The Senate Chamber is seen on Parliament Hill in this file photo from Oct. 24, 2013 in Ottawa.Dave Chan/The Globe and Mail
The Senate is opening up its budget and expenses to external oversight, marking a milestone after years of debate over accountability.
On Thursday, senators approved the creation of the standing committee on audit and oversight, which will be made up of three senators and two external experts. The move is being celebrated by members of the Red Chamber, but falls short of recommendations in 2015 from then-auditor-general Michael Ferguson in the wake of the Senate expense scandal.
Senator Tony Dean, a member of the Independent Senators Group, said agreement on the new committee follows months of “significant discussion.”
“This is a compromise, it is a compromise that moves us down the road, that gives us that important external oversight," he said.
Conservative Senator David Wells said on Twitter the motion to create the committee was unanimously adopted.
Mr. Ferguson reviewed senators' expenses after a spending scandal that began in 2012 and culminated in the criminal trial of senator Mike Duffy in 2015. He was found not guilty of 31 charges, including fraud and bribery. The Senate operated under an honour system at the time and auditors argued that the spending rules were unclear, making it difficult to know whether rules had been broken. The Senate has since tightened its spending rules.
In Mr. Ferguson’s report, he said the Senate should create an oversight committee “the majority of whose membership, including its chair, is independent of the Senate.”
Instead, the Senate agreed to a committee whose balance of power rests with unelected senators. The external committee members can “participate in all proceedings of the committee, but shall not vote on any motion put to the committee," reads the motion passed in the Senate. Mr. Dean said the external members will be able to write dissenting opinions on any reports from the committee, which he said will ensure accountability. Moreover, he said the Senate has agreed to a much more expansive role for the committee, giving it oversight not only on individual senators' spending habits but on the Senate’s overall budget.
“This is about going where the big money is,” Mr. Dean said. The committee will "ensure that we’re doing what Canadians would expect of us.”
In a statement, the NDP, which advocates for the abolition of the Senate, said the committee comes years late and is insufficient.
“It’s been eight years since Mike Duffy’s expenses were brought to light, five years since the auditor-general called for more oversight and who knows how many secret meetings, and this is the best these senators can do?” NDP whip Rachel Blaney said.
“Senators cost Canadians millions of dollars, are handpicked and appointed, never have to answer to anyone or run in an election, and can count on their salaries and expense accounts until they’re 75. Toothless committees won’t solve any of that.”
This year, the budget for the Red Chamber is estimated at $115.6-million. Mr. Dean said the committee will have oversight over expenditures ranging from IT to infrastructure and security.
The agreement Thursday ends a years-long campaign from senators such as Peter Harder of the Progressive Senate Group. In 2018, when he was still the government’s representative in the Senate, he urged senators to approve the oversight, which was bogged down by internal debate and pushback. For example, in 2017, the Senate’s internal-economy committee recommended creating an audit and oversight committee but without any external members.
At the time, he said senators should not be judging the legitimacy of their colleagues' expense claims. And he said the Senate should catch up to the independent oversight that institutions such as the House of Lords in Britain had already adopted."As you know I have advocated for external members and very much welcome this motion and supported it in the Senate," Mr. Harder said in a statement Thursday.
Conservative Senator Don Plett, the Opposition Leader in the Senate, said the changes adopted by the Red Chamber put it “at the leading edge on expense oversight.”
With reports from Janice Dickson in Ottawa and The Canadian Press
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