Secretive Commons board says former Bloc leader misused House resources

OTTAWA – A secretive Commons committee says former Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe was wrong to use House resources to pay the salary of a partisan executive.

The Commons Board of Internal Economy says Duceppe should not have used tax money provided to him for parliamentary functions to pay the executive.

But the board also says it’s not possible to take disciplinary action against Duceppe because the bylaws weren’t clear enough at the time the money was spent.

Those bylaws have since been revised.

Duceppe told the board in February that he did nothing wrong, and that the salary was paid within the context of House of Commons regulations.

The former leader stepped down after he lost his own Commons seat and the Bloc was almost wiped out in last year’s federal election.