Binnie cuts the amount senators have to repay
EXPENSE SCANDAL: Long-awaited report tabled
OTTAWA — A special arbitrator has slashed the amount of public money to be repaid by 14 senators for questionable expense claims, but still maintains most should have known better than to pocket a total of $178,000 for what remain glaring personal expenses.
In a long-awaited report tabled with the Senate Monday, former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie approved $145,000 in questionable expense claims by senators initially flagged as illegitimate in a 2015 investigation by federal Auditor General Michael Ferguson covering April 1, 2011 to March 31, 2013.
“I don’t see my report at all as exonerating abuse,” Binnie said after the release. “I see it as pointing at a different way of controlling of potential abuse … that has to be more seriously looked at by the Senate administration.”
Ferguson’s formal audit found more than $322,000 in improper claims for travel and housing expenses by 30 senators, about 45 per cent higher than Binnie’s evaluation.
But Binnie said the difference is because he had a much larger body of evidence on which to weigh the claims, he was able to hear at length from witnesses and he has a broad view of what constitutes a legitimate parliamentary purpose for senate travel.
Still, about 80 per cent of the problem claims Binnie examined involved senators mixing personal and Senate business, but billing taxpayers for the entire amount.
“I don’t think that’s right,” he said. “The rules are very clear. If the trip is predominately personal, you pay. The public only picks up the incremental cost of the Senate business. In some cases I was puzzled that an explanation would be put forward that just didn’t make any sense.”
In one instance, Binnie disallowed a travel claim from Sen. Nick Sibbeston, who billed taxpayers $1,471.88 to for a trip to Quebec City to “cheer on” his son’s ice-sculpture team.
In another, an employee of Quebec Sen. Jean-Guy Dagneais who lived and worked in Montreal, charged the Senate for “fictional” trips from Ottawa to Montreal to attend legitimate meetings in Montreal. Dagenais’ office billed for Ottawa-Montreal round trips as if the staffer lived in Ottawa because he was employed by the Ottawa-based Senate, said Binnie.
Fourteen of the 30 senators fingered by Ferguson agreed to binding arbitration with Binnie over the disputed claims. Most had the amounts reduced and now have 30 days to repay the money.
During a news conference, Binnie directed particular criticism at Ottawa Sen. Colin Kenny, whose bill Binnie knocked down slightly, to $27,500 from $31,630.
Kenny, an acknowledge Senate expert on defence and national security issues, travelled about 40 times over the period in question to meet reporters, military, police and others to enhance his understanding of the issues.
Binnie found the meetings all legitimate, but their frequency and cumulative nature was a problem. They included, for example, 17 trips to Toronto for Sunday-morning meetings with a Globe and Mail reporter covering national security. That would typically require Kenny to book into a Toronto hotel on Saturday.
“There’s air of artificiality about many of those trips,” said Binnie of the $153,000 worth of trips over the 24 months.
“The notion that you can simply authorize yourself a trip to Vancouver because you want to speak to a particular journalist on a Sunday morning, I think, are over.”