PRIME MINISTER IN ETHICS PROBE.

PM faces inquiry under Conflict of Interest Code

OTTAWA • Mary Dawson, parliament’s ethics watchdog, has opened a first-of-itskind inquiry to determine if Prime Minister Justin Trudeau breached conflict of interest guidelines that apply to all MPs when Trudeau vacationed over the Christmas break on the private island owned by the Aga Khan.

The inquiry is the result of a complaint filed by Andrew Scheer, the Conservative MP and Conservative leadership candidate, who asked Dawson to determine if, by accepting a vacation on the Aga Khan’s island in the Bahamas, Trudeau violated the conflict-of-interest code.

“My complaint was about the acceptance of the vacation in the first place,” Scheer said Monday in a phone interview from Montreal. “Accepting that hospitality would have had a very high commercial value. It raises the appearance of a conflict of interest, accepting that kind of a gift from someone whose foundation receives tax dollars.”

The Aga Khan is the founder and a board member of The Aga Khan Foundation Canada, which has received hundreds of millions of federal dollars over the last decade for foreign aid projects.

In Trudeau’s first budget, last year, the foundation received $55 million for a project in Afghanistan.

When questioned in Parliament or by reporters about the trip, Trudeau has defended his actions, saying the Aga Khan is a close family friend.

Trudeau has admitted to another similar vacation in 2014, before he was prime minister but when he was an MP.

Under the conflict of interest code, MPs are permitted to accept gifts “received as a normal expression of courtesy or protocol, or within the customary standards of hospitality that normally accompany the (MP)’s position.”

Scheer received a notice Monday from Dawson’s office telling him Trudeau had provided her office with a response to his complaint.

Trudeau’s response was apparently not enough for Dawson. Having finished her preliminary investigation, Dawson wrote to Scheer Monday to say, “based on the information contained in the (complaint) and the response, I have determined an inquiry under the Code is warranted.”

Trudeau becomes the first prime minister in the eightyear history of the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to face a full inquiry under the Code.

“It tells me that his initial response was not enough to make this go away,” Scheer said. “Obviously, the ethics commissioner is not satisfied (on that) alone. The defence that they happened to be close friends is not sufficient to close this and she’s going to be pursuing this.”

Trudeau was in Washington, D.C. Monday meeting U.S. President Donald Trump and his only media availability occurred before Scheer received the letter from Dawson.

The Conflict of Interest Code is different from the Conflict of Interest Act and Trudeau may yet face a separate inquiry under the Act.

That Act, among other things, prohibits cabinet ministers from using private aircraft except under exceptional circumstances or with Dawson’s prior permission. Trudeau has admitted he used the Aga Khan’s helicopter to travel the 155 kilometres between Nassau, the capital of the Bahamas, and the Aga Khan’s island.

Trudeau did not ask for prior permission to do that and another Conservative MP, Blaine Calkins, filed a separate complaint with Dawson asking her to investigate Trudeau for a violation of the Act.

Calkins said Monday he had not had any communication from the ethics commissioner about the status of his complaint.