Improper Housing Claims

It sounds rather prissy: "improper housing claims", when what it represents is a total corruption of the rules of the game. The entitlement rules for claiming a legitimate expense in the Senate of Canada. That very proper place of parliamentary "sober second thought" where people from across Canada selected to represent their geographic region because they have been judged so outstanding in some manner that their presence will embellish the Senate and the work that it does.

People of high character, people who are admired because of their obvious enrichment of the country by their activities. Lawyers, doctors, municipal or provincial or federal politicians who have left their posts, business people, social activists, scientists, journalists, organizers and yes, bagmen for political parties.

All presumably have performed some outstanding contribution to the well-being of the country; recognized with an appointment to the Senate being a reward and an award, an uplifting opportunity to deliberate with their peers on the passage of legislation given them for second reading after the elected Members of Parliament in the House have had their first crack.

And because government at the federal level is centralized and located in the National Capital, its offices in the Parliament Buildings and other designated buildings located close by for that deliberate purpose, there are some recognized hardships imposed upon both elected and assigned officials which make it imperative that they not experience economic hardship as a result.

Which is the reason why certain per diems and housing and travel allowances are recognized to relieve as much of the strain of awkwardness in relocation as possible.

Senator Mac Harb, previously a well-known Ottawa-area politician, was appointed to the Senate by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, in recognition of his reputation as a popular and involved local politician and a Liberal. He and a number of other Senators have been cited as having illegally (and immorally) used the honour system utilized by the Senate to claim expenses.

The problem being that they have for years claimed expenses to which they are not entitled. Senator Harb takes grave exception to claims by the officers of the Senate that he engaged in such activities. He has been requested to repay $51,000 of monies that he had previously claimed and which were recently adjudged to represent false claims to which he was not entitled.

A kind of embezzlement of taxpayer-funded operating expenses for the Senate, if you will. Which rather lax oversight in the Senate made possible; most people therein believing their colleagues to be honest. While paying the money back, he considers it to have been a temporary expedience. He has launched a law suit against the Senate claiming to have been improperly charged to return claims in refund of allowable expenditures.

Concomitantly a criminal investigation was launched with the RCMP brought in to determine how the situation unfolded, and whether there is also criminal liability. What has now been made public through that as-yet unconcluded investigation was that Senator Harb claimed a Senate housing allowance on one home that was "uninhabitable" for three years; in such a gross state of disrepair that no one would have lived in it.

And for another four years claimed primary residence for another house in which he had a 0.01% investment. This information was made public through the examination of an RCMP court document; leading to the expectation that Senator Harb may be charged with breach of trust. The document was filed in Ontario Superior Court in Ottawa by lead RCMP investigator, Cpl. Greg Horton.

Senator Harb's other claimed expenses over the past eight years will now undergo close examination; cellphone bills, travel expense claims.

Apart from the false claims for entitlement to housing allowance from a man who owns a number of residences within Ottawa proper and who has lived in one house in particular for many years, effectively disqualifying him from claiming having been inconvenienced through the need to establish a secondary residence (a 100-klm drive from a primary residence to reach the Senate in Ottawa legitimately qualifies a Senator to claim said housing allowance).

Which leaves one to wonder at the wounded pride, the bravado of declared innocence, the assertions of propriety that led to Senator Harb launching a law suit against the Senate in an effort to recover the extorted funding he was not qualified to receive, and was pressed to return, rather grudgingly.