Limit on MP gifts would be helpful, ethics czar says
Value doesn’t apply in conflict of interest cases
OTTAWA • The federal ethics commissioner says it would be “helpful” if Parliament set a limit on the value of gifts members of cabinet could receive from friends in light of the prime minister’s second trip to a friend’s exclusive Jamaican estate.
“It would be helpful if there was a limit. What is the limit and who sets it? Obviously Parliament would have to set it. But I think it would be helpful to deal with the appearance (of conflict of interest) issue,” Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein told the National Post after speaking to the House ethics committee Thursday.
The commissioner has stated that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau did not violate the Conflict of Interest Act when he and his family spent 10 days at a $9,300-per-night private estate in Jamaica owned by longtime family friends at no cost.
That’s because the act does not set a limit on the amount or value of a gift from a friend so long as it does not improperly advance the friend’s private interests.
But Thursday, von Finckenstein questioned if that exception should continue to be limitless considering ongoing controversy over Trudeau’s free stay at the ultra-luxurious estate.
“Since you’re talking about the Jamaica trip for instance, should there be a ceiling on gifts? Right now, there is a complete exception for gifts from a friend,” he told the committee. “If a gift is too large, it may create the wrong appearance and maybe we should have a monetary limit on it.”
The commissioner declined to suggest a limit when asked by National Post after the committee, but joked that a “Ferrari” would exceed it, in his opinion.
Opposition parties have criticized Trudeau for vacationing with his estranged wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, and their three children at the resort for free while Canadians grapple with growing affordability issues and increasing food, housing and utility costs.
Thursday, CBC News reported that the trip also cost taxpayers $230,000 in government-provided services such as security by the RCMP, accommodations and meals for the RCAF flight crew as well as two roundtrip flights for government planes to Jamaica (because one plane broke down in Jamaica, requiring a second to be sent).
Citing the report on the trip’s cost to taxpayers Thursday, NDP MP Matthew Green asked von Finckenstein if he thought the Conflict of Interest Act ought to be changed.
The commissioner said one of his concerns with the law is that it only considers outright conflicts of interest as opposed to the perception of conflict of interest, which can be just as damaging to the public’s trust in government officials.
“Unfortunately, the act deals with conflicts of interest. There is no apparent conflict of interest provision,” he said.
A 2017 Trudeau family vacation to the Aga Khan’s island landed the prime minister in trouble with the ethics commissioner’s office. Though Trudeau argued that the Aga Khan was a longtime family friend so the trip was an acceptable gift, then-commissioner Mary Dawson disagreed that their relationship fit the legal definition of a friendship and concluded the prime minister had broken the law.
Testifying alongside von Finckenstein on Thursday, former ethics commissioner Mario Dion suggested it may also be time to review penalties for those who break ethics laws. The current regime is based on a “name and shame” with very low monetary sanctions possible.
“There is an absence of direct penalty in relation to the act. It should be looked at. In terms of the credibility of the system, it would help if there was a possible sanction to be recommended by the commissioner but to be imposed potentially by the House or by another upper authority,” Dion said.
Dion was the ethics commissioner who found Trudeau broke the ethics rules when he pressured then-attorney General Jody Wilson-raybould to consider giving construction giant Snc-lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement instead of facing criminal charges for corruption in Libya.
In his report, he highlighted frustrations with the fact that the government never allowed him to see documents that were covered by cabinet confidence.
Thursday, Dion revealed that he considered bringing the clerk of the Privy Council — the government’s top bureaucrat — to court over its refusal to disclose those documents, but ultimately decided it would be too long and costly a process.
“I was surprised (by the refusal) because the Conflict of Interest Act appears to indicate that the commissioner should have the confidence when it comes to documents covered by cabinet confidence,” Dion said.
“I considered going to the Federal Court to contest the clerk’s decision. But over my 43-year career in the public service, I always paid particular attention to how I used taxpayers’ funds, so I considered that it wasn’t worth spending three years and two million dollars to establish if I should access those documents.”