Tories call on LeBlanc to explain meeting with Irving

• The Conservatives are calling on Liberal House Leader Dominic LeBlanc to explain what role, if any, he played in arranging a meeting this week between a cabinet colleague and a member of the powerful Irving family of New Brunswick.

LeBlanc was in Moncton with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Minister Navdeep Bains on Thursday — the same day Bains met with James D. Irving, president of J. D. Irving Ltd. Bains and Irving were expected to discuss the federal government’s plan to review a sole- source contract awarded to Irving Shipbuilding under the massive, $26-billion build of new Royal Canadian Navy vessels.

The Trudeau government has asked a cabinet committee to take a second look at the contract to Irving’s Halifax shipyard.

Under orders of federal ethics commissioner Mary Dawson, LeBlanc is to avoid any dealings with Irving, his company or any of its affiliates.

He signed an agreement two weeks ago pledging to maintain a “conflict- ofinterest screen” that would see his chief of staff, Vince MacNeil, keep him out of any decisions involving Irving, whom he describes as “my friend.”

“Serious questions have been raised regarding yesterday’s meeting in Moncton and what role Mr. LeBlanc may have played,” Conservative MP Blaine Calkins, the party ethics critic, said Friday.

But neither LeBlanc, the minister at the cabinet table with informal responsibility for New Brunswick, nor MacNeil have responded to repeated requests for more information about how the high- l evel meeting came together or whether their office helped arrange it.