By Tina Comeau
Transcontinental Media
The province’s auditor general is not naming names but he says his office has asked the RCMP to investigate four former MLAs and one sitting MLA to determine if there was any criminal wrong-doing with their expense claims.
“Based on the results of my investigation, I believe four former Members and one current Member of the House of Assembly may have committed illegal acts related to their constituency expense claims,” Auditor General Jacques Lapointe writes in a May 18 report to House Speaker Charlie Parker.
“Due to the serious nature of my findings, I determined it would not be appropriate for my office to continue to do additional work in regard to these specific individuals,” he adds. “Accordingly, we referred our investigation files for these five individuals to the RCMP for criminal investigation.”
Lapointe says due to the sensitive nature of this investigation, it would not be appropriate for him to publically release the names and related details of the MLA files that have been passed on to the RCMP.
“Release of such information might hamper the criminal investigations,” he says.
Lapointe says he has not found any further evidence related to any other MLA that would warrant further investigation by his office.
