Senators under spending scrutiny lash out at MPs as AG’s audit looms large

OTTAWA – Senators forced to account for spending on postage stamps and paper clips say MPs should invite the auditor general to scrutinize their expenses too.

The senators are bracing for an avalanche of criticism — much of it from MPs — when the findings of an unprecedented, two-year comprehensive audit of their expenses are tabled next Tuesday.

Auditor general Michael Ferguson was expected to deliver copies of his final report Thursday to the Senate leadership — Speaker Leo Housakos, government leader Claude Carignan and Liberal leader James Cowan.

Ironically, sources familiar with the report’s contents tell The Canadian Press all three Senate leaders are among 21 Ferguson has concluded made ineligible expense claims.

Spending by another nine — two current and seven former senators — has been deemed egregious enough to warrant investigation by the RCMP.

The auditor general’s report caps a two-year nightmare for the unelected upper house. Three senators — Mike Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb — have already been charged with fraud and breach of trust. A fourth, Pamela Wallin, remains under police investigation.

The scandal has discredited the already much-maligned institution and provided fodder for opposition MPs, particularly New Democrats who’ve long championed abolition of the Senate.

But some senators said the Senate should be congratulated for inviting the auditor general for the first time to scrutinize spending by one of the two houses of Parliament. And they said MPs have no right to judge the Senate when they’re not willing to open their own books to the same degree of scrutiny.

“Five auditors general have requested that the Parliament of Canada be audited; they’ve all been refused,” said Liberal Sen. George Baker.

He said MPs spend three times more money than senators. Yet the House of Commons is the only institution supported by federal funds that has never submitted to a full audit by the auditor general.

“You can’t hide. These are taxpayers’ funds that are being spent. The auditor general has got to have free access to everything,” Baker said.

“And that includes the House of Commons over here.”

Larry Campbell, another Liberal senator, noted that New Democrat MPs who like to bash the Senate over expense claims are themselves alleged to have improperly used their Commons budgets to pay the salaries of staff in satellite party offices.

“To the NDP, I say pay back the $3 million that you stole, for starters,” said Campbell.

Oversight of Commons spending is done by the secretive, multi-party board of internal economy, which has ordered NDP MPs to repay $2.7 million for the satellite office scheme and another $1 million in free parliamentary mailing privileges used to send out thousands of partisan missives.

The NDP asserts that the board is a “kangaroo court” and has launched a court challenge to its rulings, saying it wants an impartial, independent assessment of its MPs’ spending.

The auditor general is an impartial and independent officer of Parliament but NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus dodged when asked why his party doesn’t support inviting him to examine all MPs’ expenses. He said the issue at stake is the “unprecedented crisis in terms of legitimacy of the upper house.”

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