EDMONTON -- A northern Alberta MLA who was recently booted from the UCP caucus has agreed to repay meal expense payments that he collected in “error.”
Speaker of the House Nathan Cooper said Wednesday he had already addressed the issue with Lesser Slave Lake's Pat Rehn.
“I reached out to the member immediately as I would, when I became aware of any expenses that were not submitted appropriately and indicated to him that he would be required to repay those expenses. And he has agreed to that,” Cooper said.
However, Rehn will not have to appear in front of a legislature committee to explain how it happened.
At a Wednesday meeting of the Special Standing Committee on Member Services, NDP MLA Thomas Dang tried to bring forward a motion requiring Rehn to explain himself to the committee, but that effort was stopped by all six UCP MLAs with a vote.
All four NDP members voted in favour of bringing Dang’s motion forward.
“I understand that members of the public have been asking for this expense issue to be rectified. And that the member has publicly admitted that many of these expenses were claimed in error,” Dang told the committee.
He also cast doubt on Rehn’s explanation that his assistant was to blame for the mistake.
“Every member in this place knows that at the bottom of the expense claim you must personally certify that the expense was filed properly,” Dang said.
Cooper agreed Rehn was responsible for certifying his expense claims but said he didn’t think there was any need for further discussion.
It is unclear how much money Rehn collected that he should not have. Rehn has not returned several requests from CTV News Edmonton for an interview about this and other issues.
Rehn originally said on Facebook that he would cut his expenses in 2021 to make up for the overpayments.
A spokesperson for Cooper said Rehn will work with the Legislative Assembly to sort out which expenses were submitted erroneously and they will be corrected within 30 days.
