Fallout from Senate expense probe begins
Quebec rep quits, will sit as independent; Kenny may be subject of RCMP investigation
The results of the two-year investigation will not be released until Tuesday, but the leaks came fast and furious Thursday afternoon
OTTAWA— One senator has quit the Conservative caucus, confirming he will be the target of an RCMP investigation as the fallout begins from a massive and highly detailed report into expenses by the auditor general.
“I made this decision voluntarily after learning I will be the subject of an investi- gation by the RCMP,” Quebec Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu said in a statement his office emailed to media Thursday night.
Boisvenu added that he would sit as an independent senator and provide more details in the coming days.
The news came hours after the Senate received the highly anticipated report from auditor general Michael Ferguson, who is expected to name 30 senators as having made questionable claims, including nine cases serious enough to be referred to the RCMP.
The Star has learned Colin Kenny, with the Senate Liberal caucus, is the other sitting senator whose expenses Ferguson may refer to the RCMP, and that the other seven cases involve retired senators.
Kenny did not respond to an emailed request for comment late Thursday night.
Multiple Senate sources confirmed that the files of retired senators that could be sent to the RCMP are former Liberals Sharon Carstairs, Marie-P. Charette-Poulin, Rose-Marie Losier-Cool, Bill Rompkey and Rod Zimmer, and former Tories Donald Oliver and Gerry St. Germain.
The three powerful senators — Speaker Leo Housakos, Government Leader Claude Carignan and Senate Liberal Leader James Cowan — leading the response to the audit are among those Ferguson will recommend reimburse expenses, although they are not suspected of having broken the law.
Two of them, Cowan and Housakos, plan to appeal to former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie, who they were instrumental in appointing as special arbiter in a new dispute resolution process set up to deal with exactly these kinds of disagreements. That has some sources concerned about a conflict of interest.
The results of the two-year investigation will not be released publicly until next Tuesday, but the leaks came fast and furious Thursday afternoon as sources started spilling and spinning the latest details on a scandal that has plagued the Senate for more than two years.
Cowan confirmed to reporters Thursday that his name would appear in the report because the auditor general took issue with travel claims totalling just over $10,000.
“I have a respectful disagreement with the auditor general over some travel expenses that I incurred in 2011,” Cowan said.
“Those claims relate to trips that I undertook as part of my duties as a senator.” Cowan said he submitted the claims to the Senate administration in 2011 along with invoices and boarding passes.
“The claims were paid. No further information was requested and now, four years later, the auditor general suggests that I should have, or should have retained, more information, which I simply do not have. I was not required to and I don’t have that information,” he said.
“On the basis of that, his conclusion is that they were private, rather than parliamentary. I respectfully disagree and I’m going to have this determined under the arbitration process that we have set in place,” Cowan said.
Carignan confirmed through his spokeswoman, Jacqui Delaney, that Ferguson had taken issue with travel by one of his staffers, who reim- bursed the Senate about $3,000 when the problem was flagged.
A Senate source said Housakos would be named for a $6,000 contract he awarded to someone instead of hiring a full-time policy adviser, which he will be taking to Binnie, as well as another $1,500 in travel by a staffer, which has been repaid.
The Senate standing committee on internal economy, budgets and administration has agreed to hand over its authority to Binnie; whatever he decides will be final and binding.
That process is also being made available to senators whose cases are being referred to the RCMP.
Thursday’s news comes days after Housakos sat down with the Star for an interview to reflect on the audit process and had a word of caution for Ferguson when it comes to sending cases to the RCMP.
“I hope the auditor general has been very rigorous in their work and that before they make any recommendation to refer any individual senator, current or past, to the RCMP, that they are 1,000 per cent certain that there was wrongdoing,” Housakos said.
“Because it would be grossly unfair to destroy the reputation of individuals and families unless there was complete certainty — and, of course, we know that in this world there is nothing that is completely certain,” he said.
The Conservative senator from Quebec also shared his belief that many of the cases flagged by the auditor general would be errors made in good faith and that it would be wrong to rush to judgment.
“There is this spin by the media that somehow if a senator is named and there are elements of their expenses that were inadmissible, that somehow it’s some terrible shame,” said Housakos, who also said he expected the report to say a number of senators had already started paying money back.
“I can live, as Speaker, with those cases of inadmissible expenses,” Housakos said.