OTTAWA — Liberals in the Senate are raising concerns about the propriety of a conversation last month between Conservative Senator Mike Duffy and the chair of the committee leading an investigation of expense claims filed by Duffy and two other senators.Liberal Senate Leader James Cowan said Thursday it was “certainly not appropriate” for Conservative Sen. David Tkachuk, chair of the Senate Standing Committee on Internal Economy, to speak to Duffy about a Deloitte audit of Duffy’s residency claims.
But Tkachuk said he was merely trying to get more information from Duffy, who had already repaid the Senate for past expense claims.
“I sought clarification from Senator Duffy,” Tkachuk said in an email. “I in no way gave him a heads up about the audit prior to his repaying of expenses, given that he had already repaid the expenses when our conversation took place.”
The conservation came to light in an confidential letter Duffy sent to Tkachuk on April 18, in which he explained how he had wrongly claimed $85 per diems for Ottawa while he was actually in Florida.
“Following our informal conversation, Tuesday evening, I went through my files for January 2012,” Duffy wrote. “I discovered that through a clerical error, per diems were inadvertently charged for several days while I was not in the National Capital Region.”
Duffy blamed the per diem claims on an employee.
“My regular staff person was away on maternity leave and a temporary worker processed that claim,” he explained in the April 18th letter.
“This claim was clearly not appropriate, and I will reimburse The Senate without hesitation.”
In a letter sent in reply, Tkachuk made no mention of the conversation and, instead, noted that Duffy hadn’t spoken to Deloitte, the firm brought in to audit expenses claimed by Duffy, Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau and Liberal Mac Harb.
“At the outset of Deloitte’s investigation into your claims, you and your lawyer were asked to provide additional documents and to meet with Deloitte. Despite repeated attempts, it is our understanding that no additional documents were provided to Deloitte nor did you or your lawyer meet with them.”
Tkachuk told Duffy the Deloitte audit was in the report stage and that his committee “is of the opinion your concerns should have been addressed to Deloitte before the preparation of the report.”
The Deloitte report released Thursday found Duffy had claimed twelve days of per diems totaling $1,050 on days he appeared to have been in Florida.
Conservative Senate House Leader Marjory LeBreton called the matter a “delaying ploy” and repeated that Duffy had repaid the money. She said Liberal Senator George Furey, also a member of the internal economy committee, received the same letter.
The temporary staff member blamed by Duffy for the per diems said Thursday said it was standard practice in the Senate to file per diem claims based on the number of Senate sitting days in a month. Diane Scharf, a veteran Parliament Hill staffer who has worked for both Liberal and Conservative senators and MPs, said she didn’t necessarily know how long Duffy was in Florida. She called the Senate rules for expenses “convoluted.”
Scharf couldn’t recall if Duffy signed the expense claim forms before or after she filled in the details.
The Senate released two other reports Thursday that found Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau and Liberal Senator Mac Harb had wrongly claimed expenses. The Deloitte reports noted that the rules concerning residency were not clear.
Senators can claim up to $22,000 for living expenses on days they spend in Ottawa, provided they have a primary residence in their home province.
Last year, the Citizen reported that Duffy, a long-time Ottawa resident, had claimed he lived in Prince Edward Island, while Harb claimed his primary residence was near Pembroke, far enough from the city to qualify for the residency claims while in Ottawa.
Harb has resigned from the Liberal caucus and hired the law firm Heenan Blaikie to challenge the findings of the reports calling on him to pay back expenses paid to him since April 2011.
Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com
Author: GLEN MCGREGOR
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