Wallin’s travel expenses have been under examination by outside auditors since January and she opted to quit the Tory caucus until the probe is complete.
It comes hard on the heels of Thursday’s announcement by Senator Mike Duffy that he, too, was quitting the Conservative caucus after questions about his expense claims and a $90,000 payment from Harper’s chief of staff.
Faced with a growing ethical crisis, an angry Harper will hold an emergency caucus meeting Tuesday before jetting off on a trade mission to South America to read MPs and senators the riot act and make clear his displeasure with the spending scandals, the Star has learned.
In that meeting, Harper is expected to make clear there will be zero tolerance for spending transgressions and that any Tory who runs afoul of the rules will be tossed from the party to sit as an independent.
News of the caucus meeting came just as Wallin was making her surprise announcement Friday afternoon.
“I have been involved in the external audit process since December 2012 and I have been co-operating fully and willingly with the auditors. I have met with the auditors, answered all the questions and provided all requested documentation,” Wallin said in a statement.
“I had anticipated that the audit process would be complete by now, but given that it continues, I have decided to recuse myself from the Conservative caucus and I will have no further comment until the audit process is complete.”
Senator Marjory LeBreton, the Government House leader in the Senate, confirmed the move in a terse statement.
“Sen. Wallin has informed me that she has resigned from caucus to sit as an independent,” LeBreton said.
Harper had personally vouched for Wallin’s expenses in February, saying that they appeared in line with other politicians.
Over a two-year period ending last November, Wallin claimed only $29,423 for expenses to travel between Ottawa and Saskatchewan, the province she represents in the Senate. In one quarter, she claimed no expenses for Saskatchewan trips and in another she claimed just $90.
However, Wallin is one of the big spenders for travel to other parts of Canada and around the globe, claiming $321,027.
Earlier Friday, the NDP urged Elections Canada to dig into Duffy’s expense records from the last election after reports that the former broadcaster may have been claiming taxpayer-funded Senate expenses while campaigning for Conservative candidates during the 2011 election.
“Today, I wrote to the commissioner of Elections Canada asking for them to investigate possible Elections Act violations and get to the bottom of this troubling affair,” NDP Democratic Reform critic Craig Scott said Friday.
Amid mounting accusations that Harper’s office and senior Conservatives tried to whitewash Duffy’s inappropriate expenses, the Tories in the Senate turned on their colleague. Duffy resigned from the Conservative caucus to sit as an independent Thursday before a reported move by Conservatives to oust him fully took shape.
Senate Conservatives, who are said to have worked behind the scenes only last week to go easy on Duffy in a report on his expenses, announced Friday that they would reopen an investigation into his expense claims in wake of the new reports.
“Senators will be asking that the report concerning Sen. Duffy be referred back to committee for further examination taking into account this new information,” said a Conservative official in the Senate.
This was an about-face for the Conservatives, who used their Senate majority on May 9 to squash criticism of Duffy — a high-profile Tory fundraiser — in a report on his living allowance claims by the Senate internal economy committee, the Star has learned.
The Tory majority on the committee forced a change in the final report on Duffy’s housing claims to delete a section stating that he should have known better than to claim out-of-town living expenses for Ottawa when his primary residence was in the capital, according to Liberal Senate Leader James Cowan and other Liberal insiders.
Earlier, as the committee probed questionable spending, Duffy repaid $90,172 in improper expenses and stopped cooperating with auditors, hobbling their review.
This week, the Prime Minister’s Office was forced to reveal Nigel Wright, Harper’s chief of staff, secretly gave Duffy the $90,172 for his repayment, leading to accusations of a cover-up of Duffy’s activities run out of Harper’s office.
And the uproar continues to grow.
Federal ethics watchdog Mary Dawson is reviewing Wright’s actions to see if an investigation is warranted under conflict-of-interest regulations. In addition to a call for Elections Canada to launch a probe, the RCMP is being urged to look into the Senate expense claim reports. The NDP has called for a commission of inquiry and also asked Senate ethics officer Lyse Ricard to review Wright’s payment to Duffy.
Duffy said Thursday he would sit as an independent senator because controversy over his expenses had become “a significant distraction.” But there was little indication Friday that Duffy’s resignation from the Conservative caucus would quell the controversy or the questions, including:
What did Harper know and when? Harper’s office says the prime minister was in the dark about the specifics of how Duffy paid off the expense bill, something opposition MPs have denounced as implausible.
Did Duffy double-dip during the 2011 election, claiming Senate expenses while on the road campaigning for Conservative candidates?
How did Duffy repay $90,000 in improperly claimed expenses? The Prime Minister’s Office said Wright wrote a personal cheque to cover Duffy’s obligation. Duffy told CTV he got a loan from the Royal Bank of Canada. If he did get a loan, where did Wright’s $90,000 go?
“It was clear the Senator didn’t have the means to pay the amount back,” Harper spokesperson Andrew MacDougall said Friday. “I have no knowledge of any loan. I can only speak to what Mr. Wright did.”
Indeed, Harper’s office says it was surprised by news of both the loan and Duffy’s apparent double-dipping.
“Some of the questions that were raised were a surprise to us and Senator Duffy will answer those questions. He will do those as an independent Senator,” MacDougall said.
Harper has yet to speak publicly on the controversy that has engulfed his office this week.
But the Prime Minister’s Office is cooperating with the review of the payment now underway by Dawson, the ethics commissioner.
While questions swirl about the fate of Wright, Harper is standing behind his chief of staff, MacDougall said.
“The prime minister has full confidence in Mr. Wright and Mr. Wright is staying on,” he said.
Still, with Wright at the centre of the storm, it’s a question mark how long the former Bay St. financier, who joined Harper’s office in 2010, can remain.
“This could have been a Senate scandal. It’s no longer a Senate scandal. It’s a PMO scandal,” said one source on Parliament Hill. “Wright’s actions were unbelievable. In this act, he linked it to the worst scandal they’ve faced yet.”
Duffy had little choice but resign from caucus as pressure from within Conservative ranks was making it increasingly difficult for him to stay.
“I think there was a huge degree of frustration. I think people have respected the work he has done for the party but he was becoming bigger than the party because of this current imbroglio that encircles him,” said Conservative strategist Tim Powers.
And Powers said that frustration would have started with Harper himself.
“The prime minister, more than anyone else, is entirely conscious and aware of how these sorts of things can be extremely detrimental to the brand of a party,” he said.
“I think Mike made the right choice and I think it was the only choice.”
Original Article
Source: thestar.com
Author: Les Whittington and Bruce Campion-Smith
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