While Duffy has offered to repay the cash he says he “mistakenly” collected for his Ottawa home, neither Duffy nor the Senate are saying how much this is.
The Senate cited its website that publishes quarterly reports on living and travel expenses since September 2010 — almost two years after Duffy joined the Senate — and said that was the only information available.
NDP MP Charlie Angus accused the Senate of a coverup and said it was time the upper chamber got into the “21st century.”
“They can’t keep doing rearguard actions to defend their buddies in the Senate. We need to know how much money did this man claim, when did he start claiming and are we going to get the full amount back,” Angus told the Star.
“Those are straightforward questions,” he said. “They seem shocked that they have to be accountable at all.”
Senators whose principal residences are more than 100 kilometres away from the National Capital Region are allowed to collect living expenses — up to $22,000 a year — to cover the cost of living in Ottawa.
For the period expenses are publicly available, Duffy collected $42,802 in living costs. But Duffy was named to the Senate in December 2008, meaning he may have collected a further $40,333 in the almost two years before the Senate started publishing expense records.
After weeks of fighting off criticism, Duffy reversed course Friday and said he may have made a mistake in declaring his primary residence to be a seasonal cottage on Prince Edward Island, rather than his home in suburban Ottawa.
He blamed confusing paperwork for the mix-up and said he would repay the living expenses he collected for his Ottawa home though he didn’t know just how much that would be.
His sudden change of heart — along with news that Saskatchewan Senator Pamela Wallin holds an Ontario health card — had the Conservative government on the defensive Monday.
“How does one accidentally claim $100,000 in living expenses? He says the form was too complicated,” NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair said. “She told the federal government that she lived in one province but told the provincial government that she lived in another.
“This would be unacceptable for any other Canadian. Why does the Prime Minister seem to think it is acceptable for his Conservative senators.”
On Monday night, CTV News reported that Wallin, facing an audit of her travel expenses, had secretly repaid some of the cash.
For weeks, rumours have been swirling that the senator, who rang up $350,000 in travel expenses over a two-year period, had repaid some of those costs. One source told the Star on Monday that it was a “substantial” sum. This, even though Prime Minister Stephen Harper personally vouched for her expense claims when confronted by opposition MPs about her high-flying bills.
The government continues to defend the most prominent Conservative appointees caught up in the controversy — Wallin and Duffy, as well as another member of the red chamber: Senator David Patterson from Nunavut — even though the Senate has yet to hear the outcome of investigations into at least four senators’ spending habits.
“Senators Patterson, Wallin and Duffy all own property in the provinces and territory they represent,” Government House Leader Peter Van Loan said in the Commons. “All Conservative senators are qualified to represent the provinces and territories they represent.”
All senators have been asked to provide proof of their residency such as health cards, driver’s licences and voting records to back their living expense claims.
And after reviewing the documentation, senators whose claims are still in doubt have been summoned for interviews before the Senate’s internal economy committee to clarify their status.
Liberal Senate Leader James Cowan did not know how many senators are being interviewed but believes it is a small number.
He also assumed it did not include the four senators whose expense claims have been referred to external auditors, in order to avoid a duplication of effort. Those senators are Wallin, Duffy, Independent Senator Patrick Brazeau and Liberal Mac Harb.
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Bruce Campion-Smith Joanna Smith and Les Whittington
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