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Comment: Senator clarifies dealings with Mike Duffy

I was not called to testify at the Mike Duffy trial, although I was subpoenaed by the Crown and made myself available accordingly. As a result, a skewed account of my role in all this was allowed to stand.

I was not called to testify at the Mike Duffy trial, although I was subpoenaed by the Crown and made myself available accordingly. As a result, a skewed account of my role in all this was allowed to stand. I want to correct the record so the public has a fuller picture of what happened.

In his 308-page decision, Justice Charles Vaillancourt concludes that Duffy’s interpretation of the Senate rules was not criminal. He defends that conclusion in part by stating that whenever he was confused by the rules, Duffy went the extra mile to consult people in a position of authority, people who knew the rules. The judge includes a section called “Reliance by Senator Duffy on representations and opinions of key authoritative figures.”

It reads: “Senator Duffy advised the court that he spoke with a number of individuals including: Stephen Harper, the prime minister of Canada; Senator Tkachuk, the vice-chair and then chair of the Internal Economy Committee … regarding issues surrounding residency and that he relied on their opinions and statements with respect to the residency issue.”

A few pages later, the judge writes that in preparation for his formal appointment to the Senate, slated for Jan. 26, 2009, Duffy received materials from the clerk, including the Senate administrative rules: “There was a considerable volume of material that Mr. Duffy skimmed and then, when he had questions about one particular matter — the primary residence declaration he had completed the day before on Jan. 6, 2009, — on Jan. 7 he did as he had been told on Dec. 23: he sought advice from an authority on the Senate rules, policies, procedures and practices, Senator Tkachuk, the vice-chair of the committee responsible for ‘good internal administration of the Senate,’ the internal economy committee.”

The notion that Duffy discussed this matter with me is fiction.

On Jan. 7, 2009, I was neither a member of the internal economy committee nor its vice-chair, much less a “key figure of authority.” I joined the committee for the first time on Feb. 10, 2009, more than a month after Duffy supposedly sought my advice. Not being a member of the committee at that point, nor ever prior, I was hardly an authority on primary-residence declarations.

As for being an authority on rules, procedures and practices, those are the purview of the Senate Committee on Rules, Procedures and the Rights of Parliament. I did not sit on that committee during the Duffy troubles. You know who did: Sen. Duffy. He had access on that committee to, and might have consulted, a number of authorities on constitutional residency issues, but I wasn’t one of them.

Let me point out something else. Mike Duffy’s Senate appointment was announced on Dec. 22, 2008. The very next day — Dec. 23 — he started charging the Senate for per diems; this is at odds with his claim in court that he had a particular aversion to claiming per diems.

When he was charging his first per diem, I was in Florida receiving the news, on Dec. 23, that my father had died. So I was not only not a member of the Committee on Internal Economy, I was preoccupied by personal events.

Finally, let me clarify something else: As chair of both Internal Economy and its audit subcommittee dealing with Duffy, I had both a fiduciary duty to the Senate and the responsibility to deal with the independent auditors (Deloitte). When Duffy indicated he would pay back all the expenses under audit that were owing, going back as far as 2008, I reasoned that it was no longer cost-effective or necessary to continue with the audit, the cost of which was ballooning far beyond the initial estimate.

I broached it with the auditors in the presence of the clerk and we decided that in the interest of full accountability and diligence, the audit should proceed. I reported that back to steering committee.

End of story.

David Tkachuk is a Conservative senator from Saskatchewan. He is currently the chairman of the Senate Committee on Banking, Trade and Commerce.