Senate responsible for own expenses, PM says
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has broken his silence over an audit calling into question the expense claims of 21 senators.
As he visited Kyiv, Ukraine, on Saturday, Harper tried to distance himself from the revelations, saying the Senate “is responsible for its own expenses” and implying the upper house would be dealing with the problem itself.
“Obviously, we find any abuse of taxpayer dollars by parliamentarians in either chamber to be unacceptable. On this matter, though, as you know, the Senate is an independent body,” he told reporters, before heading to Germany for the G7 summit.
Harper implies he won’t step in to address the spending scandal embroiling the upper house
In a statement emailed to the Star, NDP Leader Tom Mulcair attacked Harper’s comments and said the prime minister “has no one to blame but himself.”
“(Harper’s) senior officials are implicated in an unprecedented Senate scandal, but he now claims he bears no responsibility for what goes on in his own office,” Mulcair said.
His comments come days before the audit — reportedly targeting the upper chamber’s lack of oversight and accountability — will become public.
The Star has confirmed the audit will identify $976,627 worth of allegedly inappropriate expenses, more than half of which are linked to just five senators.
To reach that conclusion, auditor general Michael Ferguson undertook line-by-line reviews of 80,000 transactions worth about $180 million involving 117 senators from April 1, 2011, to March 31, 2013.
Overall, his report will call into question the expenses of 21 senators appointed by Harper and predecessors Paul Martin, Jean Chrétien, Brian Mulroney and Joe Clark.
Another nine senators’ expense claims were handed to the RCMP on Friday by the Senate. Seven of those whose filings were referred to the police are retired.
Included in the nine are Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu, who quit the Conservative caucus on Thurs- day, and retired Liberal senator Rod Zimmer, whose disputed expense claims are valued at $176,014, a total including travel f or allegedly non-Senate business and a housing allowance he wasn’t entitled to.
Those deemed to be serious cases of abuse will see action, said Harper, while any less critical ones will be dealt with through arbitration. With files from The Canadian Press, Bruce Campion-Smith and Joanna Smith