Wallin accepted fee to serve as guest speaker
Claim she hadn’t taken money an error, says senator
Conservative Sen. Pamela Wallin says she was mistaken when she claimed she hadn’t accepted speaking fees since her appointment to the Senate, admitting she was paid to address a gathering of municipal politicians in 2009.
Wallin told the Ottawa Citizen last week that, although her profile is still listed with a speakers’ bureau, she stopped accepting payment for her speaking appearances after Prime Minister Stephen Harper elevated her to the upper chamber in 2008.
When groups paid her “token honorariums,” she donated the money to the Military Families Fund or cancer charities, Wallin said.
A Sun Media report from 2009, however, said the Association of Municipalities of Ontario had paid the former TV broadcaster and diplomat at least $10,000 for a speech that year.
“We checked old files and I did speak to an Ontario group about my experiences as Canadian consul general in New York and received payment,” Wallin said in an email when asked about the apparent contradiction. “It was not a conflict with or related to Senate duties but I was mistaken in my earlier comments.”
The Senate ethics officer allows senators to accept honoraria for speaking events, as long as they are not invited as parliamentarians and do not speak about their work in the Senate.
Wallin’s profile with the agency Speakers Spotlight does not mention she is a senator and appears to have been set up before her appointment.
Her profile is listed among speakers charging between $10,000 and $20,000 in fees for a single event.
Three other Conservative senators, Jacques Demers, Larry Smith and Mike Duffy, are also listed with the booking agency Speakers Spotlight. Their profiles note their positions in the Senate.
Duffy and Smith say their appearances were cleared by the ethics officer. Duffy’s standard rate is $8,000 for a speech in Ottawa, says the agency. In a voice-mail message, an aide said Smith has been speaking at public and private events for over 11 years, and received permission to continue when he joined the Senate.
“The fee is a range and so we will not disclose the exact amount because each event is slightly different,” the aide said.
While Demers and Smith are available to discuss general topics such as leadership, teamwork and overcoming adversity, Duffy’s online profile says he “provides delegates with a must-have primer on the key political issues of the day” and “the latest buzz from inside Ottawa.”
Demers listed speaking revenue in his 2012-13 public disclosure to the ethics officer. The disclosures for Duffy, Smith and Wallin have not yet been processed.
In previous disclosures, Duffy and Smith both report that they run public speaking and consulting companies: Mike Duffy Media Services Inc. and P.M.P. Performance Consulting Inc., respectively.
The reporting rules in previous years did not require them to itemize the sources of additional income.