Conservative MP defends campaign expense claims

Conservative MP Eve Adams continued to defend herself Tuesday against allegations that she claimed personal expenses over and above the allowable amount during the 2011 federal election campaign.

According to a financial report posted to the Elections Canada website, Adams’ campaign claimed $2,777.48 in personal expenses for the election period.

Elections Canada allows candidates to claim a maximum of $200 in “other” personal expenses, separate from items such as travel, living expenses, and child care expenses.

Rob Ford Must Pay Own Legal Bills After Conflict-Of-Interest Case

TORONTO - Mayor Rob Ford will have to foot his own legal bills for his hard-won fight to keep his job in light of a citizen's application to have him removed for conflict of interest, an Ontario court ruled Tuesday.

In its brief decision, a Divisional Court panel decided against awarding costs because the case raised novel issues of law and Ford's narrow appeal win was not an outright victory.

Oda's travel expenses cause dissent in Tory caucus

Opposition MPs aren't the only ones making Bev Oda's spending habits a thorn in the government's side – her own colleague, Conservative MP John Williamson, is also raising them as a point of contention within their caucus.

Williamson used to head the Canadian Taxpayers Federation and was also Prime Minister Stephen Harper's director of communications before he stepped down to run for his New Brunswick seat.

He confirmed to CBC News that he brought up the minister of international co-operation's travel and hospitality expenses behind closed doors at a weekly Conservative caucus meeting. Williamson would not elaborate on what he said, citing caucus confidentiality.

Senate Expenses: Members Of Upper Chamber Reject Call For Independent Audit

OTTAWA — Senators are refusing to accept an outside auditor’s call for an independent check of spending after a scathing audit two years ago found inadequate rules had led to the misuse of some expense accounts.

The Senate’s internal economy committee rejected a recommendation by Ernst and Young to implement a “second level approval process” for senators’ expense claims.

In a report tabled in the Senate Thursday, senators said instead of justifying their spending to a bureaucrat or to one another, they would implement regular sample testing of their expense claims.

“We said no, no, we will audit ourselves every year, internally and every couple of years, we’ll have an external audit, (where the auditors) can audit the senators’ offices, so they’ll pick 10, 20 senators,” Senator David Tkachuk, the chair of the Senate’s committee on internal economy, budgets and administration told The Huffington Post Canada.

If a senator goes to Toronto, Tkachuk said, the independent auditors will be able to look at the paper trail and ask the senator what public business he or she was there to conduct.

“What was it? Who did you meet with? And then the auditor has to be satisfied this is a legitimate business trip,” he said.

Clarkson taps taxpayers for secretarial help

OTTAWA—Former governor general Adrienne Clarkson has billed taxpayers more than $500,000 in administration costs since leaving Rideau Hall, government records show.

The payments, revealed in public accounts documents, are for secretarial help.

Clarkson’s office defends the spending, saying that as “Canada’s most active and involved governor general” she is still flooded with mail and requests related to her time as the Queen’s representative in Canada.

But NDP MP Pat Martin called the funding “ridiculous” and said it should stop.

“She was fairly compensated for her services rendered. The Canadian taxpayer shouldn’t be on the hook for her subsequent expenses,” Martin said in an interview.

“I don’t see any justification for a continued obligation after the governor general leaves office, other than a pension.

The City and How to Pay For It

Richard Joy doesn’t care much about what a new Toronto transit system will look like. It can be light rail, underground subways or something completely different. He’s concerned with something, that in his view, is far more important than what type of vehicle should transport Torontonians from one end of the city to another: he wants to know how in the world the city will pay for it.

“The challenge is massive,” says the vice-president of policy and government relations for the Toronto Board of Trade. He says Metrolinx, a provincial agency that looks at ways to improve transportation in the GTA, wants to spend $50 billion over the next 25 years to develop transit, but the province says it will only kick in $10 billion.

“That leaves a $40 billion question,” says Joy. “That’s like building two English Channels or a Three Gorges Dam.”

How the city will account for the rest of the money is anyone’s guess at this point. Part of the problem is that it needs to fund numerous other capital projects, like fixing and building new infrastructure—such as roads and sewers—too. The city has money-raising tools like municipal bonds, property taxes and user fees in its arsenal, but with increasing demand for new infrastructure, not to mention a better TTC, Toronto will have to start looking for new ways to fund their growing list of capital projects.