Opposition seeks hearing with Dion

OTTAWA • The parliamentary ethics committee will meet next week to hear a request by Conservative and NDP MPs that the federal ethics watchdog appear before the committee to answer questions about his damning report on the SNC-Lavalin affair.

Conservative MP Bob Zimmer, the committee chairman, has confirmed the meeting will take place next Wednesday.

In a letter sent to Zimmer on Thursday afternoon, Conservative committee members Peter Kent and Jacques Gourde requested the meeting, where they will move a motion to have Mario Dion appear. “This is incredibly concerning. These findings show that Justin Trudeau used the power of his office to reward his friends and punish his critics,” the Conservatives wrote. “Canadians deserve fulsome answers to the many remaining questions.”

In a separate letter on Wednesday, NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus made a similar request, and also asked that the committee consider inviting Trudeau, Finance Minister Bill Morneau and his former chief of staff, Ben Chin, “on account of their intimate connection to the matters at the heart of the report.”

Zimmer had the authority to call the meeting on his own, but the Liberals hold a majority on the committee and could vote down the motion to have Dion appear.

In March, the NDP moved a motion to have the ethics committee investigate the SNC-Lavalin affair, but it was voted down by the Liberal majority, who pointed to the fact that the ethics commissioner’s investigation was already underway.

The Conservatives are arguing that allowing Dion to appear would be consistent with past practice, as former ethics commissioner Mary Dawson testified to the House committee in January 2018 after reporting on Trudeau’s first breach of conflict-of-interest rules — his family vacation to the Aga Khan’s private island.

Conservative Leader Andrew Scheer also called on Wednesday for an RCMP investigation of the scandal. “What we have now is a clear picture (of ) who Justin Trudeau truly is, and it’s not who he promised he would be,” Scheer told reporters. “He promised he would be accountable and ethical. Instead, time and time again, he has used the power of his office to enrich himself, reward his friends and punish his critics.”

The NDP and Green party leaders, meanwhile, have both renewed their calls for a public inquiry into the scandal. “Canadians … deserve answers about the troubling new information in (Dion’s) report showing the close relationship between the Liberals and SNC-Lavalin’s corporate leadership,” NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said in a statement to the National Post. Green Leader Elizabeth May said a public inquiry is necessary to investigate what she called a “broken” system.