Now that Auditor General Michael Ferguson has wrapped up his two-year review of Senators' expenses, he thinks it might be worthwhile to do something similar in the House of Commons.

"It would be good for there to be an external audit role in terms of members of parliament's spending," Ferguson told Rosemary Barton in an interview on CBC Radio's The House.

"We're ready to play whatever role the House of Commons wants us to play in terms of doing audits," Ferguson said.

This comes after the Auditor General's comprehensive $23.5 million investigation into the expenses of individual senators. It flagged 30 current and former senators for questionable spending.

In terms of a House of Commons audit, Ferguson admits his office doesn't have the money for a full review of all 308 MPs.

Regardless, he says there's still a role his office should play which the House should determine.

"The House of Commons needs to look at the recommendations we've made in the report and use that as a starting point to determine what improvements they need to make in the way that they manage the expenses of their members," he said.

Auditor General Michael Ferguson outlines his feelings on how an audit of MPs expenses could happen, and why it is important. 1:18

The fallout

Several of the 30 senators named in Ferguson's report have criticized and challenged his findings. They plan on going through the Senate's arbitration process, which will be overseen by retired Supreme Court of Canada justice Ian Binnie.

Ferguson says the criticism from the senators doesn't come as a surprise.

"I understand that these people have been named in a very public way and... they have a natural reaction to defend themselves," he said. "We were very careful with how we approached these audits. We were very cognizant of the fact we were dealing with people and people's reputations."

Yet he reiterated the named senators weren't being transparent and open with their expenses and that his audit was justified.

"The senators are not used to being in a world where somebody is coming in looking at the principles and the rules and applying them in sort of a very, let's call it, a rigorous and strict manner," he added.

Report recommendations 'the way forward'

Ferguson told Barton that he's happy with his report's findings. He says it lays out clear guidelines as to how the Senate should operate to avoid future issues.

"We've given them the way forward, we've given them a roadmap for what they need to do," he said.

"We've made those recommendations because we think that those are the critical ingredients to restoring Canadians confidence in how the Senate manages these expenses."

After the report's release, Senate Speaker Leo Housakos spoke to reporters and seemed hesitant to adopt all of the recommendations in the report.

Housakos said the Senate would look at all the recommendations and institute them "step-by-step going forward."

This cautious approach makes Ferguson a bit skeptical.

"If they think there's another way to deal with some of the issues other than what we recommended, what they're going to have to do is convince Canadians why their proposal is going to be sufficient to cover off the issue," he said. "The Senate needs to find a way to resolve those issues of the past as quickly as possible so that they can get onto the road forward."