It is, I suggest, understandable that in her recent letter to the editor titled “Enough on expenses already” (Gazette, April 29) Shelley Carey conflates Nolan Crouse’s improprieties with the merits of expense claims by the other councillors.
After all, creating this type of confusion was the very purpose of Draper’s tactical move to shift the investigation from Crouse’s actions to a general review of all councillor’s expenses. However, if the situation is examined objectively the actions of Crouse and those of the rest of council fall into two distinctly separate categories.
In Crouse’s case we have allegations of:
1. Using a private corporation to circumvent the clear reporting rules of the City relating to outside remunerations.
2. Claiming the same expense from both the City of St. Albert and the CRB repeatedly over an extended period of time.
3. Claiming expenses for events he never attended.
4. Claiming expenses for events, which never occurred.
5. Claiming mileage for miles that were never driven.
The intrinsic natures of these actions has the attributes of deliberate deception and dishonesty and raise the spectre of fraud since it is clear that the taxpayers were deprived.
In the case of all of the other councillors, we have:
1. A councillor incurs an expense related to their duties as a councillor (e.g. purchase of a pen or briefcase).
2. The councillor submits an expense claim to only one entity namely the City of St. Albert.
3. The Administration reviews the expense and accepts it as a valid expense claim.
It may, of course, be arguable that as a matter of policy pens and briefcases should, in the future, be excluded from allowable expenses. However, the expense claim was openly and honestly submitted and the administration openly and honestly accepted that claim. There was no deliberate deception and dishonesty and there was no suggestion of fraud.
The two cases are fundamentally and categorically different. It is for that reason that the attempt to conflate Crouse’s actions with the expense claims of the rest of council does nothing to clarify the discussion.
Gord Hennigar, St. Albert
