Wallin expensed Senate for TV spot, RCMP allege
• Pamela Wallin charged the Senate for travel so she could offer “a Conservative party perspective” on the 2011 federal election on a television news panel, the RCMP allege in newly released court documents.
The allegation is one of 21 travel expense claims that the police allege Ms. Wallin should not have filed to the Senate, totalling more than $25,000. Combined with previous allegations, the RCMP are alleging that Ms. Wallin filed 46 fraudulent expense claims totalling approximately $53,000.
The Senate has long maintained that its members can take part in partisan activities, but it draws the line at anything that is purely partisan. The RCMP allege that Ms. Wallin crossed that line, including in the waning days of the 2011 federal campaign, when she was a Conservative voice on a CTV election panel. The RCMP say she attended weekend rehearsals for the May 2, 2011, election night panel, charging the Senate for a flight on May 5 to Ottawa.
The RCMP allege that while in Toronto for the panel, Ms. Wallin attended medical appointments, an event for the now-defunct Sun News Network and did “dry cleaning.”
The revelations may not be over: Investigators identified 150 suspicious expense claims from the 246 such claims the Senate provided to the RCMP in late 2013, covering a timeline that goes back almost to the start of Ms. Wallin’s Senate tenure in 2009.
In the court documents, the RCMP list events that allegedly never happened, such as a meeting with Dan Sullivan,
Used public funds to pursue private, business interests
Canada’s consul general in New York — a post Ms. Wallin herself once held — in April 2009. According to the RCMP, Mr. Sullivan told investigators that he “has never met” with Ms. Wallin “at any given time.”
The RCMP also say Ms. Wallin falsely charged the Senate for travel to the University of Guelph, where she was once chancellor.
“Senator Wallin used public funds to travel to Guelph and Toronto in order to pursue these private and business interests,” RCMP Cpl. Rudy Exantus wrote in one document released Tuesday.
Ms. Wallin has not been charged with any crime, nor has any of the allegations been tested in court. Her lawyer has not responded to a request for comment.