OTHER BOOKS BY J. PATRICK BOYER
Another Country, Another Life: Calumny, Love, and the Secrets of Isaac Jelfs (Toronto: Dundurn, 2013)
Raw Life: Cameos of 1890s Justice from a Magistrate’s Bench Book (Toronto: Dundurn, 2012)
Solitary Courage: Mona Winberg and the Triumph over Disability (Toronto: Blue Butterfly Books, 2010)
Local Library, Global Passport: The Evolution of a Carnegie Library (Toronto: Blue Butterfly Books, 2008)
A Passion for Justice: How ‘Vinegar Jim’ McRuer Became Canada’s Greatest Law Reformer [revised paperback edition] (Toronto: Blue Butterfly Books, 2008)
A Man & His Words (Toronto: Canadian Shield Communications & Dundurn Press, 2003)
Leading in an Upside-Down World [contributing editor] (Toronto: University of Guelph & Dundurn Press, 2003)
“Just Trust Us”: The Erosion of Accountability in Canada (Toronto: Breakout Educational Network & Dundurn Press, 2003)
The Leadership Challenge in the 21st Century [contributing editor] (Guelph: University of Guelph, 2002)
Accountability and Canadian Government (Guelph: University of Guelph, 2000)
Boyer’s Ontario Election Law (Toronto: Carswell Publishing, 1996)
A Passion for Justice: The Life and Legacy of J.C. McRuer. (Toronto: University of Toronto Press & The Osgoode Society, 1994)
Direct Democracy in Canada: The History and Future of Referendums (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992)
The People’s Mandate: Referendums and a More Democratic Canada (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1992)
Hands-On Democracy: How You Can Take Part in Canada’s Renewal (Toronto: Stoddart, 1993)
La democratie pour tous: Le citoyen…artisan du renouveau Canadien (Toronto: Stoddart, 1993)
Local Elections in Canada: The Law Governing Elections of Municipal Councils, School Boards and Other Local Authorities (Toronto: Butterworths, 1988)
Election Law in Canada: The Law and Procedure of Federal, Provincial and Territorial Elections. 2 vols. (Toronto: Butterworths, 1987)
Money and Message: The Law Governing Election Financing, Advertising, Broadcasting and Campaigning in Canada (Toronto: Butterworths, 1983)
Lawmaking by the People: Referendums and Plebiscites in Canada (Toronto: Butterworths, 1981)
The Egalitarian Option: Perspectives on Canadian Education [contributing author] (Toronto: Compass Books, 1975)
This book is joyfully dedicated
to my bride
Elise Marie Boyer
“tout, tout, tout!”
Preface
We Don’t Have $37 Million and Two Years
In 2012, Canada’s auditor general reported on his review of a number of Senate expense claims revealing that several senators didn’t have the necessary documents to support their travel and living expenses. Subsequent investigation followed into what the news media quickly dubbed “the Senate expenses scandal.” A small handful of Canada’s 105 senators had claimed expenses that seemed problematic, mostly under a housing allowance but also for meals and, in one case, air fares. The claims had been duly approved and paid under the Senate’s own uncertain rules and lax administrative hand. Later, an independent audit suggested the senators in question gave themselves an unwarranted bonus. They were ordered to repay the money. Embarrassed, the senators protested they’d done nothing wrong. Two at least asserted that the housing charges had been pre-cleared. One even started a court challenge against the Senate to quash the repayment order.
The disputed claims were not new; indeed, they had been made, processed, and paid on an ongoing basis for a number of years. The senators in question alleged the rules were unclear, the forms confusing, and the auditor’s review “a flawed process.” A couple paid the money back. One appeared to do so. A garnishee order or two would complete the restitution of funds owed by another senator.
That skeletal outline does not, as every Canadian knows, even begin to cover all the moving parts and conflicting pressures that would cause this sorry saga to blossom into a serialized political scandal that’s now lasted more than two years. The Senate expenses scandal obsessed Canadians and sent our parliamentary life spinning down an unfamiliar path.
Although I would like this book to be as current and comprehensive as possible, to show how the Senate expenses scandal became the phenomenon it did, my second goal has been at odds with this first one. I would like, just as much, to address the even more puzzling Senate scandal — the continuing existence of this relic institution itself.
If I’d waited for more pieces of the Senate expenses puzzle to fall into place, Our Scandalous Senate would have been delayed by months or even years because the end of the current scandal is still not in sight. As Senator Mike Duffy, a leading actor in this morality play, accurately said in an October 30, 2013, email to me, this affair is “multi-layered and complex.” Sorting everything out definitively would require a full public inquiry to find the plot and weave together this bizarre political debacle’s many conflicting narratives.
But unlike the exhaustive reports produced by the Gomery Commission’s more than $37 million two-year investigation into the Sponsorship Scandal, or earlier royal commission reports on other big Canadian political scandals, no integrating evidence-based public investigation into the Senate expenses scandal is underway. Bob Rae called for one, when he was still Liberal leader, but his suggestion was turned down. As a result, no comprehensive official document will ever be produced.
Moreover, significant developments that are separate from but relate to the Senate expenses scandal continue to unfold according to their own uncertain timetables:
If, when the RCMP completes its investigations, criminal trials ensue, evidence provided at them will put a new gloss on current interpretations and keep the scandal alive for many more months. Some criminal charges have already been laid, such as those against suspended Senator Patrick Brazeau and former Senator Mac Harb, who were charged by the RCMP on February 4, 2014, as I finished this book;
When Canada’s auditor general, Michael Ferguson, completes his audit of each senator’s expenses, other problems may come to light. Dealing with them, one way or another, will likely extend the run of this current Senate scandal. A preliminary report was expected, but the full audit is not likely before the end of 2014;
When the Supreme Court of Canada delivers answers to questions from the Harper government about changing the Senate of Canada or even abolishing it within the framework of the Constitution, the justices will clarify matters for yet another round in the 140-year quest to do something about Parliament’s upper house;
When the Conservative Party takes stock of what transpired with the Senate expenses scandal and how the developments altered the party’s performance capacity in national public life, pressures for change will be felt;
When the 2015 general election takes place and the party leaders present Canadians with their divergent remedies to Canada’s problematic Senate, the long-running expenses scandal will surely be as prominent in their speeches then as it is in our minds now;
When central players who face legal constraints in the current Senate drama become free to speak, their statements, political acts, and published memoirs will give the expenses scandal future life by shedding light on matters still a mystery today.
Despite the fact that all those elements are still in play, something that