The upper chamber’s very, very bad year
OTTAWA— Spending scandals, harassment allegations and questionable living arrangements — Canada’s senators have been in the headlines for all the wrong reasons.
Toronto Sen. Don Meredith was the latest to face questions, forced to leave the Conservative caucus after the Star revealed allegations he had a sexual relationship with a teenager during the past two years. That case has been referred to the Senate ethics officer.
Meredith is also facing a separate ethics investigation, triggered by claims of employees who participated in a review of the senator’s office work.
It’s been a year of bad news for the Senate, underscored by the June report from auditor general Michael Ferguson that laid bare a culture of lax accountability in how many senators spend taxpayer cash. His office reviewed the expenses of 116 sitting and retired senators from April 2011 to March 2013 and found problems with 30 senators, serious enough to be referred to the RCMP for followup. The findings included senators jetting off to wedding anniversaries, funerals, golf and fishing trips.
The fraud and bribery trial of Mike Duffy, appointed to the Senate by Prime Minister Stephen Harper, resumes Aug. 12. Nigel Wright, Harper’s former chief of staff, will begin testimony that day about his $90,000 payout to Duffy to cover the senator’s questionable expense claims.
Duffy, along with fellow senators Pamela Wallin and Patrick Brazeau, were suspended from the upper chamber in November, 2013 over questionable expense claims.
In documents filed with the court earlier this year, RCMP investigators alleged that Wallin committed fraud and breach of trust by billing the Senate for travel expenses related to her work on corporate boards. The allegations have not been proven in court and Wallin has not been charged.