Canada has been without a state ethics and conflicts of interest regulator for six months – a body which the latest commissioner says is suspending investigations and could result in violations going unnoticed.

Mario Dion retired in February after serving as the last permanent conflicts of interest and ethics officer.

Martine Richard, attorney for the organization since 2013, took over the role on an interim basis in April. However, she resigned a few weeks later amid controversy that she was the sister-in-law of Secretary of State for Intergovernmental Affairs Dominic LeBlanc.

Investigations that would normally be conducted by a commissioner are suspended until a permanent replacement is found.

Mr Dion said that this role is a good guarantee of detecting corruption and that Canadians must ensure that the tools at his disposal are used.

“It’s a bit like court appointments. If you don’t appoint judges, it becomes difficult to do justice, Mr Dion explained in an interview. So that means things can go virtually unpunished and unnoticed for quite a while until a new persona is named. »

This is the longest period without a Commissioner in Canada since the current version of this oversight function was introduced in 2007 following the passage of the Conflict of Interest Act.

Mr Dion, who is involved in the hiring process, says it is not surprising that no candidate has yet been chosen as the field of action is limited and few people would be qualified for the position or would do so at all.

By law of the Canadian Parliament, the commissioner must be a former judge, former Senate ethics adviser, former ethics commissioner, or former member of a board, commission, or federal or provincial court with relevant experience.

Difficult to collect evidence

Mr Dion noted that all provincial and territorial courts have ethics oversight systems: “The federal level is currently the only level that does not have an ethics officer. »

The absence of a commissioner can result in a backlog of investigations, and the more time that passes, the more difficult it can be to assemble evidence related to a complaint, he suggested.

” SO [les enquêtes] are not dead. They are not gone. But they are not supported when they should be,” Dion said.

The Office of the Commissioner for Conflicts of Interest and Ethics declined to say whether any investigations are currently pending.

He said in a statement that all investigations would be conducted confidentially pending a report, as required by law.

The Privy Council Office, which is responsible for appointing a commissioner, said the governor will appoint someone in council in due course.

Mr Dion said that several candidates have contacted him to find out more about the position and that he is offering any assistance he can to ensure the position can be filled as soon as possible.

Throughout his tenure, Mr Dion found that Justin Trudeau and several of his ministers had broken ethics rules.

That includes Commerce Minister Mary Ng, who stood her ground when her office awarded a job to a friend of hers.

Also MP Greg Fergus, Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister, who had written a letter to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) in support of the proposal for a television station. Given their governmental role and the influence they wield, politicians should not write letters of support to quasi-judicial courts like the CRTC.

Another example involves Dominic LeBlanc, who was convicted of violating conflict of interest rules in 2018, when he was Secretary of Fisheries, for approving a lucrative fishing license for a member-run firm. from his family.

In 2021, then-Treasury Secretary Bill Morneau also broke conflict-of-interest rules by not backing down when the government awarded a contract to WE Charity, to which Mr Morneau had ties.

Also, Mr Trudeau agreed to a trip to the Aga Khan’s private island in 2017 during his tenure as Prime Minister, breaking the law. Mr Dion reprimanded him again in 2019 for his role in the SNC-Lavalin scandal.

To see in the video