The RCMP is seeking hotel bills for Mike Duffy after new court documents show the suspended senator and his wife stayed in hotels for several weeks in Charlottetown, P.E.I., during the winter.
The Mounties say Duffy spent 35 nights in Charlottetown hotels between 2009 and 2012, rather than at what he has claimed as his primary residence in Cavendish, a rural community located approximately 38 kilometres northwest of the city.
The RCMP says at times, Duffy charged the Senate more than $1,000 a month for a room for him and his wife.
Last week, lead investigator Cpl. Greg Horton received a search warrant for hotel records.
In the court document, Horton says he believes “those records will provide evidence of the named offences showing that Sen. Duffy stays in hotels when visiting P.E.I. during winter months, not his declared primary residence.”
Horton said in reviewing Duffy’s personal calendar and credit-card statements, he found the embattled senator collected nearly $90,000 from the Senate, “claiming his primary residence is a cottage that he does not live in for at least four months of each year.”
"During the 16 winter months that I examined, consisting of 481 days, I could only identify 35 nights that he spent in P.E.I.,” Horton said. “I cannot identify any nights during that period when he stayed at his cottage in Cavendish.”
But Duffy claims he only stayed in Charlottetown during winter storms, when his house in Cavendish was “snowed in.”
Duffy’s assistant told Horton that during short visits Duffy also “preferred to stay closer to the airport to arrive on time.”
Liberal MP Scott Andrews said being stranded by weather can be justified, but “when you are only 25 minutes from your home – your home is your home and what’s what he had claimed.”
Horton is now looking at five years’ worth of hotel records, including methods of payment, to see when Duffy checked in and out of rooms in Charlottetown.
NDP MP Meghan Leslie said the latest details of the RCMP investigation illustrate “that kind of brash entitlement that Senator Duffy is showing, by coming forward and saying, ‘No, no, no, I live in P.E.I. This is my home. This where I live.'”
Duffy, along with Senators Patrick Brazeau and Pamela Wallin, was suspended from the Upper Chamber in early November over questionable expense claims.
While Patrick Brazeau faces charges of fraud and breach of trust, Duffy and Wallin have not been charged.
Former Liberal Senator Mac Harb, who is also facing charges, has repaid $231,000 for ineligible expenses related to housing and travel. He resigned from the Senate in August.
With the threat of criminal charges, Duffy has declined all comment on the police investigation.
