One of the Conservative government’s top law-and-order spokesmen – Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu – is among the nine current and retired senators whose cases will be referred to the RCMP in response to the Auditor-General’s upcoming report.Mr. Boisvenu is a strong advocate of victims’ rights and is well known for his tough-on-crime approach. In 2012, he said he did not wish to reopen the debate on the death penalty, but added he didn’t mind if murderers end up killing themselves.
“Each assassin should have the right to a rope in his cell to make a decision about his or her life,” he said, before dialling back his comments that had sparked an outrage.
In a statement late on Thursday, he acknowledged that his file would now be analyzed by the RCMP, and that he was quitting the Conservative caucus as a result.
The other sitting senator whose case is being referred to the RCMP is Colin Kenny, who was appointed as a Liberal and has been one of the party’s strongest voices on issues of security and defence. Over the years, Mr. Kenny showed a keen interest in the operations of the national police force and frequently criticized the RCMP’s operations.
The audit is scheduled to be made public on Tuesday, but some of the findings started to leak Thursday as the Auditor-General sent his report to key Senate and government officials.
The Auditor-General has called for reimbursements from Conservative Speaker Leo Housakos, Conservative Leader in the Senate Claude Carignan and Opposition Leader James Cowan. The three are among the 21 senators who will be asked to reimburse money to taxpayers, if they have not already done so.
The revelation is raising new questions over the Senate’s ability to clean up its internal mess, as the senators who will address the controversy are themselves facing negative findings in the audit.
Still, the three top senators are not among the nine whose cases are expected to be referred to the RCMP.
In addition to Mr. Boisvenu and Mr. Kenny, seven retired senators will see their cases refered to the RCMP: former Conservative senators Don Oliver and Gerry St. Germain, as well as Liberal appointed senators Rod Zimmer, Rose-Marie Losier-Cool, Marie-Paule Charette-Poulin, Sharon Carstairs and Bill Rompkey.
Mr. Housakos, Mr. Carignan and Mr. Cowan were all involved in setting up an independent arbitration process – overseen by former Supreme Court judge Ian Binnie – by which senators will be able to challenge the findings of the Auditor-General.
Mr. Carignan’s problems stem from an employee’s travel expenses, totalling $3,000, which have been reimbursed and will not be disputed.
The case of Mr. Housakos involves a discrepancy between contracts and invoices related to media monitoring, with Mr. Housakos expected to go to arbitration on the $6,000 dispute.
“I think the auditor is being, in my particular case, nitpicky,” Mr. Housakos told The Canadian Press, arguing that his contracting arrangements actually saved the Senate money. “I’ve done nothing but be transparent. These were two errors discovered by the Auditor-General that had no malintent.”
Mr. Cowan told reporters he has a “respectful disagreement” with the Auditor-General over $10,000 in travel claims. He said the 2011 trips were related to his Senate duties, and that he will bring the matter to “the arbitration process that we have set in place.”
Overall, the value of the controversial expenses flagged by the Auditor-General comes in at less than $1-million, with the worst case amounting to about $130,000, a Senate official said.
The Senate spending scandal has already engulfed one retired and three suspended senators, including former TV journalist Mike Duffy, who is currently on trial on 31 charges in Ottawa.
Former broadcaster Pamela Wallin is still under RCMP investigation, while suspended senator Patrick Brazeau and retired senator Mac Harb are awaiting their respective trials on fraud charges.
There are officials in the Senate, however, stating that anyone with a negative finding in the audit should not be involved in the chamber’s attempts to redress its reputation.
In particular, there are concerns about the arbitration process created by Mr. Carignan, Mr. Housakos and Mr. Cowan.
“They created a process of which they can now avail themselves,” a Senate official said.
“They rigged it.”
Before its public release, the Auditor-General’s report is being shared “within a very tight group of people,” as Conservative and opposition senators prepare for the tabling of the explosive document.
“The goal is to showcase a common front when the report is released,” a Senate source said.
The arbitration process will not affect the referral of alleged cases of financial wrongdoing to the RCMP, but will apply to current and recently retired senators who want to challenge the Senate’s attempts to get its money back.
Senate officials decided to create the arbitration system to settle the legal questions that will come from the line-by-line audit, including whether the senators were fulfilling parliamentary duties when they incurred controversial expenses.
Allowing for arbitration is a departure for the Senate: When four senators were suspended without pay in 2013 for their controversial expense claims, they did not have access to an independent review process.
Original Article
Source: theglobeandmail.com/
Author: Daniel Leblanc
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