Duffy, a former broadcast journalist, was expected to attend a rare public sitting of the Senate Committee on Internal Economy on Tuesday but was a no-show at the evening meeting on Parliament Hill.
The committee heard evidence from Senate finance officials about Senate expenses claimed by Duffy for days that appeared to correspond with his appearance at Conservative Party campaign events in the 2011 election.
Duffy’s expense claims have been under the microscope since last December, when the Citizen reported that the long-time Ottawa resident had been collecting living expenses while in the National Capital Region and claiming his primary residence is in Prince Edward Island.
Around the time the committee meeting was wrapping up, Duffy was at the home adjacent to a Kanata golf course he and his wife Heather have owned since 2003.
When approached by a Citizen reporter, Senator Duffy would not comment on the investigation and threatened instead to alert police to an intruder on his property.
When pushed about the RCMP investigation, Duffy held a portable phone up to the glass in his door, and waved it at the reporter, saying "you've been warned."
Moments later, as the reporter was leaving the property, a woman approached from down the street with a black dog, took a photo of the reporter and said "tell all your little friends this is private property."
"We own the road, we own the driveway, we own the sidewalk."
She again threatened to call police, while walking up the path to her door.
Earlier in the evening the committee heard from Senate finance officials that Duffy claimed per diems in Ottawa on 49 days between April 2011 and March 2012 on days when records suggest he wasn’t in Ottawa. He was paid for 25 of those 49 claims, officials said.
The report says that Deloitte’s findings in relation to per diems Duffy claimed in January 2012 while in Florida were “not an isolated incident” and part of a pattern with Duffy’s expenses claims that raises concern.
Conservative Sen. Larry Smith then proposed a motion that the Senate request that “proper authorities,” meaning the RCMP, examine matters dealt with in the Duffy report.
The motion was later amended, at the urging of Liberal senators, who last week were first to suggest the matter be looked into by the RCMP, to include that the Mounties look into the matter of Duffy’s repayment of $90,000 in improper living expenses.
It passed unanimously.
Although invited to observe, Duffy was not present.
Earlier in the day, the House of Commons took on the air of a courtroom as opposition leaders Tom Mulcair and Justin Trudeau interrogated Prime Minister Stephen Harper over the $90,000 cheque his former chief of staff, Nigel Wright, gave Duffy to help him to repay taxpayers for ineligible housing expenses Mulcair played the role of prosecutor, staring straight across the aisle at Harper and leaning in for effect. Skipping the usual preambles that accompany questions in Parliament, the NDP leader asked the prime minister pointedly when he had learned about the payment, who else knew about it and what happened in the days before the resignation of Wright, the senior Harper aide who wrote the cheque to Duffy.
“The facts here are simple and they are clear,” Harper answered. Wright, decided “on his own, using his own resources” to help Duffy, and Harper said he did not learn of the payment until May 15 after media reports.
“If the leader of the NDP is suggesting that I had any information to the contrary from Mr. Wright prior to this, that is completely false.”
It was the first time the prime minister had appeared in the House of Commons to take questions since reports, confirmed by the PMO, that Wright gave Duffy the $90,000. Harper’s appearance came the same day the Senate moved to clean up its expense-claims rules, in the wake of the Duffy affair and questions about the spending of other senators.
Tuesday afternoon, the Senate voted overwhelmingly to tighten spending rules and effectively kill the “honour system” by which senators have made expense claims, often without formal receipts. The final vote was 80 to zero, with two abstentions — independent senators Mac Harb and Anne Cools — and with Duffy himself voting in favour of the changes.
Two Tory senators were accused of removing harsh language about Duffy from the audit report; the opposition has claimed there was a deal between Duffy and Wright. Sen David Tkachuck, who heads the Senate committee and signed off on the rewrite, has said he spoke with Wright and other PMO officials while the initial audit of Duffy was underway.
“There was nothing else that happened. There was no whitewash,” Tkachuk told the Senate, under repeated questioning from opposition Liberals Tuesday. The committee he chairs, which usually meets in private, agreed Tuesday morning to hold its meetings on Duffy in public.
The committee also has yet to deal with the outstanding issue of an audit of Sen. Pamela Wallin’s travel expenses. The auditors have asked for more time to conduct a wider review of her spending, which has topped $300,000 over the past three years. Auditors are reviewing Wallin’s travel spending back to the date of her appointment in 2009, said Liberal Senate leader Sen. James Cowan said.
The internal economy committee has been told her audit will be submitted by the end of June, but committee members want those findings as soon as possible.
In the Commons, meanwhile, Harper twice declined to answer a Mulcair question about whether the Duffy affair had been discussed in cabinet. Harper also declined to say how many times he and Wright spoke in the days preceding Wright’s resignation.
“We’re asking very simple, straightforward questions and the prime minister’s not answering them,” Mulcair said. “Mike Duffy wrote in an email that after being paid $90,000, he ‘stayed silent on the orders of the Prime Minister’s Office.’ Who told Mike Duffy to remain silent?”
Harper denied knowledge of such an email. “These are not matters that I am privy to. This is an email from Mike Duffy, who is no longer a member of our caucus and certainly never conveyed that information to me.”
Trudeau demanded all records pertaining to the Duffy affair be tabled and that the people involved, including the prime minister, testify under oath in a public forum.
“The facts here are very straightforward,” Harper responded. “This is a matter between Mr. Wright and Mr. Duffy. It is the subject of an examination by the ethics commissioners in both houses of Parliament.”
Harper said his government will produce any information requested by the ethics commissioners investigating the matter.
On the defensive a week ago over the Duffy affair, the ruling Conservatives have been hitting back at the opposition over the perceived failings of its members. For instance, the prime minister attacked Trudeau about comments the Liberal leader made on the weekend. Trudeau was quoted in La Presse newspaper as saying the makeup of the upper chamber, with 24 Quebec senators, was “an advantage for Quebec,” that “benefits us.”
“What I think Canadians are completely bewildered about is why the leader of the Liberal Party thinks now is an appropriate time to try to pit one region against another region over the question of Senate reform,” Harper said.
Original Article
Source:
Author: Michael Woods & Teresa Smith
No comments:
Post a Comment