Former candidate Sandy Lee, one of at least 12 Conservative candidates for whom Sen. Duffy campaigned during the election campaign, got her job as director of Ms. Aglukkaq’s (Nunavut) regional office for the Northwest Territories in July 2011, after a determined Conservative attempt to defeat NDP incumbent Dennis Bevington and sweep the three Arctic ridings failed.
One of Ms. Lee’s campaign workers, Carla Hanvold-Walker, who received a $6,000 personal payment from Ms. Lee during the campaign that later had to be returned to keep Ms. Lee’s expenses within their Elections Canada limit, is also working in Ms. Aglukkaq’s Yellowknife regional office as a special assistant.
Sen. Duffy’s invoices to Ms. Lee’s campaign for a day of campaigning in early April 2011, stand out among the bills he submitted to the Conservative candidates, as the invoice he submitted to Ms. Lee totalled only $209 even though he travelled for three days, including a two-night stop in Toronto at the same hotel where Mr. Harper was staying at that time in the campaign, to fly from Ottawa through Toronto to the N.W.T. capital of Yellowknife.
An independent forensic examination of Sen. Duffy’s Senate expense claims through the election and up to September 2012, part of a wider Deloitte accounting firm examination of expense claims by four Senators, indicated that Sen. Duffy may have been claiming Senate expenses on the Yellowknife trip as well as while he was campaigning for at least six Conservative candidates in Nova Scotia and New Brunswick later in April.
But, even though the Canada Elections Act stipulates any Senators or MPs who campaign for election candidates must invoice the candidates for their travel expenses, Sen. Duffy’s invoice to Ms. Lee stated he was charging his hotel and travel expenses, well over $2,000 for the airline flights alone, to the Conservative Party of Canada.
Ms. Lee finished her election campaign only $759 under her Elections Canada expense limit of $87,785, which would have left no room for an expense as high as Sen. Duffy’s airline flights.
Sen. Duffy invoiced Ms. Lee on May 1, 2011, the day before the federal election.
Her salary directing Ms. Aglukkaq’s regional office was reported to be up to $123,000 a year.
Ms. Lee, a former N.W.T. minister of health, paid Sen. Duffy, through her campaign expenses, only for two airport taxi rides in Toronto and a $54 Park and Fly charge at Ottawa’s Macdonald Cartier International Airport. At the time, Sen. Duffy was claiming the house he owns in Ottawa as his temporary residence and his cottage in Prince Edward Island as his principal residence, qualifying for Senate expenses to help with mortgage and per diems while in Ottawa.
The claims came under scrutiny, eventually leading to the scandal involving all four Senators, and an even wider controversy when Mr. Harper confirmed last May 15 that his chief of staff, who resigned over the affair, had given Sen. Duffy a personal cheque for $90,172.24 last March, ensuring Sen. Duffy would pay back his impugned expenses before the Deloitte report was released.
Prime Minister Harper has since condemned Sen. Duffy, though not until after his now former chief of staff Nigel Wright disclosed his payment to Sen. Duffy, although a news report last weekend said Mr. Harper had spoken to Sen. Duffy about his expenses last February.
During the 2011 campaign and earlier, however, Sen. Duffy was extremely close to Mr. Harper, demonstrated by his trip to campaign for Ms. Lee and the other candidates, including for Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (Eglinton Lawrence, Ont.), who won election for the first time in 2011 and was named by Mr. Harper to handle the most important economic agenda for the government—promotion of pipeline projects to the U.S. and the West Coast for significant and controversial expansion of oil sands extraction and shipment from northern Alberta.
Mr. Bevington told The Hill Times that Mr. Harper was determined to defeat him in the campaign as the Conservatives strove to win Yukon and the Western Arctic ridings and push aside the remaining opposition party representation in the North. Ms. Aglukkaq first won her Nunavut riding in 2008, while Conservative MP Ryan Leef (Yukon) narrowly defeated former Yukon Liberal MP Larry Bagnell 2011.
“In the last elections, 2008 and 2011, I believe the Conservatives really wanted to win my riding, there is no question about it,” Mr. Bevington told The Hill Times.
“They have many interests in the riding that they didn’t really want an opposition member being able to stand up to them [on] resource development, direction for the territories, First Nations issues, all those are significant issues that the Conservative government is making choices on that make a difference,” Mr. Bevington said, noting the government has since had to scale back its Arctic ambitions, primarily involving sovereignty and coastal infrastructure, because of costs.
“I think it’s a pretty clear that the Conservative government recognizes that whereas Arctic security is a great political issue, it makes very little common sense when it comes to Arctic policy,” Mr. Bevington said.
“Arctic policy should right now be dealing with making international agreements; that’s what the countries of the world are leaning towards, is international agreements on shipping, fishing, on the safe development of resources, on the clear delineation of boundaries, those are all international issues that are going to be solved by international cooperation and treaties,” said Mr. Bevington said.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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