Nunavut senator disputes part of AG’s expense claim findings

Senator Dennis Patterson on a visit to the Nunatsiaq News office in 2010. (FILE PHOTO)

(Updated June 9, 2015, 2:20 p.m.)
Nunavut Senator Dennis Patterson says he has already repaid $9,223 of the $22,985 in questionable expense claims which the Auditor General of Canada, in a report tabled today, says Patterson should not have received, including a $5,025 roundtrip to Vancouver in 2011 that was not related to parliamentary business.

But Patterson disputes the auditor general’s finding that he should repay the remainder, a $13,762 legal bill he incurred between 2011 and 2013, and will refer the issue to arbitrator Ian Binnie, the senator told Nunatsiaq News.

“In submitting anything to arbitration, we will be bound by the arbitrator’s decision. If it is deemed that I shall be personally responsible for this bill, I will pay it,” Patterson said in an embargoed interview.

The Auditor General of Canada’s exhaustive audit of senators’ expense claims went public just after 2 p.m. June 9, when Ferguson’s report was tabled in the Senate.

Senate leaders asked for the audit in the summer of 2013. This past May 26, with Ferguson’s report looming, the Senate appointed retired Supreme Court justice Ian Binnie to arbitrate any disputes arising from Ferguson’s audit.

In his audit, which covers the two-year period between April 2011 and March 2013, the auditor general found that 30 sitting and retired Liberal and Conservative senators owe the taxpayer an accumulated total of nearly one million dollars in expense payments they should not have received.

Much of that information has already been reported in national media, because of leaks to reporters.

Patterson was named in a story CTV News published June 7 containing a complete list of senators who received questionable payments.

The CTV News story reported Patterson owes $22,985.

“The number is accurate,” Patterson said.

However, he said he has now repaid $9,223 of that amount and does not disagree with the auditor general’s findings on that particular portion of his expense claims.

The auditor general’s report says that as of May 7, Patterson had repaid $6.200

Those payments were for:

• travel expenses totalling $5,205 for an Ottawa to Vancouver roundtrip from Oct. 27 to Oct. 31, 2011 related to a fundraising event for a non-political charity that is deemed not to be parliamentary business — that amount has been repaid in full;

• $995 for a trip to Pangnirtung that did not meet the criteria for parliamentary business, which has been repaid in full; and,

• a media monitoring contract, worth $3,023 over two years, that Patterson gave to an employee of his office, which the employee did on his own time from his home.

“It was pointed out to me that this was not proper because one cannot be an employee and a contractor and so I cancelled that contract and paid back the money,” Patterson said of the third item.

He’s not the only northern senator to be enmeshed within the Senate’s long-running expense-claim scandal.

Nick Sibbeston, 71, a Senate Liberal and a former Northwest Territories premier, owes $50,102.

And Bill Rompkey, 79, the retired Liberal MP and senator from Labrador, owes $17,292. His case has been referred to “other authorities,” likely the RCMP.

But the name of Charlie Watt, 70, a Senate Liberal from Nunavik, does not appear on the list. Neither does the name of Dan Lang, 67, the Conservative senator for Yukon.

As for the disputed $13,762, Patterson said that’s for a legal bill run up by an expert constitutional lawyer he hired in 2011.

Patterson, in a 500-word reply to the auditor general’s report, said he engaged the lawyer after the Law Clerk of the Senate suggested he “ask about the unique situation of a senator representing the territory of Nunavut under the constitution of Canada.”

Prime Minister Stephen Harper appointed Patterson, now 66, to the Senate on Aug. 27, 2009.

Though Patterson had lived in Iqaluit for many years in the past and represented Iqaluit in the Northwest Territories legislature between 1979 and 1995, he was living in Vancouver at the time of his senate appointment.

At the same time, he discovered that Nunavut’s lease-hold system for properties within municipalities might technically prevent any Nunavut resident from serving in the Senate.

That’s because of a provision in the Constitution Act, dating to 1867, that says a senator must own $4,000 worth of “freehold” property in the province they represent.

“It’s quite an arcane clause in the Constitution Act, which has quite a lot of medieval terms in it,” Patterson said.

At the same time, the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement bans the use of freehold, or fee simple, title within each Nunavut municipality, unless it’s overturned by a plebiscite.

“There was quite a bit of legal work done. I found out it’s a complex question because it involves not only the Constitution Act of 1867 but also the 1993 Nunavut Land Claims Agreement,” Patterson said.

The work done by the constitutional lawyer who Patterson hired ended up stretching from 2011-12 into the 2012-13 fiscal year, when Patterson had the Senate pay the final invoice.

But the auditor general found that was improper, Patterson said.

“What the auditor general found is that is was improper to have paid the invoice over two fiscal years,” he said.

And then long after the bill had been paid, Patterson, during the course of the audit discovered that he could have applied to a special fund called the Senate Legal Assistance and Indemnification Policy.

“Had I known that fund was available, I would have applied and I think I would have had an opportunity to have this bill paid for through it, rather than from my limited office budget,” Patterson said.

He said the bill was not for “personal legal assistance” but for legal work on a constitutional issue related to a parliamentary matter.

“I thought this would be important to get this carefully researched by a constitutional lawyer, not just for me but for future Nunavut senators,” he said.

In the end, the lawyer Patterson hired never completed the work — because he moved to another law firm.

In any case, Patterson said he has referred the matter to Binnie for arbitration and will abide by whatever Binnie decides.

The auditor general’s findings have brought embarrassment to Conservative and Liberal senators alike.

The Senate Liberal leader, James Cowan, the Conservative leader in the Senate, Jean Carignan and the Conservative speaker of the Senate, Leo Housakos, all have to repay money to the taxpayer.

Five senators owe a combined total of more than $555,000 and the cases of nine senators have been referred to the RCMP.