ryan29
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Posted: Thu Sep 06, 2007 4:18 pm
Two Liberal senators have pay docked for playing hooky
Jack Aubry, CanWest News Service
Published: 3:52 pm
OTTAWA - Two Liberal senators have been fined for spotty attendance in the upper chamber during the last session of Parliament.
Quebec businessman Paul Massicotte and Saskatchewan developer Bob Peterson, both of whom have kept their day jobs, used up all their leave days before facing financial penalties of $2,750 and $1,250, respectively.
A spokesperson with the Senate's communications department confirmed their cheques had been docked the amounts starting in April after the 21 days of leave each senator is allowed had been exhausted by absences from the Senate. The senators receive an annual salary of $122,700.
Massicotte was penalized for missing 11 sittings over the limit, at $250 a sitting, while Peterson was fined for missing seven.
Other senators who came close to fines by using up their 21 days of leave include Liberals Nick Sibbeston (two left), Peter Stollery (three left), Elizabeth Hubley (three left), Terry Mercer (four left) and Francis Fox (seven left) and Conservative Len Gustafson (four left). The majority of senators, who are not docked for illness or when they are performing "public business" outside the chamber, had more than 10 days of leave left during the session.
Peterson, who was appointed by former prime minister Paul Martin in 2005, said he missed the meetings for a combination of reasons and intends to improve his attendance in his last five years in the red chamber. He said his time has been occupied winding up his business, at Denro Holdings in Saskatchewan, where he has continued as president and chief operating officer since his appointment. As well, the 69-year-old Grit added that his wife had a serious operation which had kept him in Regina.
"Hopefully that is not going to be re-occurring. I enjoy the work in the Senate and intend to be there more often in my last five years," explained Peterson in a telephone interview from Regina.
There have been 113 Senate sittings - 62 in 2006 and 51 in 2007 - in the current session, which Prime Minister Stephen Harper brought to an end this week. The absent senators will now receive a new allotment of leave in the new session that begins in October with a speech from the throne.
Massicotte, who can sit for the next 20 years, has been called the most powerful person in Quebec harness racing after he became the owner of Quebec's four racetracks in 2005 with his company Attractions Hippiques Quebec Inc.
The 55-year-old senator could not be reached for comment. He is in Africa as a member of the Canada-Africa Parliamentary Association, visiting Dar es Salaam and Arusha in Tanzania and Kampala in Uganda from Sept. 2 to 8.
A press release on the trip says, among other things, that the group will meet officials of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda to discuss regional institutions and human rights, as well as "share Canada's experience with bilingual institutions."