Tory MP broke conflict rules, ethics report finds
Finley gave preferential treatment to $1M request for Markham project
OTTAWA— Conservative cabinet minister Diane Finley violated conflictof-interest rules when, after input from Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office, she awarded $1million to a Markham improvement project that had been rejected by federal officials, the ethics watchdog has found.
Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson reached the conclusion after probing a 2011 decision by Finley, then human resources minister, to approve funding for a proposal submitted by Rabbi Chaim Mendelsohn, an official of the Canadian Federation of Chabad Lubavitch. Mendelsohn is well connected with federal Conservatives and was part of Harper’s delegation to Israel last year.
“I found that the Markham proposal clearly received preferential treat- ment,” Dawson said in a report Tuesday.
The federation represented by Mendelsohn “was the only applicant that was allowed to provide additional information, after its proposal failed the department’s internal assessment.
“The proposal (to provide wheelchair accessibility at the Markham community centre) was also the only one to be given a last-minute external evaluation at Ms. Finley’s request,” Dawson wrote.
She noted there were a number of interventions in relation to the proposal by Harper’s office, then-cabinet ministers John Baird and Peter Kent, staff in Finley’s office and senior departmental officials. The interventions appeared to have been “motivated by political issues,” Dawson wrote.
Nigel Wright, then Harper’s chief of staff, told Dawson about a conversation with Finley on handling the Markham proposal. Wright told Finley that Harper had told him “to sort it out,” according to Dawson. But Wright told the commissioner he meant only to suggest the Markham proposal be treated fairly. Wright resigned from the PMO in 2013 in connection with the Mike Duffy Senate expenses scandal.
“What exactly did the prime minister know about this dirty, insider deal involving his office, three Conservative ministers and a dear friend of the Conservative Party,” NDP Leader Thomas Mulcair asked in the Commons.
“As the report makes clear, I had no specific knowledge of these applications nor any preference in what was chosen,” Harper responded. He said Finley “made a decision to support accessibility for disabled people to a community centre in the Markham area.” It was done in “good faith,” Harper said.
But Dawson ruled Finley failed to uphold government principles intended to ensure federal grants are handled in a non-partisan and accountable way.
The decision to fund the Markham project was “improper and (Finley) should have known that, in making the decision, she would be in a conflict of interest,” the commissioner said.
Finley, currently public works minister, said she believed the project “was a worthy project and in the public interest.”
But she accepts “the guidance provided by the commissioner to ensure that these grant programs are handled in a manner that is fair, accessible, and effective for all involved.”
Dawson said it was “noteworthy” the government later withdrew the $1 million in funding for the project because of the inability of its sponsors to meet agreed-to timelines.