OTTAWA—A scathing review of Senate spending nearly included more names—including one senator who refused to co-operate with auditors until realizing at the last minute he would otherwise face the glare of public scrutiny.
In an interview Wednesday, June 10, auditor general Michael Ferguson said with the audit nearly complete, the senator in question finally relinquished and provided access to documents auditors had been seeking for months.
The explanation? “Ego got in the way,” he said.
Ferguson would not identify the senator. But he said the intransigence spoke volumes about the sort of attitudes he and his auditors encountered over the two years it took for them to complete their report.
“That illustrates that again how deeply rooted—at least for some senators—[was] the feeling that they didn’t have to be answerable for their expenses.”
Ferguson reported on 30 senators with problematic claims, nine of whom have had their files referred to the RCMP for a criminal review, including two still sitting: Conservative-turned-Independent Sen. Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu and Liberal appointee Sen. Colin Kenny.
Of 21 others, four paid back the disputed expenses, insisting they'd done nothing wrong. The other 17 will make use of an arbitration process set up by the Senate and headed up by former Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie.
