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Right, said Proulx, but at some point the Senate’s finance department got a travel claim from a senator that cited fundraising as the reason for taking a trip. The bureaucrats headed off to the Senate’s powerful committee on internal economy, which is in charge of the Senate’s administration, for a clarification.

“When we received a claim where it indicated ‘fundraising,’ by extension we asked, ‘If the intent was not to provide funds for charity through that budget, was the intent of the committee not to provide Senate resources for other similar types of event?'” Proulx said. “We were told yes, and that’s how we applied it.”

That happens regularly, she said. The Senate’s rules specifically say that they’re supplemented and expanded-upon by policies, guidelines and other documents, including decisions by the internal economy committee. When enough such decisions have accreted, somebody writes them up into a new policy, as happened with travel in 2012.

Before then, Bayne asked, how was someone supposed to know what the policy was on travel to fundraisers?

Word goes out to leading senators, who pass the information on in meetings. Sometimes there are clarifications. And, as multiple documents that senators get about how to do their jobs say, if something’s not clear, they should ask, Proulx said.

How did Proulx know about this when she started as finance director in 2008?

It was already the practice, she said, and was explained to her by finance manager Benoît Tremblay.

How did he know about it? When was he told? Who exactly told him? Proulx said she didn’t know. Bayne pounced.

“Where is the written record of the hearsay information you may have been given by Benoît Tremblay, who was told something by somebody undetermined, at some uncertain point in time?” he demanded.

It’s now in the 2012 travel policy, she told him. But no, there was no written account of the practice before then.

This is the nut of the case, really: If there was no specific rule against it, how was Mike Duffy supposed to know it was wrong?

dreevely@ottawacitizen.com

Twitter.com/davidreevely