Against duly elected representatives!
Let us now look at these exorbitant costs of this other House, by the way. According to the Auditor General's report of 1991, the Financial Administration Act could not apply to the Senate. The Auditor General says that the usual accountability mechanisms do not apply to the Senate. Without such mechanisms or appropriate alternatives, neither the Senate nor the people can be sure that it is managed with sufficient concern for economy and efficiency.
Moreover, the expenditures declared by senators in the public accounts are incomplete. The Auditor General's report tells us that neither the Senate's policies nor its practices provide assurance that all the amounts reimbursed were spent for the operation of the Senate. The Senate administrators cannot distinguish the Senate's operating expenses from the senators' personal expenses.
That is serious, Mr. Speaker. But what are the Senate's actual expenses? In 1990-91, the total budget of the Upper House was $40 million and today it is $43 million. Need I say that this is public money, funds provided by the taxpayers, and the Auditor General's report tells us that there is no control over this spending. Forty-three million dollars with which we could create jobs for the unemployed is wasted.
The senators have a very busy schedule but they still have plenty of free time. They sat for 29 days in the four months from February to May 1993 and they collect an annual salary of $64,400, which is public, plus a $10,000 non-taxable expense allowance, which is also public, to which we must add 64 travel points to which they are entitled and this is also public.
This is a little more than the average salary of taxpayers who work 40 hours a week. We could go on talking for a long time about what journalist Claude Picher in La Presse calls a list of horrors.
For example, based on the Auditor General's report for 1990-91, I would like to ask you a question now, Mr. Speaker. Because I do not know her division, can I name Senator Cochrane or not?