Duffy charges could give senators some sleepless nights ahead of Auditor General’s report

Canada's current senators might be feeling a little uneasy these days in light of the recent charges against their former colleague Mike Duffy.

On Monday — via court documents — we learned that the Mounties allege that Duffy filed five inappropriate expense claims associated with personal attendance at funerals and related ceremonies; filed eight different expense claims for personal or partisan travel; and fraudulently awarded a $65,000 contract to his friend and funneled that money to others including a make-up artist and personal trainer.

Duffy has denied any wrongdoing and says that he looks forward to defending himself in court.

But what about the other senators?

Could they find themselves in the same boat as Duffy?

[ Related: Duffy accused of charging for personal trainer, makeup artist, funeral travel ]

Auditor General Michael Ferguson is currently investigating all the expenses of all the senators.

Gregory Thomas of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation says that he expects "many senators" will be found to have claimed inappropriate expenses.

"There have been rumours that some have already paid money back to the Senate as a result of the audit," Thomas told Yahoo Canada News, chiding the upper chamber's lack of checks and balances.

"Paying the money back is fine, but the auditor general should not allow Senators to buy their way out of being accountable for their misuse of taxpayer dollars. Every specific inappropriate expense claim needs to be made public.

"Could there be more RCMP investigations and more charges? Yes, of course there could. There is no reason to expect that Duffy, Wallin, Brazeau and Harb are the only four Senators who claimed inappropriate expenses."

[ Related: Five outstanding questions about the charges against Mike Duffy and his pending trial ]

Patrick Boyer — a former Conservative MP and author of "Our Scandalous Senate — had this clever metaphor on CKNW radio, last week, when speaking about the audit:

"When we were boys, we lift up a rock or log and we'd see what was under it: it would be all types of crawling things, right?"

Ferguson is expected to table his final report sometime in March of 2015.

(Photo courtesy of The Canadian Press)

Are you a politics junkie?
Follow@ politicalpoints on Twitter!