Liberals warn of potential snap vote
Letter says Tory calls for ‘anti-corruption’ panel are ‘blatantly partisan’
OTTAWA— The minority Trudeau government is issuing a veiled warning to the opposition that it could trigger a snap election over Conservative demands to create a special super “anti-corruption” committee.
Liberal House Leader Pablo Rodriguez signalled the threat in a letter released Monday, calling the Conservative proposal a “blatantly partisan” effort designed to “paralyze the government.”
And in an extraordinary effort to halt further scrutiny of the Trudeau family’s private financial information sought by the Conservatives, the government revealed that Justin Trudeau earned more than $1.3 million on the professional speaking circuit between 2006 and 2012.
That included $287,000 Trudeau earned after he was elected as an MP for Papineau in October 2008, for events that he cleared with the federal ethics commissioner at the time. He stopped taking paid speaking engagements after he launched a bid for the Liberal leadership in 2012.
None of the speaking fees Trudeau accepted were for events sponsored by WE Charity or its offshoots, according to the information.
The Liberal government is fighting a proposed Conservative motion to create a special “anti-corruption committee” that would have a sweeping mandate to investigate the prime minister, his wife, mother and brother, his top officials and the ongoing WE Charity controversy among other issues.
“This proposal, were it to pass, would raise serious questions about whether the House of Commons continues to have confidence in this government,” Rodriguez wrote.
Rodriguez did not say whether the government would formally deem a vote on the proposal as a “confidence” vote, or whether the government would await the outcome before deciding whether to ask Governor- General Julie Payette to dissolve Parliament.
A vote could come as early as Wednesday.
Rodriguez declined to speculate on the possibility of an election, telling reporters, “We’re not there.”
The Liberals say they do not object to parliamentary oversight and have made a counterproposal to create a special committee to study the COVID-19 pandemic response.
The Conservatives on Monday continued to claim the government is engaged in a “coverup.”
Rodriguez, however, said the Conservatives will be to blame for whatever happens next. “They cross the line when they say that the ministers and the public servants will spend all their time working on this instead of working for Canadians,” he said.
“So, you know, when you do things, there are consequences.”
The Liberals do not want a committee to further probe the private financial information of the prime minister’s mother and brother. The NDP has proposed a compromise that would see the committee narrow its focus to look only at WE Charity’s ties to Trudeau and his wife.
NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus said it would be “reckless” for the government to force an election over the dispute.
“We’re in the midst of a medical and economic catastrophe,” he said. “The prime minister is not going to plunge the nation into an election because he doesn’t want to answer WE questions.”
Rodriguez provided Monday a detailed list of all speaking events booked via Speaker’s Spotlight, a booking agency that connects prominent speakers to corporate and charitable events, for which the prime minister was paid, including one previously undisclosed event: A $10,000 fee for an Nov. 2008 event at the Eaton Centre.
Rodriguez confirmed Monday that the WE organization had paid Trudeau’s wife, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau, $1,500 as a February 2012 speaking fee.
Additionally, the WE organization in documents provided to the finance committee says it reimbursed her for nearly $24,000 in expenses to speak at eight WE Charity events over eight years, and she received $240 in gifts. (That appears to be one additional WE Charity event for Trudeau’s wife than previously known. WE Charity co-founder Marc Kielburger testified last summer that Sophie Trudeau’s work “came to a total of seven WE Days over a span of three years.”)
Kielburger said Trudeau’s mother, Margaret, spoke at 28 WE Days over five years. She was paid $180,000 in fees and reimbursed more than $163,650 in expensesplus $160 in gifts, for a total of $343,814.74.
Trudeau’s brother, Alexandre (Sasha) Trudeau, was paid for appearances at nine WE Days over five years. The WE documents released Monday show he was paid fees totalling $36,000, and reimbursed for $22,025 in expenses, and received $230 in gifts, for a total of $58,255.
Those revelations roughly align with information the charity indicated this summer.
The Conservative party’s proposed anti-corruption committee motion would cast a broader net to include not just the WE Charity controversy, but other senior Trudeau government officials. The party wants to investigate what it claims was improper lobbying by Rob Silver on behalf of his employer, MCAP; Silver is married to Trudeau’s chief of staff, Katie Telford.