Senator Donald H. Oliver (retired)

Province: Nova Scotia

Appointment date: 7 September 1990

Retirement date: 16 November 2013

Observations—general

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

1. We found expenses of $48,088, which we determined were not for parliamentary business, or for which we had insufficient information to conclude that they had been incurred for parliamentary business.

2. We requested information from the Senator on 11 August 2014, and received a response on 29 September 2014. We asked for further information on 9 December 2014 and received a response on 13 January 2015. In responding to our questions, the Senator stated that his electronic calendar was not an accurate representation of his activities, and that he did not attend many of the meetings and receptions that were in his calendar. The Senator did not identify which of the events in his electronic calendar he did not attend.

3. At the time of reporting, the Senator had not been able to provide supporting documentation for expense claims that were the subject of our requests. The Senator stated that, being retired, he did not have access to the information we requested. As a result, the information below represents our work completed as of the time of finalizing our report.

Observations—travel

We found several instances where there was insufficient information to enable us to determine whether travel expenses claimed by the Senator had been incurred for parliamentary business.

4. The Senator is a member of a not-for-profit organization that aims to promote the wines, cuisine, and tourism of a region overseas; he founded the Halifax and Ottawa chapters of the organization. The Senator claimed travel expenses of $22,982 for trips where we were unable to determine whether they were for parliamentary business or to attend the organization’s meetings or meetings with other members of the organization. The Senator was not able to provide evidence that parliamentary business was conducted in these cases.

5. We found that the Senator and his spouse claimed travel expenses for personal events, for which we received no supporting documentation on the purpose of the trips nor on the events that took place during that time, or that were in excess of the Senate’s rules, policies, and guidelines, including

• a family member’s convocation in Kingston, Ontario, at which, according to the Senator, he spoke with other attendees about higher education and the role of the Senate;
• golf with former Senators in Montréal;
• meetings with a family member and a tailor; and
• a fishing trip.

In his responses to our requests for information, the Senator provided some general explanations for these travel events. The Senate Administrative Rules state that every person who uses Senate resources is responsible to account for that use. On the basis of the information available, we determined that these expenses had not been incurred for parliamentary business. The cost of these trips was $11,252.

6. We also found that the Senator’s spouse did not always travel at the same times or to the same locations as the Senator. The Senator’s spouse often travelled without the Senator between Ottawa and their home in Pleasant River, Nova Scotia, travelling to Nova Scotia on a Friday, and returning to Ottawa on a Sunday. We found that, throughout the audit period, the Senator’s spouse was employed as a vice-president of an organization in Ottawa. The Senate’s rules, policies, and guidelines recognize that a Senator’s parliamentary functions can result in frequent and lengthy periods of separation from family and have provided for family-reunion travel as an important contributor to the health and well-being of Senators and their families. Given that the Senator did not join his spouse on these occasions, we determined that the travel by the Senator’s spouse was not undertaken for the purposes of family reunification, but rather, for her personal business reasons. The cost of these trips was $10,613.

7. The Senator stated that, upon review, certain expenses that we have reported were not reimbursable. The Senator stated that these claims were submitted in error. He has repaid $1,442, including for travel to Kingston for a family member’s convocation and travel for the fishing trip.

Observations—staff travel

We found two instances of travel expenses incurred by staff members and approved by the Senator that were not for parliamentary business.

8. On two occasions, one of the Senator’s staff members drove the Senator’s car from Ottawa to Halifax and then flew directly back to Ottawa, at a total cost of $1,559.

Observations—other

We found other expenses that we were unable to determine were for parliamentary business or were not in accordance with the Senate’s rules, policies, and guidelines.

9. We found several other expenses for which there was insufficient evidence of a relation to parliamentary business, or that were otherwise ineligible under the Senate’s rules, policies, and guidelines. These expenses, including hospitality, taxis, and courier charges, totalled $1,682.

The former Senator’s comments

The Auditor General’s purported findings in this document are not factually correct. The findings misrepresent what the Auditor knows based on the Senator’s previous and patient explanations dated August 11, 2014, January 13, April 4, and May 5, 2015.

Dr. Oliver has provided detailed responses to all inquiries made, and was only provided with an opportunity to meet with staff and legal counsel after the Auditor General attempted to renege on the promise of a pre-report meeting. Even then, these response comments were required before the Auditor General disclosed the final version of his report.

The Auditor General has declined to disclose his specific concerns with several claims, despite specific requests from the retired Senator. The Auditor General has previously abandoned several lines of inquiry after confirming the legitimacy of the retired Senator’s explanations. His office has apparently now decided that it will stop valuing Dr. Oliver’s word. In doing so, the Auditor General depends on incorrect and uninformed interpretations of the applicable rules, and uses criteria never before applied to Senate expenses.

Dr. Oliver frequently sought and obtained authorization from the Senate Finance Directorate for expense items and activities before they were incurred.

The staff travel claims included in the report were pre-approved, and for amounts far below what the Senator was permitted to claim.

The Auditor General has made scurrilous and irrelevant comments about the employment of Dr. Oliver’s wife – which has no connection with any Senate expense claim. The Auditor General’s opinions about “spousal travel” ignore and do not mention seven distinct and sufficient justifications for those travel claims.

The Auditor General intends to refer to some claims that have previously been reimbursed by the Senator which are not outstanding. The report also intends to insinuate that the Senator pursued private interests at the expense of the Senate without a reasonable factual basis.

Dr. Oliver made his claims in the utmost good faith, and with an honest understanding of approval based on the guidance of Senate staff. He has remained willing to work with the Senate to resolve any good faith errors or misunderstandings. That apparently does not suit the objectives or pre­judgment of the Auditor General.

Dr. Oliver has provided a reasoned justification for each questioned claim based on the contemporaneous rules, practices, and responsibilities of his Senate business. Rather than including these in a transparent audit assessment to stand beside the Auditor General’s own proposed conclusions, the Auditor General has instead chosen to pretend that his report is simply factual and non-conclusory. In fact, the Auditor General apparently decided some time ago that the Senate would be incapable of conducting a legitimate process of further review of Dr. Oliver’s claims.

All claims represent expenses incurred in the course of the Senator’s performance of national and international parliamentary tasks, including the advancement of Diversity issues as the first Black man appointed to the Senate of Canada.

Subsequent event

On 11 May 2015, we received notice that the Senator intended to make a payment of $21,953.27 to the Receiver General for Canada.