The lawyer for Mike Duffy will continue to cross-examine a Senate human resources officer today, building on his case that the institution is administered by broad and vague rules and guidelines with no oversight of work contracts submitted by senators.
Sonia Makhlouf, whose job is to assess Senate research contracts and ensure the services being billed pertain to parliamentary business, will take the stand for her second day. Duffy's lawyer, Donald Bayne, is expected to finish his questioning of Makhlouf this morning at the Ottawa provincial courthouse, but the Crown could redirect.
Duffy has pleaded not guilty to 31 charges of fraud, breach of trust and bribery related to expenses he claimed as a senator and later repaid with money provided by the prime minister's former chief of staff.
On Tuesday, Bayne peppered Makhlouf with questions about senators' office budgets, and got her to concede that senators have broad administrative discretion when it comes to deciding how to use their office budgets, including who they can hire and the duties of their researchers.
But he also zeroed in on the research contracts themselves, and the lack of oversight relating to, as he put it, "whether the work was done, what was done, who did [the work], whether there was value for money for the taxpayer."
Makhlouf also noted that only basic information is provided in contracts, including a couple of lines describing the services to be provided, and the signature of the senator. She said human resource and finance officials are often left in the dark about the work done because it's all carried out at the discretion of the senator.
On Monday, Makhlouf's testimony was used by the Crown to build its case alleging the suspended senator charged taxpayers for non-Senate business through contracts with his friend, Gerald Donohue. Those services included payments to a volunteer, a makeup artist and a personal trainer, and for an enlarged photo of family members and one of Barbara Bush.
Makhlouf had testified that Senate contracts would not be awarded based on those services because none of them would be considered parliamentary work.
But Bayne challenged some of that testimony Tuesday, referring to the Senators' handbook on the use of Senate resources. He said those guidelines clearly state that items such as advertising, publicity, film development and photographic services can all be properly billed as expenses.
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