Senator says she was advised to change data given to auditors
OTTAWA — Sen. Pamela Wallin says about 400 changes she made to her electronic Senate calendar, a key piece of evidence auditors looking at her expense claims used in their review, were done on the advice of the Conservative senator who was at that time overseeing the audit process.
As well, Wallin, a former Conservative, suggests in a letter to auditors that she was not alone in filing expense claims for partisan fundraising activities.
In a four-page letter sent July 26 to Deloitte, the outside company reviewing her claims, Wallin’s lawyers say Sen. David Tkachuk suggested to her in April that she restrict the amount of information she was providing to speed up what was becoming a slow, detailed review of her travel claims made between 2009 and late 2012.
It is one of several allegations Wallin makes in a letter appended to the official audit of her expenses, which is to be made public Tuesday. Postmedia News saw a copy of the report Monday.
Between January 2009, when she entered the Senate after being appointed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, and September 2012, Wallin claimed $532,508, the audit says.
Auditors have identified $121,348 that they say she should repay, and a further $20,978 that they say is questionable.
A senior Senate source told Postmedia News the upper chamber’s internal economy committee will likely ask the RCMP to officially investigate Wallin’s claims. The Conservatives were expected to push for the referral Tuesday.
Meanwhile, Tkachuk, who was the head of a Senate committee overseeing the audits of several senators, denies the claim in Wallin’s letter that she acted on his advice.
Tkachuk suggested in his own missive to auditors that he simply wanted her to stop adding information that wasn’t directly relevant to the claims she had made. He did not comment Monday night.
Addressing reporters late Monday, Wallin called the audit process “fundamentally flawed and unfair.”
“No attempt was made to mislead Deloitte,” she said outside the committee room, adding that she intends to pay back any amount of money the Senate determines she owes for wrongly claimed expenses, “and I will do so out of my own resources.”
She has alleged that the committee and Senate leaked information about her audit regularly.
Wallin’s electronic calendar was an important source of information for the auditors. She confirmed the calendar was changed, but said it was done because she was advised to include only information relevant to the actual expenses she was claiming. She said she had known that Deloitte had a copy of her original calendar.
“It was not until very late in the process, in July, that we were asked about the differences between the office calendars,” she said Monday, reading from a prepared statement. “And so we told them (Deloitte) what had happened and why and we followed up with several written explanations.”
In their report, the auditors write that part of Wallin’s inappropriate costs were for “partisan related activity, such as fundraising.” Her lawyers cite as an example a May 27, 2011 event for former cabinet minister Bev Oda. Oda resigned in July 2012 over her own spending scandal, which was made famous by a $16 glass of orange juice charged to taxpayers.
At the Oda event, Wallin talked about Oda’s ministerial role overseeing international development, as well as the Afghanistan file, which Wallin knew from her work chairing the Senate’s defence committee. Her lawyer’s letter notes that fundraising events took place outside of election campaigns, involved talking about Senate-related matters, and that “this was generally accepted practice,” suggesting others in the Senate have done the same.
Most of the amount deemed inappropriate was for flights for personal business, including her work on corporate boards and as chancellor at the University of Guelph in Ontario, flights to get to Ottawa after a corporate event or meeting, or events that auditors said were not for Senate business.
“It is important to note, however, that in no case was the senator seeking personal gain,” Wallin’s lawyer says in his letter of July 26. “Certain mistakes were made in the processing of those claims and some of them were inadvertently charged to the Senate but this was not of any financial advantage to the Senator who would have had those expense paid by those companies, upon request.”
The amount that was subject to interpretation relates to “networking events,” auditors write.
“It is Senator Wallin’s position that when she was appointed, she understood that her ‘networking’ with contacts was an important part of her role to ‘ ... be accessible and in touch with as many ‘communities of interest’ as possible to ensure that she would be an activist and effective senator,’” the audit says.
“The steering committee determined that, while occasional, exceptional occurrences for special events might be acceptable, the volume and pattern of the events listed would not qualify them as Senate business.”
Wallin said she was determined, when appointed to the Senate in 2009, to be an “activist senator,” advocating on behalf of causes important to Canadians. Travel to public speeches and appearances is a legitimate Senate expense, she said.
“I want to be absolutely clear: I never intended to seek nor sought reimbursement for travel expenses in any situation where I did not believe such a claim was proper. Where I made mistakes, I have, as you know, already repaid money back.”
The audit cleared Wallin of any problems with her housing claims that she made early in her time in the Senate, which totalled $52,099.
The full Senate committee reviewing an independent audit of Wallin’s travel will meet Tuesday to decide what to do with the Deloitte findings.
“Our government will not tolerate the waste or abuse of the hard-earned tax dollars of Canadians. We expect that any inappropriate expenses will be repaid,” Sen. Marjory LeBreton, the outgoing government leader in the Senate, said in a statement. “Sen. Wallin is no longer a member of the caucus and must be held accountable for her actions.”
The audit was six months in the making.