OTTAWA — Conservatives in the upper chamber prevented one of two key players at the centre of a storm over Sen. Mike Duffy’s audit from testifying about what he knew, and were equally unwilling to let a top Tory senator testify as well.
The Conservatives blocked one attempt to call senior Deloitte partner Michael Runia, the auditor of record for the Conservative party on Elections Canada documents, to answer questions about a call he made to Duffy’s audit team seeking confidential information.
The Tories could use their majority in the upper chamber next week to quash a similar motion from the Liberals to make Runia talk. That motion, due to be debated Tuesday, doesn’t include calling Sen. Irving Gerstein to testify — the man who allegedly asked Runia to intervene in the audit at the request of the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Tories in the Senate suggested Thursday that neither man should have to testify, and that the upper chamber received the answers it needed.
“For us, it’s not relevant,” said government Senate leader Claude Carignan. “They (the Liberals) asked last week to have a hearing with the auditors to explain if they had any interference and it was clear this morning there was not.”
Gerstein declined to comment on his way into the Senate chamber Thursday afternoon, shaking his head when asked questions, smiling and walking away.
“This just smells like another cover up and we don’t like it at all. We’re very disturbed by it,” said Liberal Sen. Jim Munson. “We have to put the puzzle together and the biggest piece right now is Mr. Runia.”
The audit team that reviewed Duffy’s expenses confirmed Thursday that Runia called them, making inappropriate inquiries about their study.
The admission came during a sometimes tense meeting of the Senate committee that oversaw Duffy’s audit, called after RCMP allegations surfaced last week of interference in what the auditors stressed was an independent, objective review of Duffy’s spending.
None of the three auditors who testified Thursday knew if Runia had called other members of the audit team, a group of about a dozen people who had access to various aspects of the Duffy file. About seven of those people were involved in writing the final report.
Runia was not invited to Thursday’s meeting. At the end of the meeting, Liberal senators tried unsuccessfully to have him called as a witness. The Conservative majority turned them down.
“I understand the optics very well,” said Conservative Sen. Gerald Comeau, the outgoing committee chairman. “It is the role of the opposition . . . to expand this whole thing and start somewhat of an amateur investigation, which is what we should be avoiding. Let the professionals, the RCMP . . . do this kind of investigation rather than us in an adversarial, partisan atmosphere.”
The RCMP has been looking into a $90,000 payment made to Duffy by Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright. That investigation has led the RCMP to make sweeping allegations against Duffy and Wright, suggesting that they may have committed fraud, breach of trust and possible bribery offences. No charges have been laid, nor have any allegations been tested in court.
Court documents filed by the RCMP allege that officials in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office conspired to alter Deloitte’s conclusions, quash the Duffy audit, and prevented Duffy from giving the audit team any help.
According to a March 8 email quoted by the RCMP in filing released last week, a senior PMO official wrote that Gerstein “and his Deloitte contact” agreed that Duffy’s audit should end on repayment of his expenses, and their work was no longer needed. The email from parliamentary affairs manager Patrick Rogers goes on to say that Gerstein was waiting for Runia to allegedly get the “actual Deloitte auditors on the file to agree.”
The Senate committee was told that Runia called Gary Timm, one of the two lead auditors on the Duffy file, some time in March, weeks before the Senate’s internal economy committee heard the audit’s preliminary findings during a closed-door meeting April 16. During the call, Timm said, Runia asked how much Duffy’s bill would be if the embattled senator decided to repay his questionable housing expenses. Timm said he cut Runia off, explaining he couldn’t provide him confidential audit information.
“I wanted to keep everything confidential,” Timm said. “I wanted that call…to end shortly, so I ended it.”
Timm said he then informed his co-lead auditor, Alan Stewart, and his superior, Peter Dent, about the call. The three decided they wouldn’t report the call to their client, the Senate, because no confidential information had been leaked, nor did it have any effect on their conclusions.
“It didn’t affect our objectivity,” Dent said. “It had no bearing on the work we were doing. We didn’t have any greater context to the call.”
As for how the PMO had access to conclusions on March 1, as suggested in one email quoted in court documents, the auditors were stupefied. Stewart told the committee Deloitte was disturbed to see this in the RCMP court document made public last week, but couldn’t explain how the PMO might have gotten its hands on the audit’s conclusions in early March.
“That paragraph was troubling for us,” Stewart said. “I don’t know where that information came from, but it didn’t come from the investigative team.”
Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com
Author: Jordan Press
The Conservatives blocked one attempt to call senior Deloitte partner Michael Runia, the auditor of record for the Conservative party on Elections Canada documents, to answer questions about a call he made to Duffy’s audit team seeking confidential information.
The Tories could use their majority in the upper chamber next week to quash a similar motion from the Liberals to make Runia talk. That motion, due to be debated Tuesday, doesn’t include calling Sen. Irving Gerstein to testify — the man who allegedly asked Runia to intervene in the audit at the request of the Prime Minister’s Office.
The Tories in the Senate suggested Thursday that neither man should have to testify, and that the upper chamber received the answers it needed.
“For us, it’s not relevant,” said government Senate leader Claude Carignan. “They (the Liberals) asked last week to have a hearing with the auditors to explain if they had any interference and it was clear this morning there was not.”
Gerstein declined to comment on his way into the Senate chamber Thursday afternoon, shaking his head when asked questions, smiling and walking away.
“This just smells like another cover up and we don’t like it at all. We’re very disturbed by it,” said Liberal Sen. Jim Munson. “We have to put the puzzle together and the biggest piece right now is Mr. Runia.”
The audit team that reviewed Duffy’s expenses confirmed Thursday that Runia called them, making inappropriate inquiries about their study.
The admission came during a sometimes tense meeting of the Senate committee that oversaw Duffy’s audit, called after RCMP allegations surfaced last week of interference in what the auditors stressed was an independent, objective review of Duffy’s spending.
None of the three auditors who testified Thursday knew if Runia had called other members of the audit team, a group of about a dozen people who had access to various aspects of the Duffy file. About seven of those people were involved in writing the final report.
Runia was not invited to Thursday’s meeting. At the end of the meeting, Liberal senators tried unsuccessfully to have him called as a witness. The Conservative majority turned them down.
“I understand the optics very well,” said Conservative Sen. Gerald Comeau, the outgoing committee chairman. “It is the role of the opposition . . . to expand this whole thing and start somewhat of an amateur investigation, which is what we should be avoiding. Let the professionals, the RCMP . . . do this kind of investigation rather than us in an adversarial, partisan atmosphere.”
The RCMP has been looking into a $90,000 payment made to Duffy by Harper’s former chief of staff, Nigel Wright. That investigation has led the RCMP to make sweeping allegations against Duffy and Wright, suggesting that they may have committed fraud, breach of trust and possible bribery offences. No charges have been laid, nor have any allegations been tested in court.
Court documents filed by the RCMP allege that officials in Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office conspired to alter Deloitte’s conclusions, quash the Duffy audit, and prevented Duffy from giving the audit team any help.
According to a March 8 email quoted by the RCMP in filing released last week, a senior PMO official wrote that Gerstein “and his Deloitte contact” agreed that Duffy’s audit should end on repayment of his expenses, and their work was no longer needed. The email from parliamentary affairs manager Patrick Rogers goes on to say that Gerstein was waiting for Runia to allegedly get the “actual Deloitte auditors on the file to agree.”
The Senate committee was told that Runia called Gary Timm, one of the two lead auditors on the Duffy file, some time in March, weeks before the Senate’s internal economy committee heard the audit’s preliminary findings during a closed-door meeting April 16. During the call, Timm said, Runia asked how much Duffy’s bill would be if the embattled senator decided to repay his questionable housing expenses. Timm said he cut Runia off, explaining he couldn’t provide him confidential audit information.
“I wanted to keep everything confidential,” Timm said. “I wanted that call…to end shortly, so I ended it.”
Timm said he then informed his co-lead auditor, Alan Stewart, and his superior, Peter Dent, about the call. The three decided they wouldn’t report the call to their client, the Senate, because no confidential information had been leaked, nor did it have any effect on their conclusions.
“It didn’t affect our objectivity,” Dent said. “It had no bearing on the work we were doing. We didn’t have any greater context to the call.”
As for how the PMO had access to conclusions on March 1, as suggested in one email quoted in court documents, the auditors were stupefied. Stewart told the committee Deloitte was disturbed to see this in the RCMP court document made public last week, but couldn’t explain how the PMO might have gotten its hands on the audit’s conclusions in early March.
“That paragraph was troubling for us,” Stewart said. “I don’t know where that information came from, but it didn’t come from the investigative team.”
Original Article
Source: ottawacitizen.com
Author: Jordan Press
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