OTTAWA — The RCMP has filed new documents in court alleging Pamela Wallin submitted 21 travel expense claims to the Senate for reimbursement for private and business trips to Toronto and Guelph.
The allegations are spelled out in documents seeking a court order to compel BMO Nesbitt Burns, Bell Media and the University of Guelph to produce all documentation related to Wallin's expenses.
They are on top of documents filed in court earlier this month by the Mounties alleging that the disgraced senator defrauded the Senate by making 150 "suspicious" expense claims.
The RCMP alleges Wallin committed breach of trust and fraud over $5,000.
No charges have been laid against Wallin, who was suspended from the Senate last year and none of the allegations has been proven in court.
Wallin — who sat on the advisory board for BMO Nesbitt Burns, served as an independent director for CTV Globemedia and served as chancellor of the University of Guelph — has been under investigation by the Mounties for the last 18 months.
They have already charged two other former Conservative senators, Mike Duffy and Patrick Brazeau, and one retired Liberal senator, Mac Harb, with making fraudulent expense claims. All three maintain their innocence.
In the latest court documents, the RCMP alleges that between March 4, 2009, and Sept. 5, 2012, Wallin filed fraudulent expense claims to the Senate in the amount of $25,567 for personal and business trips to Toronto and Guelph.
One of those trips was for a BMO board event, eight were for CTV events and 12 were for events at the University of Guelph and Humber College, the RCMP alleges.
"Sen. Wallin, when questioned during an external audit, misrepresented the nature of these trips to Toronto, and at time, fabricating meetings which the RCMP was able to determine (through interviews) to have not taken place as asserted by Sen. Wallin," Cpl. Rudy Exantus wrote in the documents.
"In doing so, I believe Sen. Wallin breached the standard of responsibility and conduct demanded of her and by the nature of her office. I believe that Sen. Wallin's conduct represent(s) a serious and marked departure from the standards expected of a Canadian senator."
Liberal Leader Justin Trudeau says the whole Senate scandal throws the judgement of Prime Minister Stephen Harper — who appointed Wallin, Brazeau and Duffy — into question.
"First appointing Ms. Wallin and Mr. Duffy to the Senate to be Conservative fundraisers and then actually reassuring the House on multiple occasions ... that Ms. Wallin's expenses were not out of the ordinary and were perfectly fine," Trudeau said.
"I think we're seeing the RCMP have a different mind set on that."
NDP MP Charlie Angus urged the RCMP to continue investigating.
"The fact that someone who was so trusted by the prime minister appears to have used her position as a public senator using public funds to travel across the country, sitting on all manner of corporate boards, that does need to be investigated," he said.
"We are talking about a breach of trust and we're talking about defrauding the Canadian taxpayer."
