Morneau facing expanded questions
OTTAWA — Federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion is widening his investigation of Finance Minister Bill Morneau’s dealings with WE Charity.
Dion was already investigating Morneau and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for possible violations of the Conflict of Interest Act for not recusing themselves during cabinet discussions about an agreement to have WE Charity run a federal volunteering program for students who couldn’t find work in the COVID-19 pandemic. Both have apologized for not doing so.
Morneau’s problems grew bigger Wednesday over his repayment of $41,000 in WE-sponsored travel expenses for family trips three years ago, with Dion telling the opposition parties he would look into that potential ethics violation.
Rules prohibit ministers or their families from accepting free travel, lest it be seen as buying influence in government.
In letters released by NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus and Conservative critic Michael Barrett, responding to their complaints, the commissioner wrote he will look into whether Morneau ran afoul of that rule and a separate one for “failing to disclose these gifts” that could lead to a fine, albeit not a large one.
For Trudeau, the issues stem from speaking fees and related expense reimbursements the WE organization paid to his mother, brother, and wife, amounting to over $500,000 based on testimony the charity’s co-founders provided to the House of Commons finance committee Tuesday.
During an afternoon press conference on Wednesday, the Conservatives said the new numbers related to the travel expenses also demand an additional investigation by Dion to see if the payments violate conflictof-interest rules.
Dion rejected a call from the Tories to look into whether Morneau has failed to publicly declare previous recusals from cabinet decisions, saying they offered him no reasonable grounds to believe it happened.
It all landed on the eve of Trudeau’s own appearance at the Commons finance committee about the events that led to his cabinet to ask WE Charity to oversee a program that provides grants to students and graduates for volunteering if they couldn’t find work this summer due to the pandemic.
The partisan barbs and rhetoric on display Wednesday set the stage for a potentially contentious and rare prime ministerial appearance Thursday at a House of Commons committee.
“We want the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth,” Conservative finance critic Pierre Poilievre said in Ottawa.
He warned the Opposition would look to pry more testimony out of Trudeau this fall if he didn’t provide detailed answers.
NDP Leader Jagmeet Singh said he wanted Trudeau to explain why the Liberals opted to have the charity run a service program when there were other, potentially easier, avenues to help financially strapped students.
He cited increasing student grants or putting more money into the Canada Summer Jobs program as examples.
“This was never about helping students,” Singh said Wednesday in Burnaby, B.C.
“This was about helping close friends of the Liberal government and of Prime Minister Trudeau and that is deeply troubling.”
The Liberals budgeted $912 million for the student-volunteer program, but only agreed to pay a maximum of $543 million to WE.