TRUDEAU BROKE ETHICS RULES, WATCHDOG FINDS
PM suffers stings, bites in Aga Khan vacation report
The prime minister could be forgiven if he looks at recent byelections and the performance of the leaders aligned against him and feels as unbeatable as Achilles.
But his vulnerable heel has always been the sense of entitlement that is only occasionally on public display.
With the release of the investigation by the ethics commissioner into Justin Trudeau’s Christmas vacation on an island in the Bahamas owned by the Aga Khan, there it was for all to see — and it has pierced his impregnability like a poisoned arrow.
Mary Dawson has been justly criticized for being too tentative in her dealings with her political masters in the past. But in her valedictory report Wednesday, she took a hard line, as if years of pent-up frustration were bursting forth.
She found the prime minister guilty of contravening the Conflict of Interest Act on four counts, while clearing him on a further three. The political reaction was swift. “It just seems there’s these two worlds,” said NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh. “There’s the world everyone else lives in, where people are struggling to make ends meet. And then there’s the other world where people who are wealthy and well-connected and powerful think the laws don’t apply to them.”
The investigation stemmed from a family vacation from Dec. 26 to Jan. 4 last Christmas, which, it is fair to say, would have remained a private affair had it not been revealed by the National Post.
Once it became public, the Opposition charged that the hospitality extended by the Aga Khan might be deemed to be a gift that could reasonably be seen to have influenced Trudeau in the exercise of his official duty — in contravention of the act.
There i s an exception for gifts from relatives or friends, but Dawson did not accept Trudeau’s contention that the Aga Khan, the spiritual leader of 15 million Ismaili Muslims, is a family friend, as defined by the act.
While there i s no evidence that the prime minister made any decisions that benefited the Aga Khan or any of his interests in Canada, she said Trudeau was wrong to accept the gifts of hospitality because there was ongoing official business between the government of Canada and the Aga Khan at the time.
She detailed the occasions when the Aga Khan Foundation, which is registered to lobby the Prime Minister’s Office, did so to secure funds promised by Stephen Harper’s Conservative government, and to advance a $ 200- million riverside revitalization project in Ottawa that is close to the Aga Khan’s heart.
By flying to Bells Cay on the Aga Khan’s private helicopter, Trudeau also contravened the section of the act that blocks public office holders from accepting travel not required in their official capacity.
In a thorough investigation that saw Dawson’s office receive documentation from 14 witnesses, she interviewed the prime minister twice.
His i nterpretation of events is fascinating. His father, former prime minister Pierre Trudeau, had formed a firm friendship with the Aga Khan while he was in office, and in 1983 the two families went on a vacation to the Greek islands. He even revealed he refers to the Aga Khan as “Uncle K.”
Yet the younger Trudeau had no interactions with the Aga Khan in the 30 years between that vacation and his election as Liberal leader in 2013, with the exception of his father’s funeral in 2000, where he said he felt “instant recognition, instant closeness” to the Aga Khan.
Dawson asked why he had not maintained relations in the interim. Trudeau replied that as a teacher, he did not feel he had attained the level of success or authority that would have allowed him to have a peer-to-peer relationship. It was only when he became leader of the party that he became comfortable enough to feel the two could have conversations as equals.
Dawson did not buy this uncharacteristic display of humility and concluded that while she was of the view that Trudeau and the Aga Khan have developed a warm relationship based on family history, “I also see it as unlikely that the invitation would have been given to Mr. Trudeau or his family had there not been official interaction between the government of Canada and the Aga Khan and had Mr. Trudeau not become a significant player on the Canadian political scene.”
Contact between the two resumed with Trudeau’s accession to the Liberal leadership with dinners and occasional phone calls but, as Dawson noted, always through official channels and on headed notepaper.
Trudeau and his wife met the Aga Khan for dinner at his residence in Paris while the prime minister attended the UN Climate Change conference in November 2015.
Trudeau characterized the conversation in Paris as being personal in nature but documentation submitted by representatives of the Aga Khan Foundation suggested the riverside revitalization project was raised over dinner.
When he was shown this version of events, Trudeau testified that a conversation with the Aga Khan about the proposed riverfront project would have occurred in Paris.
Trudeau said t he Aga Khan told him of his interest in the project and his desire to improve the area, to which he said he would have replied that it sounded good.
That project has not reached fruition and Heritage Minister Melanie Joly testified it is not a priority for her department.
Still, the mere discussion should have raised red flags that this was a business arrangement as much as a personal friendship, and that it might not be a good idea to allow his wife and kids to go to Bells Cay in March 2016 for a spring break vacation.
In mid- July 2016, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau contacted the Aga Khan’s daughter to inquire whether her family could return to the island over Christmas. Trudeau said it offered the privacy and security the family needed.
It was on that trip that the Trudeaus were joined by the Aga Khan and his family, exchanging gifts and enjoying meals where the conversation was “personal and social in nature.”
Trudeau maintains that he considers the Aga Khan a family friend and that no requests for funding or assistance in any matter were made.
But Dawson took a dim view of his interpretation, given that discussions about business between the Aga Khan and the government of Canada were ongoing at the time of both the March and December trips.
“That should have put Mr. Trudeau on notice that such gifts might reasonably be seen to have been given to influence him in the exercise of an official power, duty of function as prime minister, or otherwise give rise to a real or apparent conflict of interest.”
It’s pretty damning stuff. The only favour Dawson has done the prime minister, by accident or design, is to release the report after the House of Commons has risen.
More characteristically than his earlier display of diffidence was Trudeau’s reaction — contrition without admission of wrongdoing (he maintains the Aga Khan is a family friend, therefore, l ogically he believes the hospitality gift should be exempt conflict of interest rules).
He will clear all future family vacations with the ethics commissioner, he said, and his family is heading to the Harrington Lake retreat and the Rockies this Christmas just to be on the safe side.
No wonder t he prime minister has already revealed he is planning to roll up his sleeves and hit the road on another town- hall listening tour next month — his patrician roots are showing.
It’s all smells a bit like the episode of The Crown where the Queen is persuaded to open up Buckingham Palace to car dealers, bus drivers and bank clerks.
As the Queen Mother remarked: “The stings and bites we suffer….”