Andrew Leslie Has Some 'Splainin' To Do...

Liberals continue to be hopping mad over a CTV report that Liberal leader Justin Trudeau's prized military advisor, Lieutenant General (ret) Andrew Leslie, claimed $70,000 for a move across Ottawa. They -- and General Leslie -- insist that he's being smeared by the Conservative Party, and that he's done nothing wrong.

Yet a perusal of the Department of National Defense's policy manual for the Integrated Relocation Directive suggests that this may not actually be the case; that General Leslie's expense claim may not actually have been eligible.

Simply put, the "one last moved" allowed under the IRD is not necessarily to move absolutely anywhere:

Section 14.02.03 eventually refers the reader to section 14.08.02:

Leslie's IPP -- Intended Place of Residency -- was not in excess of 40 km away from the residence from which he moved. It was closer to four km away.

Oddly, John Geddes doesn't mention any of this in his Maclean's blogpost on the topic today.

Having spent years as a command officer in the Canadian Forces, it's not unreasonable to expect General Leslie to have a firm understanding of these policies. That he bothered to make a claim for these expenses at all is fairly questionable to say the least. That the Treasury Board approved this claim after presumably having examined it is far more than questionable.

Plenty of people have some 'splainin' to do, and Lt Gen (ret) Andrew Leslie is chief among them.