Conservatives want former Morneau chief of staff’s testimony

OTTAWA – The Conservatives want former PMO and Finance senior staffer Elder Marques to testify in front of the ethics committee on the WE Charity scandal.

The Tories hope to summon Marques — who left his job as chief of staff to former Finance Minister Bill Morneau soon after the latter’s resignation last summer — “to testify to his knowledge of conflicts of interest and lobbying,” according to a copy of the motion obtained by Postmedia News.

There is no date set for his summon, but if it collects enough support from committee members as written, the motion says that Marques should testify within one week of its adoption.

According to the Conservatives, the idea is to give Marques a chance to explain his perspective of the WE Charity scandal as former top staffer to Morneau.

Morneau resigned from government late last summer amid growing tensions between himself and Prime Minister Justin Trudeau over COVID-19 economic policies as well as his involvement with WE Charity.

The Conservative motion comes only days after Marques created shockwaves in front of the federal defence committee by revealing that he’d told Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford, about sexual misconduct allegations against former Chief of Defence Staff Jonathan Vance.

The Conservatives also want to grill Marques on reports by Vice and Postmedia News last summer that Telford’s husband Rob Silver had repeatedly pushed the Trudeau government to make changes to the federal wage subsidy in a failed bid to make his employer eligible for the multibillion-dollar aid program.

At the time, sources said that Silver contacted Marques and another staffer at Morneau’s office multiple times in April to express his frustration about his employer’s — private mortgage company MCAP — ineligibility for the aid program.

MCAP has denied any wrongdoing in the affair.