Business partner joined senator’s island delegation
Ethics code prevents senators from enhancing their business interests
Independent Senator Don Meredith earlier this year led a business delegation to the Caribbean that included a representative of a company he co-owns.
Meredith and Toronto Conservative MP Joe Daniel accompanied a small group of business people travelling to Trinidad and Tobago in January, with their status as parliamentarians paving the way for meetings with top officials in the island nation’s government.
Aided by logistical support from Canada’s Department of Foreign Affairs, Meredith and Daniel met with Trinidad and Tobago Prime Minister Kamla Persad-Bissessar and other parliamentarians.
The trip may also have helped advance Meredith’s own private interests: his business partner, Stanley Sam of Toronto-area construction consulting company DMSS Global Consultant Inc. was part of the delegation, according to a report on the Trinidadian government website.
Meredith is a director and partowner of DMSS Global Consultant Inc., according to an October 2014 conflict-of-interest declaration he filed with the Senate ethics commissioner. He reported that he would receive income from the firm in the following twelve months.
(Senators are required to list the name, though not the amount of assets they hold valued at $10,000 or more, as well as the names of any entity from which they receive income of $2,000 or more.)
DMSS was formed in 2013, with Meredith and Sam listed as directors, along with Toronto immigration lawyer Osborne Barnwell, according to corporate records.
Under the Senate ethics code, senators are not allowed to use their positions to advance their private business interests or those of other people.
Neither Meredith nor Sam responded to calls and emails requesting comment. Daniel, who is currently running for re-election in the riding of Don Valley North, is not doing media interviews until after the federal election, his office said Thursday.
Meredith also accompanied Sam and other business people on a trip to Jamaica in August 2014, according to a report on the Jamaica Observer website. Rabea Allos, who was listed as president of a company called Vertility Oil & Gas, travelled with them, according to the website.
Meredith listed shares in the Vertility group of companies among his assets in this October 2013 ethics disclosure statement. The holding was not listed in his 2014 disclosure and it is unclear when or if he divested the holding.
Meredith was appointed to the Senate in 2010 on the advice of Prime Minister Stephen Harper. He was kicked out of the Conservative Party caucus in June after a Toronto Star report alleged he had a sexual relationship with a teenager. He is also under investigation by the Senate for alleged sexual harassment of staff.
It is not known if either trip to the Caribbean led to new business for the companies Meredith partially owns, but the meetings in Trinidad and Tobago helped some of the Canadian companies on the trip make connections, according to one member on the delegation.
“I think three or four of them did some business with them,” said Leo Duguay, a former Progressive Conservative MP who now works as a lobbyist in Ottawa. “The whole purpose was to meet people in the Trinidadian government — bureaucrats and politicians — to talk about ways of doing business.”
Duguay said he was invited by Meredith, who arranged the trip, but paid his own way. He agreed that Meredith helped open doors. “It was very successful.”
Meredith’s travel expenses on the eight-day trip, and those of his wife Michelle who accompanied him, were paid by SkyRoute Travel Group, a Markham, Ont., travel agency, and Al Baksh of The Dzign Group, a Brampton interior design company. A representative of SkyRoute was also on the trip.
Shashi Bhatia, of Indo-Canadian Cultural Association in Durham, Ont., said she was invited to go by Meredith’s office and also paid her own way to Trinidad and Tobago.
“We got the official welcome there,” she said. “We met a lot of people there.”
The trip, however, was not a state visit.
“This mission was initiated and led by Senator Meredith, not by DFATD,” a spokesperson for the department said in email.
“DFATD provided no funding. However, mission provided logistical support on the ground as per standard protocol when parliamentarians travel abroad.” If the trip was not an official visit, it certainly looked like one in the local media. The Caribbean Times International newspaper featured a photo of Meredith and his delegation meeting with Prime Minister Persad-Bissessar, trade minister Vasant Bharath and the acting foreign minister, Suruj Rambachan. After the meeting, Daniel told the newspaper that the visit was the largest ever to the country by a Canadian delegation.
DFATD provided no funding. However, mission provided logistical support on the ground as per standard protocol when parliamentarians travel abroad. — Spokesperson for Department of Foreign Affairs, Trade and Development