Ethics watchdog to examine PM’s role in cancelled contract with WE Charity
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being investigated for the third time by the federal ethics watchdog, this time for his government’s decision to outsource management of a $900-million COVID-19 student grant program to the WE Charity, where the prime minister’s wife is an “ambassador and ally,” as well as a podcast host.
It’s the third conflict of interest complaint NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus has made to the watchdog about the prime minister.
Angus also wrote to the office about prime minister’s role in the SNC-Lavalin affair and the Trudeau family vacation to the Aga Khan’s private island in 2016, both instances where Trudeau was found in violation of the federal Conflict of Interest Act.
“Now he’s up for a hat trick,” Angus said.
“What I found exceptional with this one is that I wrote the letter this morning and this afternoon the ethics commissioner responded. I’ve never, ever seen him respond that quickly” Angus said of ethics commissioner Mario Dion. “This tells me this has been on his radar for some time.”
In his letter, Angus detailed a potential breach of the act involving preferential treatment, citing the Trudeau family’s close ties with the WE organization. He also noted that the group has “received aseries of single-source contracts” from the government. “If preferential treatment has been given … it would be another significant breach of the public trust and the act by this prime minister,” he wrote.
The government’s decision to outsource the student grant program to the charity founded by Craig and Marc Kielburger has come under fire since it was announced June 25.
The Opposition called for an investigation by the auditor general, and Conservative MP and ethics critic Michael Barrett wrote to the ethics commissioner
on June 28 with concerns about the prime minister’s connections to the charity.
Trudeau has appeared at WE rallies, and his wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, is an “ambassador and ally” for the charity and hosts a podcast on mental health for the organization.
As he faced criticism this week, Trudeau said the decision was made not by him, but by the public service, because WE, a Toronto-based charity, was the only “organization that was capable of networking and organizing and delivering this program on the scale that we needed it.” Then things quickly shifted. Early Friday afternoon, the government backtracked and said the civil service would be managing the program, not WE.
By early evening, Dion’s office confirmed that the prime minister was being investigated under the Conflict of Interest Act, for possible contraventions of subsections of the law, involving decision-making, preferential treatment and the duty to recuse.
Dion could not be reached for further comment. A spokesperson from the Prime Minister’s Office said they would co-operate with Dion’s investigation.
“We will, of course, collaborate with the commissioner and answer any questions he may have,” the spokesperson said Friday night.
Barrett said the prime minister should have recused himself. “We know from one of the principles at the WE group that it was the Prime Minister’s Office who personally informed them that they would be administering the program,” he said. “That’s very problematic.” Barrett was referring to a recording, obtained by several media outlets, in which WE’s co-founder Marc Kielburger told a conference call that Trudeau’s office reached out one day after the grant was announced in April.
Kielburger later said he misspoke, that it was a public servant who had called.
Representatives of WE could not be reached for comment Friday evening.
Barrett said the fact that this is the third investigation by the ethics watchdog shows a pattern that the prime minister and his office put “friends first” and “believe that they’re above the law, above the rules,” he said.
Barrett called for more serious penalties for breaching the act.
“I think that commissioner Dion will probably need his investigators to have a permanent dedicated revolving door to the PMO, they’re there so often,” he said.
In 2019, Dion found that Trudeau broke the law when he applied inappropriate political pressure on then-attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould to intervene in a prosecution to spare SNC-Lavalin a criminal conviction.
The fallout from the scandal took its toll on Trudeau’s government. Trudeau’s principal secretary Gerald Butts resigned, Wilson-Raybould quit her cabinet post and Treasury Board president Jane Philpott later resigned to protest the way the government handled the matter.
Both women were later ejected from the Liberal caucus.
At the time of his ruling, Dion wrote that Trudeau’s actions and the interventions by his senior staff with Wilson-Raybould were “tantamount to political direction,” and he rejected Trudeau’s defence that he acted to protect the “public interest.”
In 2017, then-conflict of interest commissioner Mary Dawson said the prime minister broke several laws in accepting a 2016 family vacation at Bells Cay, the Aga Khan’s private island, in December 2016.
In her damning report, Dawson blamed the prime minister and his family for accepting rides to the island on private aircraft organized by the Aga Khan’s staff.
Dawson wrote that Trudeau knew about the Aga Khan’s official dealings with the federal government and that should have been warning enough.
“Mr. Trudeau failed to arrange his private affairs in a manner that would prevent him from being placed in a conflict of interest. Neither Mr. Trudeau, nor his family, should have vacationed on the Aga Khan’s private island,” she said.
Trudeau apologized and said he would clear all future personal travel with the ethics commissioner.
Angus called the number of investigations “without precedent.”
He said the prime minister has built up a lot of goodwill across Canada during the pandemic and questions why the government would want to privatize the management of a grant program when the civil service has done a very efficient and targeted job providing relief to Canadians.
“That’s going to be the question, and it’s going to damage the prime minister’s credibility on his whole COVID response,” he said.
“We know from one of the principles at the WE group that it was the Prime Minister’s Office who personally informed them that they would be administering the program.”
MICHAEL BARRETT CONSERVATIVE MP AND ETHICS CRITIC