Gaping loophole needs to be shut

So it turns out federal Finance Minister Bill Morneau is not alone in holding shares in Canadian companies that could benefit from government decisions.

The same loophole that allowed Morneau to not sell his shares in his family company is allowing a few other ministers to do the same thing. Same thing for ministers in previous governments, presumably.

The law says ministers have to declare their corporate ownership and place the shares in a blind trust in order to remain above conflict of interest issues.

But if those shares are held through a holding company or a similar mechanism, they don’t need to be sold.

This is a gaping loophole that should have been closed years ago. But it was never raised as an issue before now. Why not?

Possibly because Morneau is the poster boy for wealthy Canadian politicians. Possibly because the government’s tax fairness initiative raised the ire of powerful business interests. Regardless, now the loophole needs to be hammered shut. There’s a bigger story here. It’s the one about the office of federal ethics commissioner Mary Dawson.

She advised Morneau from the start that he didn’t need to move his shares to a blind trust, that he had sufficient conflict protection through the system that governs holding companies in Alberta and Ontario.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said at a news conference in Montreal: “I’m saying to Canadians that it’s important for all parliamentarians to follow the recommendations made to them by the ethics commissioner. And I can reassure Canadians, as the minister of finance has done many times, that he did in fact follow all the recommendations she made to him.”

Dawson told Morneau he was following the rules. He should have known better and put his shares in a blind trust even though he wasn’t required to.

That he didn’t suggests a certain tone deafness when it comes to wealthy politicians and ordinary citizens.

However, he didn’t break any rules, and his tone deafness is hardly a firing offence.

But clearly, the court of public opinion has ruled and found that the existing rules need to be tightened up to disallow these exceptions.

If the Trudeau brain-trust is smart, it will announce a review of the rules and that this and any other loopholes will be closed.

But this review can’t be handled by Mary Dawson. Already she has been asked by the opposition NDP’s Nathan Cullen to investigate whether Morneau did anything wrong.

That means since she advised Morneau, she can’t now review the situation in which she played a key role. Talk about a conflict of interest. The review must be independent. Make it short and sweet and bring forth recommended changes, not just about conflict rules, but also about the ethics commissioner’s role in this and future situations.