Current Events Report Nov. 2013 | Page 5

Mike Duffy's lawyer says $90K cheque was a deal with

PMO

Leslie MacKinnon, CBC News Posted: Oct 21, 2013

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February he saw no problem with Duffy claiming Ottawa housing expenses because of having a primary residence in P.E.I. The same month, Tkachuk told CBC News the same thing, explaining Duffy visited P.E.I. frequently and there was nothing untoward about claiming the island as his primary home.

"Whether he closes the place up for the winter.… If I was Mike I wouldn't be travelling back and forth either, because his heart condition is not that great. I wouldn't be getting on a plane, trying to get toevery week," he said eight months ago.

However, reached in Saskatchewan on Monday by CBC, Tkachuk made a distinction about Duffy's residency. He said it was true Duffy had clarified with LeBreton four years ago that he was a bona fide P.E.I. resident, but nonetheless did not qualify to claim living expenses in Ottawa, which Tkachuk called "a different matter entirely."

The prime minister was asked in question period Monday if the PMO had prepared communications lines for Duffy to explain why he was repaying expense money. Harper, in the first question period he's attended this session, said all MPs and senators are expected to obey the rules "in letter and in spirit."

Bayne would not release the emails to the media, but said they were just "the tip of the iceberg" of evidence that will come out in the event Duffy is called to defend himself in court. "I have those emails," he continued. "The RCMP have most of those emails."

He added the Senate motion to cut Duffy's pay was a "severe punitive measure" that would deprive him of "his sole source of income" and of the finances needed to fight his case.

On Thursday, the Senate gave notice of a motion that would cut the pay of senators Duffy, Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin, and bar them from the Senate chamber and Senate committee hearings. The motion, which accuses the senators of "gross negligence," is to be debated in the Senate on Tuesday and put to a vote.

Duffy, Wallin and Brazeau were found by the Senate to have inappropriately claimed expense money following an independent audit of their travel and housing claims. All three have either voluntarily or have been forced to repay money to the Senate.

In Duffy's case, $90,000 was repaid even before the findings of the independent audit were made public by means of a cheque written by Wright.

Harper has maintained he knew nothing of the payment until May 15.

Wright, who resigned as Harper's top aide, handed over a binder full of documents, including emails, to the RCMP, court documents reveal.

A lawyer for Wallin has complained about the Senate's intention to suspend her and cut her pay without any evidence that she committed gross negligence.

The Senate will consider a motion Tuesday to suspend Senator Mike Duffy without pay, along with senators Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin. (Sean Kilpatrick/Canadian Press)

"They're [all senators who vote on the motion] constrained by the sense of due process under the charter, unless they say they don't care about due process and they don't care about the Charter of Rights, and that they can do what they want," said Terrence O'Sullivan on Friday.

However, Rob Walsh, the former top legal adviser to the House of Commons, said in an interview that the Senate is not bound by considerations such as due process. "Due process, the right to hear the other side, the charter — none of that applies to parliamentary proceedings. But lawyers' first instincts are to invoke these principles they're accustomed to in legal proceedings."

Walsh believes the Senate does not have the power to cut a senator's sessional allowance, or pay, which he says is protected by the Parliament of Canada Act.