Our Scandalous Senate. J. Patrick Boyer

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СКАЧАТЬ expense claims being reviewed by the Senate’s Finance Directorate of accountants and bookkeepers. These employees, Tkachuk explained, “ensure that each expense passes the test of the Senate administration’s rules before payment is made,” adding that each claim was “reviewed line-by-line by two separate financial officers.” If they found “anything questionable,” Tkachuk as chair of the Internal Economy Committee would submit it to a committee of three other senators for review, “before payment was made.”

      The system was so rigorous, apparently, that if this committee of three senators was not satisfied, chairman Tkachuk would take the questionable expense before a committee of fifteen other senators to defend the expense. He added that senators sometimes even referred an expense issue to outside auditors for independent review. The powerful senator than confidently concluded that the Senate’s own internal process of “a second set of eyes examining our expenses” was “more stringent and onerous” than any “second-level sign off involving auditors” would be.

      While Senator Tkachuk dished out such public reassurances, behind the scenes this “stringent and onerous” verification process continued to examine the submitted expense claims of senators Duffy, Wallin, Harb, Brazeau and several others who would later come under scrutiny for seeking improper reimbursements or submitting claims unsupported by proper documentation. But at the time, following “line-by-line review by two separate financial officers,” the Senate approved and paid them all. This had actually been going on for years.

      In his response to Peter Worthington, the chair of the Internal Economy Committee further noted how “the auditors found no evidence of wrongdoing. Most of the problems concerned paperwork and documentation, and we are attending to these problems.” He concluded with a final gratuitous salvo, “Senators are dedicated to moving forward in making the institution more accountable to the Canadians they serve, and will continue to strive to manage public funds conscientiously and carefully as we carry out our duties as parliamentarians.”

      It was after two more years of this conscientious and careful management that the auditor general of Canada released a report on his audit of Senate administration, stating the upper house had “a reasonable financial management framework in place.” Because “reasonable” was obviously less than “first-rate,” the auditor general recommended that “Senate Administration should ensure it has sufficient documentation to clearly demonstrate that expenses are appropriate” and “should bring to the attention of the Internal Economy Committee any cases in which the Administration believes that required documentation is not sufficient to clearly demonstrate that expenses are appropriate.”

      In response to that revealing recommendation, the Senate, still cocooned in its traditional culture of budget management, defensively asserted that it had “clearly defined rules for processing expense claims that are rigorously enforced. As in the private sector, the senator signs his or her expense claim form and attaches the receipts, according to strict rules and guidelines.”

      In broader terms, through various public statements between 2010 and 2012, Senator Tkachuk further asserted that for senators’ expenses, “rules and limits govern what is paid,” a “vigorous process ensures only legitimate and reasonable expenses are paid,” and that “strict rules and guidelines” were in place and operating.

      By this time, another twenty-four months of expense claims by senators who would subsequently be driven from office on the grounds they’d made false or inappropriate claims had been submitted, reviewed, approved, and paid. The most rigorous part of the Senate’s administrative process appeared to be its ability to cut cheques.

      Almost any organization with sizeable amounts of money on tap will spring leaks. Employees may make mistakes on the paperwork, greed could entice one or two to float claims that will enrich them, and every now and then a fraudster might test how successfully he can scam the operation.

      If the funds are not earned by an organization’s own hard efforts, but simply turned over from taxpayer revenues each year — for instance to a government department, Crown corporation, or body like the Senate of Canada — a further insidious element may also creep in. Many in government today view public money almost as being what economists call a “free good.” The numbers are abstract. Figures appear on a screen rather than printed on physical currency that is seen and touched and is able to impart a tangible sense of value.

      A reckless attitude about dollars emerged during the 1970s that would be abhorrent to an earlier era, when Prime Minister King’s finance minister James Ilsley treated money raised through taxes as a “trust fund” he and others in government operated, with a fiduciary duty, on behalf of the Canadian people. Such frugality gave way to an “Easy come, easy go!” outlook, a transition over several decades that included structural removal of safeguards. Financial controls were loosened, budgets swelled, national debt soared. I explore the causes for this in book-length detail in “Just Trust Us”: The Erosion of Accountability in Canada and also Hands-On Democracy: How You Can Take Part in Canada’s Renewal.

      Throughout it all the Senate carried on with its antiquated honour system and loose financial administration, and so, as if in some perverse nightmare, the rest of public sector spending seemed to be finally catching up with senatorial standards of practice.

      There have been, fortunately, several countervailing forces.

      Partisans, auditors, and reporters were poised to curb those ripping off Senate money or just mindlessly splashing it away. Examining how the expenses of senators were being handled in practice, each would ensure, in their different ways, that the latent potential of the Senate expenses scandal would become real.

      The “partisans” in the Senate are the Liberals and Conservatives who, from the upper house’s inception in the 1800s, have populated the place and run it.

      Although they sometimes glow about the collegial bond they share and the reputed bi-partisan nature of their committee work, the truth is a large majority of senators arrive on the job as devoted and instinctive partisans. In moving to the Senate, they may become more relaxed, but they do not generally become less political. Each Tory or Grit habitually suspects the motives of his or her opposite numbers and keeps a trained eye on them while smiling pleasantly.

      Counting on partisan rivalry to enhance accountability is as astute as it is economic, because sharp eyes and sensitive ears are necessarily present where the action takes place and law enforcement officers are generally absent. The practice has been embedded in Canadian political culture since the 1800s when two judges (one a Liberal appointee, the other Conservative) heard disputed election cases under the Dominion Controverted Elections Act, and in the statutorily enshrined tradition of appointing scrutineers from rival political parties at polling stations in elections, still in effect today under the Canada Elections Act. In the Commons, an Opposition MP chairs the Public Accounts Committee. In the Senate, opposing partisans are chair and deputy chair of the Internal Economy Committee.

      Even so, partisans are only dependable for accountability to the extent they themselves are not complicit in some subversion of proper administration. Senators, working together and often forming friendships with colleagues, abetted by late night conversation over drinks or dinner, may gradually discover where each has skeletons buried. A truce of non-disclosure may be declared in certain cases, producing a tacit conspiracy of silence among fellow political players.

      Looking the other way also fosters “the culture of entitlement” among senators, a number of whom feel they are owed whatever benefits they choose to claim. As a result, senators lose a sense of perspective and acquire a relatively lax approach to expenses. When confronted with the seeming transgressions in the expenses scandal, a number of senators, both Liberal and Conservative, would be outspoken about the expense claims of senators Harb, Duffy, Brazeau, and Wallin. But in the main, the partisans in the Senate were least effective in curbing СКАЧАТЬ