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Is there any other reason you would not be looking at an audit of MPs’ expenses?

“There certainly are differences in the two situations. One of the big differences is that you’re talking over 300 members of the House of Commons. We didn’t get any increase in our budget to do all of the work we did on the senators, so you can imagine sort of what effort and how much of our resources it would take to try and go in and do the same thing in the House of Commons.

“So at this point the main thing is: we’ve done this work. Hopefully the House of Commons is going to look at it, take it seriously, and look at the recommendations we’ve made. We’re talking about transparency, independent oversight, those sorts of things.”

Do you still think your audit was necessary even though the rules were starting to tighten up because of the charges against Mike Duffy and some other senators?

“The Senate’s decision to put in place an arbitration process, while it doesn’t cover off our whole recommendation about independence, I think a lot of that was driven by some of the things that we were finding in the audit. And what’s important is now everybody has a picture of what was happening with all 120 senators.”

Did you get a sense people were trying to undermine your credibility in the weeks leading up the report’s release?

“There’s no way to make that judgment. That would just sort of be pure speculation. I don’t think any of the leaks that have come out have lessened the impact of the report in any way. In actual fact, probably when you look at it and go back over it in the last little, it hasn’t done any damage.

“What’s important in the big picture is how are they going to start to control and be transparent and accountable for their spending into the future.”

lberthiaume@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/leeberthiaume