OTTAWA—Conservative Sen. Nancy Ruth says the auditors combing through the travel expenses paid to denizens of the Upper Chamber just do not understand the life and work of a senator.

“Most of their questions are not very sophisticated nor do they really have anything to do with Senate business,” she told reporters Wednesday about her experience dealing with the Office of the Auditor General as it conducts a large-scale forensic investigation into Senate reimbursements.

There was the time, for example, when they asked why her assistant had filed claims for breakfast when Nancy Ruth should have eaten the breakfast included with her flight.

“Well, those (free) breakfasts are pretty awful. If you want ice-cold Camembert with broken crackers, you can have it,” Nancy Ruth said.

The impromptu trashing of executive-class airplane food by the Conservative senator for Ontario came as reporters asked her about a report by CTV News Tuesday night naming some of the senators who have received follow-up letters from auditor general asking them to account for questionable claims.

A sourced confirmed to the Star on Wednesday that at least 44 senators have received such letters and that one of them is former Liberal senator Rose-Marie Losier-Cool, who was asked to explain some $100,000 in claims.

“I’m sorry, I don’t have any comment,” Losier-Cool said Wednesday when reached by telephone before hanging up.

CTV News also said at least one senator has already paid back a claim flagged by auditors, who have been examining the expense claims of more than 100 senators, past and present, to see whether senators should have been reimbursed for flights, meals and other perks related to Senate business.

Senators and staffers have been quietly grumbling for months about just how strictly the auditors are interpreting the rules and that a sandwich plate passed around a reception, for example, should mean no suppertime meal charged to the Senate.

They were getting little sympathy from NDP ethics critic Wednesday.

“I think what Canadians are smart enough to know is here is a bunch of whiny senators trying to deflect attention from the fact that they have had no oversight, no accountability, so they are trying to pretend that this huge number that has been wracked up is because they had some sandwiches at meetings. I don’t buy that,” Charlie Angus said Wednesday.

Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau, who kicked senators out of Liberal caucus earlier this year, said he worries that more bad headlines of misspending will undermine public trust in Parliament.

“I am always worried about the fact that Canadians are incredibly cynical about what goes on in Parliament and what goes on across our democratic institutions,” he said.

The concerns of Nancy Ruth, though, go beyond her taste in cheese to whether Auditor General Michael Ferguson and his staff have a solid understanding of what it means to be a senator.

“I think Senate business is very broad. I’m a feminist activist, so my angle on Canadian life is to look at gender-based analysis on policy and things like that. I don’t think the auditor general particularly considers that Senate business. Or if I gave a speech somewhere and it was of that nature, they may or may not,” she told reporters Wednesday.

Government Conservative Sen. Claude Carignan, the leader of government in the Senate, did not say Wednesday whether he shared those concerns.

“Let the auditor general do his job. Our job is to assist, to help, to respond to his questions and we hope the report will be tabled in the coming weeks,” said Carignan, who also noted senators had all signed confidentiality agreements.

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Ghislain Desjardins, a spokesman for Ferguson, said his office is “concerned” that details have been shared with the media.

“We work very hard to protect the information contained in the draft versions of our reports because it is only the final report — the one that is tabled — which accurately represents our audit findings and conclusions,” Desjardins wrote in an email Wednesday.