06.05.2015 07:12 AM

“Questionable expense”

Quote:

“Two sitting senators – Pierre-Hugues Boisvenu and Colin Kenny – are among nine who the Auditor General plans to refer to the RCMP for a criminal investigation, CTV News has learned.

The other seven are all retired. They are:

Don Oliver (appointed by Brian Mulroney)
Gerry St. Germain (appointed by Mulroney)
Sharon Carstairs (appointed by Jean Chretien)
Rose-Marie Losier-Cool (appointed by Chretien)
Bill Rompkey (appointed by Chretien)
Rod Zimmer (appointed by Chretien) [No he wasn’t. – Ed.]
Marie-Paule Charette-Poulin (appointed by Chretien)

In addition to the nine senators being referred to the RCMP, 21 more will be compelled to repay questionable expenses.”

The entire Senate is a “questionable expense,” if you ask me. And it remains an abomination that we still have an appointed body wielding power in the year 2015.

I should also say I was sad to see Carstairs, Rompkey and Poulin on that list. In my experience, they are very decent people.

* Oh, and you’ve made a factual error, CTV. Zimmer was appointed by Paul Martin.

16 Comments

  1. Patrice Boivin says:

    $3k here, $10k there, how much did the audit cost? Hopefully it was less than $10k. Otherwise we are not getting good return on our (taxpayers’) money.

    I am starting to wonder who benefits from all this.

  2. P Brennan says:

    I hope revenue Canada has a look too….if you have your employer pay your personal expenses ..its a taxable item

    Laughable really ..this whole ..you got me ..I didnt know , my assistant messed up , I cant remember, rules are gray, Ill just pay it back and it goes away ….geez try that ignorance defense in private sector or with CRA

    Some of these cats been in news before

  3. Matt says:

    So, you think this was Trudeau’s main motivation for making the Liberal Senators, um, “independent”?

  4. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    This audit is like Buckley’s — it tastes bad but it’s good for them. In those days, the rules were even more nebulous, read a mess. That should partially cover most of them. Except if outright fraud can be proven. I doubt that is likely in most cases.

  5. Peter says:

    Many years ago as a student, I spent the summer driving a pedicab at Expo 67. A pretty decent group of about a hundred college students as I recall. We charged by the minute and had mechanical meters, but we quickly learned that none of the customers (overwhelmingly American) paid attention to them and just paid whatever we asked. Gradually we developed a collective rule-of-thumb that it was “ok” to add 20% to whatever we calculated by our watches. Before tips, of course.

    It didn’t take long before we all convinced ourselves this was completely reasonable and a sense of entitlement set in. A few overcharged by more and, boy, did we look down on them. Crooks! One day I had the inevitable customer check his own watch and take issue with the fare. He complained to a supervisor, who made me lock up my cab for the night. I recall being overwhelmed by a sense of injustice and unfairness. Poor me. Did they not understand how “comparatively” honest I was? Thus do decent people of integrity succumb to corruption.

    In another life I worked with Bill Romkey for a bit. One of the finest gentlemen I’ve ever met.

    • P Brennan says:

      Good comment…. I’ve seen the same thing…things become ok because its done, many are doing it , no one gets caught…when you step back and look its not okay – if it looks wrong its wrong…

    • Steve T says:

      What an awesome story, and analogy! I am going to use it regularly.

  6. Marc-André Chiasson says:

    I am troubled to see Rose-Marie-Losier-Cool on this list. She is a wonderful person and a well respected stalwart of the Acadian community who made her mark in New Brunswick as a long-time teacher and head of the Association des enseignants et enseignantes francophones du NB. She sat on the board of the Canadian Teachers Federation and was awarded the Teacher of the Year award for non-sexist teaching. She has also served as VP of the NB Advisory Council on the Status of Women. A sad day indeed. Hopefully, the AG is mistaken in this case.

  7. eric weiss says:

    Abolish the entire thing. Any party promising that will probably get my vote. And drop the Monarchy while we’re at it. To hell with the Queen and all her inbred, horse-faced family.

  8. Ronald O'Dowd says:

    Warren,

    This is another fine example why Harper is a good Prime Minister but will never be a great one. This guy has been committed to Senate reform practically since he was a pup. When the Supreme Court ruled that the general amending formula was required for reform, even minor, Harper just threw in the towel. Ditto, re abolition which requires unanimity.

    The PM forgets that nothing is impossible. It requires months of serious negotiations between Lebel and his provincial and territorial counterparts. It’s called horse trading — a concept they know very well in the western provinces.

  9. Kaiser Helmets 'n Motorbikes says:

    have no fear, salaries will never disappear for these “most elite” of the landed gentry public servants.

    We have cops in Hamilton held in jail and on “suspended with pay” since 2012 (at $110,000 per year for a constable on patrol) with no end in sight.

    http://www.thestar.com/news/crime/2015/06/05/hamilton-cop-among-those-charged-in-project-pharaoh-raids.html

    Thank the gods for Senators & powerful Union Bosses, how else would all these people manage to pay their bills while locked up…

    • P Brennan says:

      awful and if you challenge anyone they tell you its part of the negotiated contract ..yikes So we pay to house them , pay salry , they accumlate vacation pay benefits and pension time and thats because in the hardnosed negotiations its was agreed to…

  10. JH says:

    Is anyone besides me getting tired of all the breathless drama gushing forth from the CBC. The whole gang there seem to be going for academy awards lately and Solomon has to their king of dramatic crap. Ratings are plummeting they say, so I guess they’ve got to do something to try and hold on to the funding, but jeez it gets tiresome, as does all the little girl giggling.

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