Innocently Misunderstood, Now Abused

"I think perks should be on the way out. If we are to get these goodies, we should be treated like everybody else. We should pay the fair price. People believe we are shielded and rightly so. We may try to get out of the shelter, but we quickly find ourselves back in the shelter. We see things from a window in a way that people don't see it."
Member of Parliament, Mac Harb, 1991 -- stated opinion on Parliament Hill perquisites

"These past few months have been extremely difficult for me and my family and caused me to evaluate what more I could contribute in the circumstances. My dispute with the Senate Committee on Internal Economy made working effectively in the Senate unrealistic.
"The Senate Committee treated me very unfairly, and I wanted to make the point that every Canadian, even Senators, should be entitled to due process  I always followed Senate rules on expenses, and filed my expense claims in a timely and transparent manner. At no time did anyone suggest my claims were invalid or questionable. And from what I could tell, most Senators made similar claims.
"I have been contemplating retirement for some time as I personally never considered the Senate to be a lifetime position."
Senator Mac Harb, 2013

Two utterly disparate sets of statements, separated in time by two decades, by a man now 59, who entered the House of Commons as an elected Member of Parliament at the tender age of 35, having previously served several years on Ottawa municipal council, before leaping for big-time politics. After fifteen years on Parliament Hill, he was invited to extend his stay there by former Prime Minister Jean Chretien, to sit in the Senate, and there he sat for another decade.

Some might say, unkindly, that he was consummately skilled in feeding at the public trough. Though academically trained as an electrical engineer he could have pursued his profession quite fruitfully as well, as an alternative. Public service seemed just so much more appealing, evidently. He is no longer Senator Harb, having decided to vacate his position in the Senate rather precipitously, although not surprisingly.

There is an RCMP investigation that was launched into the onetime honourable MP/Senator's expense claims, that he fiddled majestically, enriching himself, drawing from taxpayer funds  hundreds of thousands of dollars he was not legally, ethically entitled to. And, while decrying the unfairness of the Senate taking a magnifying glass through a painstaking audit of his record of expense claims, he impugns the integrity of other Senators.

He was previously requested to return $51,000 to the Senate, on a more cursory audit uncovering a practise representing unjustified and unethical claims, and he duly surrendered that sum, while at the same time informing the Senate that he was innocent of any wrong-doing and was filing a lawsuit to reclaim the money the Senate had extorted from this innocent and honourable man. That legal claim has now been surrendered to reality.

The statement released by his office expresses his desire to continue working in any manner he could conceivably manage out of the goodness of his heart, for the furtherance of the country that accepted him as a new immigrant so many years ago when he was a mere 18. "My love for Canada is larger than my love for life. Canada has given me all that I have and all that I need", that statement said, movingly.

Another payment representing return of expense funding he was not entitled to and requested to kindly return to the Senate came in the amount of $180,166.17, for a total pay-back of $231,649.07. Not bad for perquisites for someone who earned well in excess of $130,000 annually, plus extra tens of thousands for working on various committees.

The investigative work of curious journalists attempting to track how some on the public payroll take undue advantage of their positions led to the revelation that he among a handful of others, claimed yearly secondary-residence costs of $22,000. In Senator Harb's instance he has lived in Ottawa for decades; he deliberately purchased a property over 100-km distance from Parliament Hill to make himself 'eligible' to claim it as a primary residence to entitle himself to those expense claims.

While owning a number of Ottawa properties, including a single-family house he had possessed for decades. The property he bought in a Pembroke riding was in fact, in such an uninhabitable state of repair for the first three years of ownership no one could live in it, but it was claimed as a primary residence, despite that Mr. Harb listed an Ottawa condo in corporate filings and real estate transactions.

Now, immediately on retirement, untitled Mr. Mac Harb is able to claim an annual pension of roughly $123,000. This, based on his years as an MP from 1988 to 2003 and as a senator for ten years. He is quite correct in stating his love for Canada, it has done very well by him; how could he not love it? What he has done for Canada is another thing altogether; perhaps in the final analysis pointed out the entitlement syndrome that afflicts so many in situations such as his?

"There's no question that the Senate and the parliamentary pension plan is a very good deal for the people who are in it", wryly commented Gregory Thomas, Canadian Taxpayers Federation director. As for Mr. Harb he continues to insist that many senators were afflicted with the syndrome of not quite understanding the rules respecting expense claims.

Which might lead one to an inescapable thought that basic intelligence and decency eludes many of those who have lingered in the system long enough to know how it works, and how it can be manipulated for greatest efficiency on teat-sucking. Cupidity does not represent a thoughtfully endearing characteristic.