Morneau vows to donate business gains to charity

OTTAWA — Bill Morneau made further attempts on Thursday to silence accusations that he has profited from decisions he has taken as federal finance minister.

He announced he’ll donate to charity any gains in the value of his family business’s shares since he was elected two years ago.

But that announcement was immediately undercut by news that the federal ethics watchdog is looking into opposition accusations that Morneau was in a conflict of interest when he introduced a pension bill that could benefit Morneau Shepell — his family’s pension management and human resources firm in which the minister still owns about $21 million worth of shares.

“Your letter leaves me with concerns in relation to Mr. Morneau’s involvement with Bill C-27,” ethics commissioner Mary Dawson wrote Thursday in response to a complaint lodged last week by NDP ethics critic Nathan Cullen.

“Consequently, I will follow up with Mr. Morneau and will inform you of the outcome in due course.”

Morneau announced last week that he will sell all of his roughly one million shares in Morneau Shepell and put all his other considerable assets in a blind trust.

He went one step further on Thursday. He announced that he will donate to charity the difference in the value of the shares between the date he was elected in 2015 and the day they’re sold.

Morneau made the announcement in the House of Commons after meeting with Dawson. He said later that she agreed this additional action was “appropriate.”

Morneau said he doesn’t know how much his decision will wind up costing him but it could be as much as $5 million.

The announcement did little to quell opposition accusations that Morneau’s failure to divest his Morneau Shepell shares or put them in a blind trust when he first took office two years ago put him in blatant conflict of interest.

Cullen quickly labelled the donation “guilt money.”