Mike Duffy friend paid $65K for 'no apparent work,' RCMP allege

1. The RCMP have enlisted forensic accounting help

The RCMP are able to dip into government departments for extra investigative help.

Mark Grenon, a Public Works employee, who is both an accountant with a specialty in forensic accounting and a certified fraud investigator, has been seconded to the RCMP's sensitive investigations unit to examine Duffy's expense claims.

It was Grenon who spotted a lump sum in Duffy's expense accounts that appeared "disproportionately larger than other expenses."

2. Much of Duffy's office budget went to consultant friend

Duffy used a budget called "general expenses" to award consulting contracts to Gerald Donohue, a former TV technician who had an insulated concrete form business. The general expenses budget, says Horton, seems to be used to pay for the day to day operations of a Senate office and includes work senators commission to do with their Senate responsibilities.

Over half of Duffy's general expenses budget was spent on Donohue's contracts. That same budget was also used to purchase computers, printers, a coffee maker and a "music system."

3. Donohoe billed for research for Duffy, but prepared no reports

Donohue issued invoices to Duffy for research on topics such as "the heritage project" or "aging in the Canadian population." But in an interview with the RCMP, Donohue said that Duffy asked him to prepare information on "obesity" or "being a Conservative." He also told the RCMP he never produced a document, report or product.

4. Duffy hired other contractors who didn't get paid as much as Donohue

The RCMP interviewed three other consultants who did work for Duffy. All three had other clients for whom they performed consulting work, and all had backgrounds in politics, government or business.

All three were able to describe in detail research they conducted for Duffy about topics such as industrial development proposals or the effect of the proposed Atlantic power accord on P.E.I. None of them were paid more than $3,000.

Yet Donohue was paid in sums of $10,000, $12,000, $13,000 and finally $24,000, sliced into payments of $2,000 over a period of a year. (Tax was added by Senate staff to Donohue's payments, bringing the total to $65,000).

5. Donohoe was collecting disability insurance and not entitled to earn any income

Donohue told the RCMP he did not personally receive money from Duffy because he was collecting disability insurance and couldn't earn any income. The cheques from Duffy's office were paid to a media company Donohue set up, which did no media business and which later morphed into the concrete form company. The company, he said, consisted of his wife and son.

In March 2012, Donohue stopped accepting contracts from Duffy because, he said, he received a "personal statement" showing he was earning income, when in fact, he said, the income should have been in his company's name. He blamed the slip on Senate bureaucracy.

Stephen Harper...told then-Liberal prime minister Jean Chretien that "we don't support any Senate appointments," called the Senate a "dumping ground for the favoured cronies of the prime minister" and said "Canadians ... are ashamed the prime minister continues the disgraceful, undemocratic appointment of undemocratic Liberals to the undemocratic Senate to pass all-too-often undemocratic legislation."

"A Conservative government will not appoint to the Senate anyone who does not have a mandate from the people." (Conservative party website during 2006 election)

"Jabberwalker" said
You'd think that a muck-racking political reporter would know better.

"Delwin" said
What is really sickening is that these expenses were already reviewed by David Tkachuk, the chairman of the senate comitee and the PMO's office, then by Deloitte auditors, of course in fairness, the deloitte auditors were missing the detailed account that Nigel Wright,I.e. Harpers fall guy was hiding from them. It was only after theses records were submitted to the rcmp that these new allegations were revealed. The conservative party is truly rotten from the inside out.

"QBall" said
How is he still a Senator? Why haven't the other Senators kicked him out yet? I swear if there was ever an organization that needs to disappear it's the Senate.

"Delwin" said
I like the idea of a senate and the whole "sober second thought" thing. I think it if properly done, it does create a check on the massive powers that parties in this country are granted with a majority.

However, obviously the system is massively broken.

Ideally what I would like to see happen to fix it is,

1. No new appointments until the senate is half full.

2. An election at the following federal election time to fill the empty seats.

3. An election for the other half at the following election.

this would mean that the senate would be elected to 8 year terms and provide something of a safety net for the "sweeping change" that it was meant to protect against while still keeping it accountable through the court of public opinion.

If 8 years is not stable enough they could also stagger it in thirds to allow for 12 year terms.

I think this would be a good fix.

Billions of dollars just disappeared with no accounting for it during the Chretien years. And if what I hear is correct, the same problem has occurred under Harper's watch as well.

"Freakinoldguy" said
Hopefully Big Mike's reign of error is coming to an abrupt end and his illegal antics will be the straw that broke the camel's back when it comes to abolishing that useless patronage appointment filled, anachronistic, den of iniquity called the Senate.