Senate Expense Scandal: Accountability Shouldn’t Be Just an Act

Senator Mike Duffy certainly isn’t the first Ottawa politician to get some unwanted scrutiny from RCMP investigators. But unless politicians of all political stripes get serious about accountability soon, it’s certain that Duffy won’t be the last either.

It’s been disturbing to witness the speed with which Duffy and fellow senators Patrick Brazeau, Mac Harb, and Pamela Wallin have been thrown under the bus in recent weeks while Senators and MPs move to sweep the broader question of accountability under the carpet. Under enormous pressure, the Senate board of internal economy met in public, for the first time ever, and tightened up its rules relating to expense claims. But the ten rule changes only served to reveal how ridiculously loose the old rules had been. Senators will now need to submit a receipt if they want to be reimbursed for a taxi ride. Previously, they didn’t need to do that. As part of the Senate’s “honour system,” they simply needed to assure the Senate expense office that they had taken a taxi ride, and a cheque would be issued, no questions asked.

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Unbelievably, the Senate continues to withhold basic documentation on expenses from the public, including the actual claims signed by senators, and supporting receipts. And the Senate still refuses to bring in the Auditor General to inspect the claims of every Senator. Senator Duffy claimed Ottawa living expenses on 49 days when he wasn’t actually in Ottawa. The only reason Canadians know about it is that somebody leaked the Duffy story to the media. Understand this: Canadians still have no right to see Duffy’s expenses: he’s exempt from the Access to Information Act, and he’s exempt from the scrutiny of the Auditor General, just like every other Senator. It’s the same story with MPs. Our most important anti-corruption legislation simply doesn’t apply to the politicians on Parliament Hill, unless they’re cabinet ministers. Senator Duffy’s problems are nothing new. The RCMP laid criminal charges against Liberal Senator Hazen Argue in the 1980s over the way he handled his office budget. (Those charges were dropped because the senator was terminally ill). Just two years ago, Quebec Liberal Senator Raymond Lavigne was convicted of two counts of fraud. Senator Lavigne fudged his expenses and even ordered Senate staff to cut trees on his neighbour’s property, during office hours. The House of Commons is also under suspicion: Joe Fontana, former MP and now mayor of London, Ontario, is facing criminal charges over allegations that he expensed his son’s wedding reception while serving in the House in 2005. MPs and Senators don’t want the Access to Information Act to apply to their expenses and their office budgets. And they don’t want the Auditor General looking over their shoulder. Even the opposition in the House of Commons is in on the act. NDP leader Tom Mulcair said the Auditor General last year “gave the systems in place a clean bill of health for being able to determine if the expenses were valid and if there was a proper tracking system." Did Mulcair read the same 2012 Auditor General’s report as the rest of us? The Auditor General didn’t audit MPs or the work performed by their employees or consultants in their Ottawa offices or constituency offices, nor did he audit professional services contracts awarded by individual MPs. In fact the AG examined only 264 transactions – less than one for each of Canada’s 308 MPs – out of the 85,000 transactions processed in that entire fiscal year. Canadians simply have no proof that MPs and Senators are clean when it comes to their expenses. We rely on leaks to the media to find out how our tax dollars are being spent. Until MPs and Senators are subject to the Access to Information Act and the Auditor General has unfettered access to their secret financial records, more will cheat and more will be caught and quickly thrown under the bus. And it’s getting a tad crowded under that bus. Gregory Thomas, Federal Director