Joly staffer involved in Meilleur's selection

OTTAWA • A former staffer in the office of Ontario premier Kathleen Wynne who now works for federal Heritage Minister Mélanie Joly was involved in the selection of Madeleine Meilleur as official languages commissioner this spring, newly released documents show.

Joly jumped through hoops to hide her staff’s participation in the process, said NDP languages critic François Choquette, who obtained the documents under accessto-information law and provided them to the National Post.

“We knew that there was something very, very strange about this process,” he said Thursday. “I think it was a lack of transparency since the beginning.”

The federal Liberals were accused of blatant partisanship after announcing Meilleur’s appointment as commissioner on May 15, less than a year after the former cabinet minister in Ontario’s Liberal government announced her departure from provincial politics.

They insisted the process had been merit-based and that Meilleur was simply the most qualified candidate. But controversy erupted, worsened by revelations that Joly employed three staff who had worked for the Ontario Liberals. Two of them had worked directly under Meilleur. A third, Caroline Séguin, had left a position as Wynne’s executive director of intergovernmental affairs to become Joly’s policy director in early 2016.

On June 1, less than a week before Meilleur removed herself from consideration for the job, Joly stood in the House of Commons to defend her staff. “The individuals who have had previous contact with Madeleine Meilleur in the past were never part of the process and were in no way involved in Madeleine Meilleur’s appointment,” she said during question period.

However, while Séguin does not appear to have been part of the formal selection committee — which included two members of the Prime Minister’s Office — the documents, though substantially redacted, contain emails showing Séguin was being kept abreast of details about the appointment as early as March.

In February 2017, Boyden Ottawa, a headhunting firm that had been awarded an almost $77,000 contract to help find a new commissioner, held a conference call to discuss a “long list” of potential candidates. Documents say 72 people had applied and Boyden “screened in” 28.

Boyden ultimately found 11 candidates appeared to be “the most aligned” with the role, according to the documents, and Joly interviewed an even smaller number.

Séguin was on the list of invitees to an “executive search debrief teleconference” at the end of March, and in early April was in a list of recipients of a redacted email addressed to “selection committee members.” It was roughly three weeks after that email, on April 26, that Meilleur was informed she would be nominated.

While Séguin may not have worked directly under Meilleur, Choquette said Thursday, she reported to Wynne, Meilleur’s boss. And it is the appearance of a coverup by Joly that makes the situation look fishy, he said.

“We knew that it was really strange since the beginning and that she was trying to hide a lot of stuff,” he said. “And the first thing that she was trying to hide was (the involvement of) Madame Caroline Séguin. Because she was so nearby the last Liberal government of the province of Ontario that she knew it would look like a biased process.”

The Liberals still haven’t appointed a new languages commissioner in the wake of Meilleur’s withdrawal. They are also past due in appointing new ethics, lobbying and information commissioners.

The PMO did not respond before deadline to a request for comment, but on the subject of appointments Privy Council Office spokesman Stéphane Shank had recently told the Post that “the government is committed to identifying the most qualified candidates through open, transparent and merit-based selection processes, and will take as long as is required to find the right people for these important positions.”