deductions

By Graeme MacKay, The Hamilton Spectator – Tuesday, August 13, 2013

Pamela Wallin’s ‘troubling’ expense audit headed to RCMP

The independent audit of Senator Pamela Wallin’s expenses has been referred to the RCMP by a Senate committee that is also imposing restrictions on her travel and asking her to repay more of her expenses.

The internal economy committee met Tuesday morning on Parliament Hill and agreed to a set of recommendations in response to the Deloitte audit it received Monday. The audit assessed more than $500,000 worth of Wallin’s travel claims and determined whether they were all related to Senate business or not.

The RCMP referral and other recommendations are contained in the committee’s report that says Wallin had an “unusual pattern” of stopping in Toronto, where she owns a condo, on her way from Ottawa to Saskatchewan, the province she was appointed to represent in 2009.
Between January 2009 and Sept. 30, 2012, Wallin made 95 trips between the nation’s capital and Saskatchewan and 75 of them involved stops of one or more nights in Toronto, the auditors found.

The audit report contains a chart that outlines all of Wallin’s expense claims — the amounts, the dates, the travel routes, and details of her trips, including whom she met with and other activities.

Expense claims were deemed appropriate if Wallin stayed over in Toronto in order to avoid a late arrival in Saskatchewan or if there was Senate business in Toronto. But the review found many instances where Wallin had said on her expense forms that she was on Senate business but in fact was not. (Source: CBC News)

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