Auditor general urges probe of senators’ expense claims
Upcoming report names senators with allegedly dodgy expense claims
Canada’s auditor general will recommend the Senate refer 10 cases of alleged misspending by former and current senators to the Mounties, naming names and detailing the disturbing findings that have raised concerns of criminality.
The report will also contain recommendations to help prevent further abuse of expenses.
The 10 senators — most of whom are retired — have been informed in writing that Michael Ferguson’s final report on Senate spending will single them out, and will urge the upper chamber to call in the RCMP over their expense files, the Ottawa Citizen has learned. Ferguson is also expected to explain in detail what his auditors found in each of those 10 cases.
The 10 senators will have the right to challenge his findings to an outside arbitrator. If they choose not to, the Senate will send the file to the Mounties promptly.
If any files involving retired senators go to the RCMP, the Senate is prepared to take those retirees to court to try to recoup wrongfully claimed expenses.
The details come from Senate sources with knowledge of Ferguson’s final report and the Senate’s planned response.
Ferguson’s office would not comment on the final report.
“Our work is ongoing, and it is our intention to have a report ready to deliver to the Speaker of the Senate in the first week of June,” it said in an unsigned email. “We don’t discuss the contents of our audit until it is made public.”
Quietly, senators admit they are bracing for the worst.
Ferguson’s audit teams have pored through two years of re- ceipts, doing a line-by-line review of travel spending, phone calls, office contracts, lunch receipts and even postage for Christmas cards. The review itself has taken two years, with auditors investigating the spending habits of 117 past and present senators.
The most problematic claims have previously been pegged by Senate sources as being worth more than $100,000 in some cases, with housing and travel at the root of concerns.
Between 20 and 30 more senators will have details of their problematic claims outlined in the final report, as auditors will challenge travel that had no hint of parliamentary business to it, questionable housing claims and contract spending that in at least one case reached about $20,000.
Already, senators in this second group have started to repay expense claims, details of which are expected to be released with Ferguson’s report. The Senate has declined to provide a dollar figure, citing the confidentiality of the report.