Senate spending can’t continue in secrecy

On April 14, Mike Duffy’s lawyer, Don Bayne, asked Senate human resources officer Sonia Makhlouf about the process she used to approve research contracts submitted by senators.

“This contract that you’ve approved and the commitment of public funds for all 105 senators, you don’t know what actual work was done at all in the contracts?” he asked.

“No, because it’s at the discretion of the senator,” she replied.

Bayne was cross-examining Makhlouf as part of Duffy’s trial on 31 charges in connection with his disputed expenses, including $10,000 in payments to a personal trainer.

Her testimony made me wonder about other discretionary spending at the red chamber.

Are some senators secretly hiring candidates, steering money to someone who’s going to carry the party flag?

Are they using those contracts for partisan polling for their buddies in the party office?

I consulted the Public Accounts, which breaks down federal spending, to see how much senators were spending on research contracts “at the discretion of the senator.”

Of course, the numbers weren’t there, just a global number — $12,742,001 for senators’ “Research Assistance, Staff and Other Expenses” in 2013-14.

Next, I consulted the quarterly expense breakdown that the Senate posts.

But it only shows each senator’s total research and office budget, including staff salaries.

I asked Senate spokesman Nancy Durning if any more information was available on contracts made “at the discretion” of senators.

“It is up to individual senators to decide if they want to publicly disclose a more detailed account of their office and research budgets,” she said.

So on April 16, I e-mailed every senator, asking them to provide a list of contracts.

Some senators let me know they hadn’t issued any such contracts.

Some sent me requests for clarification. Some pointed me to publicly available (irrelevant) information.

None sent me information about their research contracts.

On Tuesday, when Auditor General Michael Ferguson released his forensic audit into the Senate, he revealed that Senate Speaker Leo Housakos had given a contract to someone for activities, “including community outreach and media preparation,” that were not “in accordance with the Senate’s rules, policies, or guidelines,” to the tune of $6,710.

I contacted Housakos to ask who that contract went to and how much it was for.

I also asked if the Senate would eventually make all such contracts public.

“Please note that the information about Senators expenses that is publicly available is what can be found in the quarterly expense reports,” said Durning in an e-mail.

Housakos is the former party fundraiser that the prime minister has put in charge of sorting out the mess in the Senate.

He is the guy who announced that the Senate would refer disputed expenses to an arbitrator, former Supreme Court Justice Ian Binnie, rather than just forcing senators to pay the money back, as they did with Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb.

I asked Durning how much we will pay Binnie.

“The contract with Justice Binnie is a legal contract and as part of the Senate’s procurement policy, we do not disclose information about legal contracts,” she replied. “As it stands that information is not public.” Even now, with one of their own on trial, up to a dozen more headed that way, and an election on the way, senators won’t show us where our money goes.