin died of cancer Thursday night at the age of 64, according to the Canada's Senate Friday.

A spokeswoman for the Senate says Nolin died just after 7 p.m. Thursday. Nolin, who was appointed to the senate in 1993 by then Prime Minister Brian Mulroney, had been battling a rare cancer since 2010.

Nolin became the speaker last November, the unanimous choice of Conservative, Liberal and independent senators who saw him as a smart, respected, independent-minded man who could steer the upper house through the final dramatic chapters of the expenses scandal that has rocked the senate to its foundations.

His death comes in the midst of the trial of disgraced Senator Mike Duffy for allegedly filing fraudulent living and travel expense claims. The trials of two other senators, Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb, on similar charges, are set to start within months.

When he took over the Speaker's chair, Nolin signaled his intention to conduct himself in a non-partisan manner and to devote himself to defending and restoring the reputation of the tarnished upper house.

As speaker, Nolin was also chair of the senate's internal economy committee, which establishes the rules for how senators can spend taxpayers' dollars and claim reimbursement for expenses. In his last public comments earlier this week even as he was battling illness, Nolin vowed to tighten those rules and make senators more accountable for the money they spend.

"Under my leadership as Speaker, the Senate is committed to modernizing its rules and processes in keeping with best practice standards," Nolin said in a statement issued Monday to The Canadian Press.

Although he was a loyal Conservative, who cut his teeth as an organizer for Mulroney in Quebec, Nolin had an independent streak. He voted against his party on a number of occasions and spoke out against Prime Minister Stephen Harper's doomed initiative to turn the appointed upper house into an elected chamber. Endite