Beleaguered Senator Mike Duffy faced a no-win situation when he returned to the red chamber in May: either he would again file expense claims for his residence in Ottawa, given that he’s a senator from P.E.I., thus replaying the same scenario that catalyzed the three-year saga over ineligible expenses in the first place, or he wouldn’t resume charging the taxpayer for living in Ottawa, though that decision would likely be perceived as an acknowledgment that he wasn’t entitled to do so in the first place.
Duffy chose the former, emboldened by a decision by Ontario Court Justice Charles Vaillancourt, who acquitted Duffy on 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery relating to his Senate expense claims. Vaillancourt noted in April that the Senate’s administrative rules were “inadequate, poorly communicated (and) criteria-lacking,” and found that Duffy, whom he called a “credible witness,” had filed his expense claims honestly, “rely(ing) on the advice he received regarding his appointment and his primary residence.”
Duffy is now back in the Senate and back to commuting between his claimed primary residence — a non-winterized cottage in P.E.I. — and Ottawa, where he also owns property and has lived for most of his adult life. He has since claimed $627.85 for travel between the two spots, as well as $1,691.59 for living expenses in Ottawa. This year, Duffy is eligible to claim up to $10,636.
To many, the fact that Duffy is unabashedly engaging in the same behaviour that landed him in hot water in the first place, will be seen as his way of giving everyone — including the former Harper government, the Senate colleagues who threw him under the bus and his many other critics — the middle finger. Yet by the Senate’s own, slightly revised new rules, he’s doing absolutely nothing wrong: Duffy supplied the Senate with a copy of his health card, his driver’s licence and his tax return, as required by Senate rules as of 2013, meaning he’s now technically eligible to claim his P.E.I. home as his primary residence — even if there was some ambiguity as to whether he could before.
But the Senate administration has been less forgiving when it comes to about $17,000 worth of Duffy’s other disputed expenses, which included $10,000 for a personal trainer, $300 for a makeup artist and $8 worth of personal photos. In June, the Senate’s Standing Committee on Internal Economy demanded that Duffy pay back the money, citing new information that “surfaced in the public domain.” Duffy’s lawyer, Donald Bayne, refused arbitration on behalf of his client, writing in a letter that Duffy will not repay “expenses that a Canadian court of law has held were ‘appropriate’.” The Senate has thus garnisheed Duffy’s wages until such point as the entire $16,955 worth of what it deems to be ineligible expenses are repaid.
Nevertheless, it is unclear why the Senate would require Duffy to pay back some of his questionable past expense claims, while overlooking the claims he filed for his dubious “secondary” residence in Ottawa, other than the obvious fact that the Senate’s housing allowance problems go well beyond Duffy, and indeed once included retired Liberal senator Mac Harb (who paid back eight years’ worth of expenses) and Sen. Patrick Brazeau, both of whom were brought up on charges relating to allegedly fraudulent residence claims, though the charges were eventually dropped.
Moreover, it is unclear whether the Senate’s new residence eligibility requirements will indeed weed out any fraudulent — or, at the very least, ethically questionable — housing claims, considering they have given the green light to Duffy’s eyebrow-raising conception of what it means to declare a “primary residence.” Indeed, while it may be legal according to the court, and appropriate by the Senate’s definition, to the taxpayers footing the bill, it certainly doesn’t seem any more appropriate. “Within the rules” is not synonymous with “the right thing.”
National Post
Robyn Urback • rurback@nationalpost.com | robynurback