Duffy makes $90,000 repayment on Senate housing allowance

Auditors still haven’t given date to deliver findings

Sen. Mike Duffy has repaid money for his housing allowance — about $90,000 claimed over the last three years.

“I am a man of my word,” Duffy said in an email to Postmedia News.

In a statement Friday evening, the Senate said Duffy had repaid the receiver general $90,172.24.

He paid the money in full on March 25.

Earlier, Duffy said that “all will be revealed” when the Senate’s internal economy committee reports on independent audits being done on some senators’ expenses by Deloitte, which, he said, “I hope will be soon.”

Deloitte’s audits of the housing-allowance claims of three senators — Duffy, Liberal Sen. Mac Harb and independent Sen. Patrick Brazeau — have taken months. Senators had expected the results by the end of March, but the auditors haven’t yet provided the internal economy committee a date for the delivery of their findings. Senators on the internal economy committee, which is overseeing the audits, have raised concerns with how long it has taken for the results. “People would like to get the reports,” said one member.

Once the audits are in, it will be up to the Senate to determine what to do with the findings. Senate leaders have said that any senator found to have violated rules should have to repay all funds, plus interest.

Over the past two-plus years, Duffy has claimed more than $48,000 for living expenses in the capital region, including about $5,000 in the most recent quarter ending Feb. 28, based on publicly available quarterly expense reports. Those public reports only include expenses since late 2010, almost two years after Duffy first entered the Senate in January 2009; the amount he has claimed in total was about $90,000.