Top senators repay before report’s release
OTTAWA • In a bid to clear the decks for Tuesday’s release of the auditor general’s report on Senate spending, the chamber’s Speaker and opposition leader have agreed to repay questionable expense claims they had earlier vowed to defend.
Speaker Leo Housakos and James Cowan, leader of the Senate Liberals, issued written statements Monday saying they have decided not to appeal the auditor’s findings about them to former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie. Binnie was recently named a special arbitrator for any senators challenging the report.
Deputy Speaker and Conservative senator Nicole Eaton also announced she will repay expenses flagged in the audit.
However, all three maintain they have done nothing wrong. Other senators have complained about the audit, suggesting auditor general Michael Ferguson’s findings will be sharply scrutinized once his report is officially public.
The report, to be officially released Tuesday afternoon, raises concerns about contracts from Housakos’s office worth about $6,000. Housakos said a staffer has already repaid $1,600 in travel expenses.
Cowan has said he has a “respectful disagreement” with Ferguson over travel expenses from 2011 that total “a little over $10,000.”
The fact Senate leaders — including government leader Claude Carignan — had helped establish the independent arbitrator, sparked some criticism they were in a conflict of interest.
“As Speaker of the Senate of Canada, it is incumbent on me to act in such a way that not only holds the office of Speaker and the Senate as an institution in the highest regard but also protects the integrity of the procedures and processes we put in place resulting from the Auditor General’s report,” Housakos said in his statement.
“I have taken this decision not because I don’t believe in every senator’s right to arbitration, but because I believe in it so strongly that I do not wish there to be any question surrounding the integrity of the process or the manner in which it was implemented.”
Cowan said he “categorically” denies any potential conflict but, in the best interests of the Senate, has agreed to pay back the expenses without arbitration.
“I have concluded that pursuing my right to arbitration, which I had intended to do, would cast a shadow in some minds over the fairness and independence of the process itself,” Cowan said.
He said the three trips were taken on parliamentary business, and claims were submitted, approved and reimbursed in 2011.
Carignan has said a staffer misinterpreted rules on Senate travel and has repaid approximately $3,000.
Eaton said in a statement the auditor general deemed four trips to her home city of Toronto for meetings around not-for-profit boards she sits on as “personal interests,” with the $3,489 in related expenses being disallowed. She has repaid the expenses, but isn’t happy.
“I fundamentally disagree with the auditor general’s opinion regarding the identified expenses relating to my office.
“That said, I have repaid those expenses and … will not exercise my right to arbitration,” Eaton said.
Ferguson’s report suggests many senators ignore “economical” options for spending that would save taxpayers money.
“We found that the oversight, accountability, and transparency of senators’ expenses was quite simply not adequate,” reads the report.
“We also found that senators did not always consider the requirement to ensure that expenses funded through the public purse were justifiable, reasonable, and appropriate.”
The oversight, accountability, and transparency of senators’ expenses was quite simply not adequate