Senator repays travel expenses worth over $10K
Elaine McCoy disagrees with finding that claims weren’t related to Senate business
OTTAWA— Independent Sen. Elaine McCoy has repaid all the questionable travel claims the auditor general flagged in his politically explosive report on Senate expenses, according to newly updated records.
“I have decided to pay the $10,298 at issue, which represents less than 2 per cent of the funds I have managed during the audit period, though I do not agree reimbursement is warranted,” McCoy, an independent Progressive Conservative senator for Alberta, said Tuesday in a statement emailed by her office.
Auditor general Michael Ferguson named McCoy and 29 other current and former senators as having been inappropriately reimbursed for a total of $992,663 in travel, housing and office expenses in his June report, the result of a two-year investigation into Senate spending practices.
Nine of them had their files referred to the RCMP.
According to a running tally of repayments published on a Senate website last updated Monday afternoon, about $140,656 has been repaid by 21 senators who decided to reimburse some or all of their disputed expenses.
The most recent reimbursement was from McCoy, who the report said had claimed airfare, accommodations, per diems and taxis associated with trips in Edmonton, Calgary and Toronto that the auditors deemed were not for parliamentary business. The auditors also said her staff regularly billed taxi rides between their homes, the office and the Senate.
“In making this decision I wish to emphasize that I fully support the broad principle of transparency within the Senate, just as I have al- ways supported transparency throughout my long career,” said McCoy, who was appointed to the Senate on the advice of former prime minister Paul Martin in 2005.
“It is in the interests of maintaining forward momentum towards a modern Senate that I have made my decision.”
The response she gave to the auditors, included in the report, had indicated she would repay whatever the Senate standing committee on internal economy, budgets and administration decided after receiving the report.
Nineteen of the senators named in the report have opted to dispute the findings through an arbitration process overseen by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Ian Binnie, who is inviting them all to meet him in Ottawa at the end of October to explain the process.
One of them is retired Ontario Conservative Sen. Lowell Murray, but records show he recently repaid $976 of the $16,300 flagged by the auditor general, which was for a return trip from Ottawa to Toronto he has said was filed in error.
Murray said in a telephone interview Tuesday he still plans to dispute the rest of the findings.
“I do think there are real principles involved in mine and other cases involving the auditor general’s judgment as to the scope of a parliamentarian’s activity and responsibility,” Murray said. Senate spokeswoman Francine Pressault confirmed in an email Monday that both McCoy and Murray had reimbursed the amounts voluntarily.