But a more thorough look at the transaction turns up a virtual minefield of potential charges and Mr. Walsh points to areas the RCMP may have not yet considered.
Mr. Walsh, in a response to emailed questions from the CBC in July shortly after an RCMP investigator filed a court affidavit in the case, said he thought it would be difficult to prove Mr. Wright received a “benefit” in return for cutting a cheque to Sen. Duffy in the amount of $90,172.24, the exact amount a forensic examination of his expenses found Sen. Duffy wrongly claimed from the time of his appointment in 2009.
In his July email that Mr. Walsh says the CBC revisited after the summer vacation period, he essentially argues there was no benefit Sen. Duffy could have provided Mr. Wright, at least not a benefit as defined under a Criminal Code section cited by the RCMP.
But in an interview with The Hill Times on Monday, the former House of Commons law clerk agreed other aspects of Sen. Duffy’s case, regarding Senate expense claims during the 2011 federal election as he stumped for at least 12 Conservative candidates around the country, could involve possible breaches of the Canada Elections Act and, on top of the suspected breach of trust and fraud offences in the RCMP affidavit, Mr. Walsh said Mr. Wright’s cheque could also fall under a section of the Parliament of Canada Act that no one—not even the RCMP—has so far mentioned in the controversy.
“If you want to widen your perspective, have a look at Sec. 16.1 of the Parliament of Canada Act,” Mr. Walsh told The Hill Times.
The section of the act Mr. Walsh was referring to forbids any Senator from receiving or agreeing to receive “any compensation, directly or indirectly, for services rendered or to be rendered to any person, either by the member or another person … in relation to any bill, proceeding, contract, claim, controversy, charge, accusation, arrest or other matter before the Senate or the House of Commons or a committee of either House….”
Any Senator found guilty of an offence under the section is liable to a minimum fine of $1,000 and a maximum fine of $4,000.
Subsection (3) of the section states anyone who “gives, offers, or promises to any member of the Senate any compensation” in return for the services relating to anything contained in the list—controversy, charge, accusation, etc.—is liable to a minimum prison term of one year and to a minimum fine of $500 and a maximum fine of $2,000.
Mr. Wright, in that scenario, would face a much stiffer penalty than Sen. Duffy.
Mr. Wright belatedly resigned on May 19, five days after Prime Minister Stephen Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) announced Mr. Wright had given Sen. Duffy the money, in the form of the cheque, and apparently told Mr. Harper he did it so taxpayers would not have to foot the bill to pay for Sen. Duffy’s allegedly ill-gotten expense payments.
But it also was later revealed, in the RCMP affidavit, that Conservative Sen. Irving Gerstein, who controls the Conservative Party treasury in the name of the Conservative Fund Canada, was willing to hand over $32,000 but, in the words of RCMP Cpl. Greg Horton’s affidavit: “When it was realized that the cost was actually $90,000, it was too much money to ask the Conservative Party to cover.”
The Conservative Party reported $28.3-million in revenues for 2012 from financial donations, a federal vote allowance and memberships.
Cpl. Horton’s affidavit quotation about the expense repayment being too steep for the Conservative Party was based on statements that Mr. Wright’s lawyers, Patrick McCann and Peter Mantas, made to RCMP Supt. Biage Carrese, whose first name is not on the affidavit, and RCMP Staff Sgt. Jean-François Arbour, another member of the newly-created RCMP Sensitive and International Investigations Branch.
Cpl. Horton’s affidavit states the new Mountie unit is “responsible for investigating matters of significant risk to Canada’s political, economic and social integrity.”
Cpl. Horton’s 28-page affidavit contains three pages of references to Senate expenses that Sen. Duffy claimed while he was campaigning in the federal election for 11 Conservative candidates, including two candidates that Mr. Harper, for separate reasons, desperately wanted to get elected.
In most of the cases, outlined in Cpl. Horton’s affidavits, Sen. Duffy claimed Senate per diems for meals, even though the Canada Elections Act requires party candidates to pay for all travel costs that any Senator incurs while campaigning for the candidates.
In one case, the affidavit says Sen. Duffy claimed $2,374.22 for travel and per diems that Cpl. Horton said were actually election campaign expenses.
One of the Conservative candidates, Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver (Eglinton-Lawrence, Ont.), defeated Liberal incumbent Joe Volpe in one of the most bitter fights in all 308 electoral districts, with a litany of dirty tricks allegations against the Conservative campaign, including claims of harassing phone calls.
Another candidate, Conservative Sandy Lee in Western Arctic, did not win the election against incumbent NDP MP Dennis Bevington, but went on to become a regional director for Environment Minister Leona Aglukkaq (Nunavut). With Conservative Ryan Leef, a former Mountie, winning in Yukon, Ms. Lee’s victory would have given Mr. Harper a sweep in the three Arctic territories.
Mr. Walsh acknowledged that collaboration between the Conservative Party and Sen. Duffy could have been at least one of the reasons why Sen. Duffy was able to put the Conservative Party in the situation that it, or Mr. Wright, who had control over Conservative Party spending on Mr. Harper’s partisan travel and expenses as Prime Minister, agreed to pay off Sen. Duffy’s entire expense bill—down to the penny.
“If Duffy got them to pay up so he would not disclose this information, that in itself is not an offence, what you’re describing in terms of charging these expenses, no question that violates the Elections Act and once it becomes known, he may have a problem, but the fact that he didn’t go report it to Elections Canada, confess his sins, provide incriminating testimony as it were, he’s not obliged to do that,” Mr. Walsh said.
“The fact that he managed to put them in over their heads, said, ‘Pay up boys or I’m going to sing,’ that’s politics,” Mr. Walsh said.
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: TIM NAUMETZ
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