Finances review could cost more than $2M
Auditor general intends to probe expenses
A sweeping audit of individual senators’ finances — including their expense claims — could be significantly more expensive than an audit of the red chamber’s administration released last year, which cost nearly $2 million.
The auditor general’s office says it has yet to determine how much a comprehensive audit of senators and their expenses is going to cost. But it’s possible that poring through the finances of the members of the upper chamber could be a pricey task that takes a chunk out of the office’s already-shrinking annual budget.
An audit released in June last year of the administrative side of the Senate cost just over $1.8 million. And while that report looked at the administration of the Senate, this one will look at individual senators and go through their expense claims on a specific basis.
Auditor General Michael Ferguson has told a Senate committee his office has sufficient resources to conduct the audit. In a statement Friday, he said that “some decisions remain to be finalized, but certainly, our intention is to look at all senators’ expenses.”
The office has an annual budget of about $100 million.
In June, Conservative and Liberal senators voted to invite Ferguson to scrutinize the upper chamber.
The move comes amid an ongoing Senate expenses scandal. Three senators — former Conservatives Patrick Brazeau and Mike Duffy and former Liberal Mac Harb — are under RCMP investigation. All have been ordered to repay the Senate for ineligible expense claims.
The Senate has also asked the Mounties to look into Sen. Pamela Wallin, another former Conservative who has been ordered to repay about $121,000 in disallowed travel claims. Earlier this year, Harper vouched for Wallin’s travel costs in the Commons, but the Prime Minister’s Office has since said he was only talking about Wallin’s overall travel budget, not individual claims.
In Whitehorse, Harper sidestepped a question about his previous defence of Wallin’s expenses.
“Of course, at the time I indicated that all of the senator’s expenses would be subject to robust scrutiny … through an audit that, of course, has since been done and obviously has uncovered some significant problems,” he said.
“The senator has not been a member of our caucus for some months, but I would expect that action will be taken to ensure full accountability for any breaking of rules.”
Critics say the auditor general’s microscope could find similar issues with other senators’ expense claims. Others say the four senators are exceptions among an otherwise scrupulous crowd.
Some senators have said that bringing in the auditor general could be a way to restore the red chamber’s flagging credibility with the Canadian public.
“The primary objective is to restore confidence in the institution,” said Sen. Elizabeth Marshall, who chairs an audit subcommittee, which will serve as a liaison between the Senate and the auditor general’s office.
“Every time you do an audit, you have recommendations for improvement. So you’re in a state of continual improvement; you just keep working toward better systems.”
There have also been concerns about the subcommittee’s role. But Sen. Gerald Comeau, the chair of the Senate’s internal economy committee to which the audit subcommittee reports, said the committee won’t have authority to determine the scope of the audit, or other such details.
“My understanding is the auditor general prepares the scope, and there’s not much of a limit that the subcommittee can do. It’s the auditor general’s plan and away he goes,” Comeau said.
“You don’t tell the auditor general what to do. He tells you what he’s going to do.”
Marshall, who was auditor general of Newfoundland and Labrador for a decade until 2002, said she envisions that meetings with Ferguson and his staff will be “more on the progress of the audit, as opposed to issues and concerns.”
But she added her experience on both sides of the audit process will help.”