Duffy’s contracts reviewed at trial
Senator’s office budget used to direct payments to friend’s companies, court told
OTTAWA— Suspended senator Mike Duffy used his office budget to direct payments to a friend’s company for photo mementoes, physical fitness training, makeup services, and cash gifts that otherwise would have been turned down, his trial heard Monday.
In total, Duffy spent $65,000 in Senate funds over four years on consulting services that featured irregularities like backdated contracts, changes to contract totals, and payments that did not appear to be related to his “parliamentary functions,” according to a Senate human resources clerk.
Invoices introduced by the Crown show the Senate was billed for more than $1,300 spent at a suburban Jiffy Photo shop to enlarge many photos of Duffy’s family members, including his daughter and grandson, or political contacts. Duffy’s diary shows he sent mementoes to people like Barbara Bush, former U.S. first lady and mother of former president George W. Bush who visited Canada in 2009. Acopy of the photos sent to the Bush matriarch was not introduced. But the point was clear. Sonia Makhlouf, a quiet-spoken Senate human resources officer, testified many such services would not have ordinarily have been approved under Senate “guidelines” as she understood them.
Makhlouf said she questioned a senator only over small details — if a contract description was unclear, if the amounts appeared out of whack with the time frame of the contract, or other details were lacking. She did not “validate” the contract descriptions or whether the services were, in fact, performed.
Oversight was minimal and much was left up to the senator’s judgment.
“If everything appears to be logical, then I’ll leave it to the discretion of the senator,” she said.
The Crown is attempting to prove Duffy skirted the rules and used his annual $150,000 office budget as a personal slush fund or “reserve pool” of money, in part by directing payments to two companies set up by his former CTV colleague and friend, Gerald Donahue: Maple Ridge Media Inc., and its successor, Ottawa ICF (an insulated concrete form company).
Assistant Crown attorney Jason Neubauer reviewed with Makhlouf some 12 payments from 2008-2012 to Donahue’s companies, which Duffy had hired ostensibly for consulting and “editorial services,” like media monitoring and speech writing, or research into Canada’s “aging population,” as Duffy or, in some cases, his assistant described them.
When Neubauer asked Makhlouf if any of those contracts would have covered payments for photos, makeup or “gifts” to volunteers and paid staffers, she suggested they would not unless they were “parliamentary work related.”
“Whose responsibility is it to ensure that whatever service was agreed to was actually provided?” asked Neubauer.
“The senator,” she answered. “The senator is signing the invoice at the end.”
Donahue has already told the RCMP, according to an affidavit of Cpl. Greg Horton’s, that he did little or no work for Duffy, and would have given Duffy advice for free.
NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus attended court Monday and handed out gag trading cards featuring senators he said represented the “pork and patronage” of the Senate.
Angus scoffed at Duffy’s defence to date that the Senate doesn’t have clear rules.