GOLDSTEIN: Liberal lack of ethics starts at the top
PM Justin Trudeau sets the standard of ethical conduct so, given his example, it's hardly surprising his ministers keep breaking the law
Article content
The repeated failure of Trudeau cabinet ministers to behave ethically is not primarily due to the weakness of the federal conflict of interest act that was passed by the Stephen Harper Conservative government in 2006, although it is indeed weak.
But the primary failure is due to the fact Prime Minister Justin Trudeau sets the standard of ethical conduct for cabinet ministers – he alone can hire and fire them for any reason – and given his example, it’s hardly surprising his ministers keep breaking the law.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
GOLDSTEIN: Liberal lack of ethics starts at the top Back to video
tap here to see other videos from our team.
The latest controversy on this front is that the parliamentary ethics committee is recalling Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault before it for a third time over continuing allegations he violated the conflict of interest act by being involved in a medical supply business while a cabinet minister,
But the federal ethics commissioner has already ruled Boissonnault didn’t violate the act and even if any new information was to change his mind – Boissonnault denies wrongdoing – the worst that would happen to him would be a public slap on the wrist.
The ethics commissioner can’t fire a cabinet minister, the maximum fine for violating the act is $500 and that mainly applies to administrative foul-ups such as failing to file paperwork on time.
For more serious violations of the act, the quaint theory at the time the legislation was passed was that the naming and shaming of a PM or cabinet minister for violating the legislation would be sufficient punishment and could, other than for the PM of course, lead to resignations if the violation was serious enough.
This was a hopelessly naive idea in an era when politicians have no shame.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
How, to cite just one example, could International Trade Minister Mary Ng, back when she was Trudeau’s minister of small business, possibly not have known it was unethical for her to award two government contracts valued at $22,790, without public tender, to a company co-founded and owned by a longtime friend, supporter and Liberal adviser?
As then ethics commissioner Mario Dion said at the time, “There is simply no excuse for contracting with a friend’s company.”
Ng apologized claiming her conduct “fell short of my own personal high standards for transparent and accountable conduct,” raising the question of “what standards?”
As for how this could happen, consider the ethical standard, or rather lack thereof, set by Trudeau, who didn’t fire Ng from cabinet, given that he was twice found to have violated the conflict of interest act himself in the Aga Khan and SNC-Lavalin affairs.
To add insult to injury, while Trudeau said he accepted responsibility when Dion ruled he had improperly pressured then attorney-general Jody Wilson-Raybould to grant a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin, a major Quebec employer, for partisan political reasons, he added:
“I’m not going to apologize for standing up for Canadians’ jobs because that’s my job – to make sure that Canadians, communities and families across the country are supported, and that’s what I will always do.”
That, of course, raised the question of what, exactly, Trudeau was taking responsibility for.
Trudeau did apologize when then ethics commissioner Mary Dawson ruled he had violated the conflict law by accepting a free Bahamas family vacation on the private island of the Aga Khan, when his government was considering taxpayer funding for his charitable foundation.
tap here to see other videos from our team.
But he rejected Dawson’s key finding that he was not, as he claimed, a personal friend of the Aga Khan, under which the vacation would have been allowed, again raising the question of what was he apologizing for?
Dion ruled in another report, this time on the WE Charity controversy, that Trudeau was spared a third negative finding under the conflict of interest act only because the law is so poorly written that it doesn’t address perceived conflicts of interest.
Since their boss, Trudeau, treats the findings of the conflict of interest commissioner so cavalierly, why wouldn’t his cabinet ministers, and Liberal MPs, treat it the same way, as evidenced by their failures to comply with the act?
tap here to see other videos from our team.
Simply put, no conflict of interest law setting ethical standards for federal politicians will be effective if the prime minister of the country doesn’t take it seriously.
There was a time when cabinet ministers took personal responsibility for their actions when their integrity was publicly questioned.
Former Ontario Progressive Conservative treasurer Darcy McKeough, former Liberal Ontario finance minister Greg Sorbara and former Ontario Progressive Conservative solicitor general Bob Runciman (later a federal senator), for example, all resigned from cabinet over political controversies related to their jobs and all later returned to cabinet with honour, cleared of wrongdoing.
But that was then and this is now.
Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion. Please keep comments relevant and respectful. Comments may take up to an hour to appear on the site. You will receive an email if there is a reply to your comment, an update to a thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information.