Senator Colin Kenny

Province: Ontario

Appointment date: 29 June 1984

Observations—general

On the basis of information available, we have been unable to determine whether all the Senator’s expenses were incurred primarily for parliamentary business and with due regard for the use of public funds.

1. Information we received from the Senator was not consistent with other information provided to us. As had been the case since before our audit period, the Senate Administration, at the request of the Senator, did not back up his electronic calendar file. The Senator provided us with a printed copy of his calendar for the audit period, and later provided us with an electronic version. We noted discrepancies between these versions. The Senator stated that, in his view, the discrepancies were not significant.

Observations—travel

We found several instances where there was conflicting or insufficient information that prevented us from determining that travel expenses claimed by the Senator had been incurred primarily for parliamentary business.

2. The Senator stated that he was not a member of any standing Senate committees during the audit period, but promoted change in his areas of interest through the media, often by writing editorial opinions. His primary residence was in Ottawa, and he travelled to meet individuals and media representatives as part of promoting his areas of interest.

3. The Senator incurred travel expenses of at least $35,549 for which we have insufficient or conflicting documentation to determine whether the trips were primarily for parliamentary business. Several of these trips included single short meetings pertaining to his parliamentary business, but began with or were followed by personal activities.

Observations—goods and services

We found that there was conflicting information that prevented us from determining whether services provided by the Senator’s staff were for parliamentary business.

4. The Senator paid salaries and benefit expenses to staff for work that may not have been for parliamentary business. We found that staff performed numerous tasks that were not related to regular office operations, but instead to the Senator’s personal activities. These tasks included payments of personal invoices, maintenance of personal books and records, planning of various personal activities, and scheduling of personal appointments. During our discussions with the Senator, we noted that, in his opinion, these activities did not account for a significant portion of his staff’s time. However, because of conflicting information about the extent of the Senator’s personal activities undertaken by one of these staff positions and insufficient information about other staff positions, we were unable to reach audit findings as to whether the salaries and benefits were for parliamentary business.

The Senator’s comments

I do not agree with the conclusions reached in this audit.

I began the audit process with the belief that all my parliamentary expenses were above board and that transparency was the best policy. In response to the audit team’s initial binder of expense questions my office and I compiled an exhaustively detailed response binder (24 November 2014) that included the names of participants for every hospitality or travel meeting, the reason for the meeting and a compilation of op-eds that were produced largely as a result of those meetings.

After receiving the one and a half pages of preliminary conclusions on 6 March 2015, we began the process of seeking explanation for the concerns raised over hospitality, travel and staff expenses. In response to our questions regarding specific expense concerns, we received on 27 March a chart that broke down the sum total of my travel and hospitality expenses into 269 components. For each of the expense components, the chart simply denoted that there was “insufficient or conflicting documentation to conclude that the primary purpose of the expense was parliamentary business.” They did not address our request for specific concerns and we were still left with no idea of what the problems were.

It was not until 29 April 2015 (five days before the audit deadline) – after several exchanges with the audit team – that we received a document that briefly listed concerns for the travel claims in question. This document was useful in that it was the first chance I had to respond to concerns about my expenses. It was, however, provided very late in the process. Had it been given to me earlier I would have been able to more capably defend the use of my expenses.

With regard to travel expenses that were determined not to be primarily for parliamentary purposes, I was confounded by the reasoning for which the vast majority of trips were flagged. Despite the fact that Senate rules allow for personal activities, the audit team insisted that virtually any personal appointments (costing the Senate no money) invalidated an entire trip that had a number of parliamentary activities. It was repeatedly stated to me that because a personal activity had occurred, the primary purpose of the trip could not be determined.

Invalidating an entire trip on account of one personal appointment seems disproportionately punitive.

With regard to the appropriation of staff for personal purposes, any work done by staff on personal tasks was and is in accordance with Senate rule 7.1 in that it is “minor, customary and reasonable and does not give rise to a direct cost to the Senate or to a Senate expenditure.” An analysis done by my office on work alleged to have been done by a former staff member was presented to the audit team that showed personal tasks only amounted to twelve minutes a day on average or 2.5% of time in office.