Morneau halts bid for OECD's top job

OTTAWA • Former finance minister Bill Morneau has pulled out of the race to become secretary-general of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development, after failing to secure the necessary votes to move into the third round of voting.

“I have decided to withdraw from the race to become the next Secretary-General of the OECD, as I do not have support from enough members to continue to the third round of the campaign,” Morneau said in a statement Tuesday morning.

“I am proud to have used this campaign to talk about issues that matter to Canadians and to the world — the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic, the fight against climate change, inclusive growth and seizing the opportunities of the digital world,” he continued, adding that he wishes the next secretary-general to be a “strong voice on the important issues that affect us all.”

His bid for the OECD’s top job was a long shot from the start, particularly because a Canadian candidate, Donald Johnston, held the post for a decade relatively recently (1996-2006). Mexico’s Angel Gurria, who succeeded him, has held the post for nearly three consecutive five-year terms.

Morneau was one of seven candidates to pass the first round of voting back in January, but failed to collect enough support to move on to the third round this week.

According to one source with direct knowledge of Morneau’s campaign, most European countries decided to throw their support behind other candidates because a Canadian had already held the top job recently.

According to European media reports, Estonian President Kersti Kaljulaid also withdrew her candidacy from the race on Tuesday.

This is the Trudeau government’s second failed bid for a prestigious position on the international stage, after Canada’s loss in the run for a seat on the United Nations Security Council last summer.

Morneau announced he would run for the top job at the OECD at the same time he resigned from cabinet and government in late August 2020. At the time, he was embroiled in the WE Charity scandal that rocked the Trudeau government the entire summer.

At the time, Morneau admitted that he’d wished he “had done things differently” around the WE Charity file and his involvement in the government’s decision to outsource a $912-million student volunteer grant program to the organization.

Morneau did not recuse himself from cabinet discussions on the matter, despite the fact that two of his daughters have either worked with or for the organization in recent years.

Morneau also revealed to the House of Commons finance committee that he had reimbursed $41,000 in free travel offered by WE to his family and himself back in 2017 the day before he testified before the committee.

Federal Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion originally opened two investigations into Morneau’s involvement in the deal (as well as a separate one into Prime Minister Justin Trudeau) for both his lack of recusal and failure to reimburse travel expenses to the WE organization.

But the ethics commissioner later exonerated Morneau on the second point because he believed that the ex-finance minister was not even aware of the outstanding debt to WE, who he said had never advised Morneau of the outstanding debt.

The investigations on Trudeau and Morneau’s lack of recusal are ongoing.

“I wish that in hindsight, we had done things differently around the WE Charity. As I’ve said, I think that it would have been more appropriate for me to recuse myself from that decision,” Morneau said at the time of his resignation.

“We’ve always said that Canada and the world needs more Canadian leadership, not less. I will come to this new challenge with the lived experience of having built a more inclusive and fairer Canada,” he said, announcing his run for the OECD secretary-general job.

When Morneau’s candidacy was formalized later in September, Global Affairs Canada said Morneau was a candidate who “has the capacity to build consensus and understands the intricacies of government policy-making”

“The OECD … needs a leader who can think strategically, innovate and engage diverse stakeholders in finding new ways to address complex, multi-faceted issues. It also needs a leader with management experience and the expertise required to support the important work of the organization,” Global Affairs Canada wrote in its September statement.

On January 1, 2021, Morneau began a new job as senior fellow at Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs.