Ethics Commissioner | A fourth investigation will be launched into Minister Pierre Fitzgibbon

Jocelyn Richter
The Canadian Press

The latter is preparing to launch a fourth investigation in less than two years, aimed at determining whether Minister Fitzgibbon’s current financial position now respects the spirit and letter of the Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct for Parliamentarians.

This information was confirmed by the commissioner’s office on Friday.

This anticipated fourth report by Mr. Fitzgibbon will follow the reports issued by the Commissioner in June 2019, October 2020 and December 2020.

Since the creation of the Ethics Commissioner in 2010, it was the first time that a member of government’s financial situation had caused a sensation in the Office of the Ethics Monitor of the National Assembly. No representative elected by him has been subject to many inquiries.

The last two reports were particularly damaging, as they found numerous violations of the code of ethics on the part of the Minister, who was urged to regularize his situation “immediately”.

The Commissioner accused him of being a shareholder in two companies that deal with the government, in violation of Article 46 of the Code of Ethics.

This time, the Commissioner would intervene at the official request of Rosemont Solidarity member Vincent Marisal, who sent a letter to the Master.^{I am} Miniola in 1^{is being} March, to urge her to intervene.

The MP’s request aims to ask the Commissioner to make sure that she knows whether the Minister of Economy has modified himself, by following up on his conclusions and demands, three months after the publication of the last report.

He states that in his last report, in December, he concluded that “a minister cannot remain in breach of the code throughout his tenure.” The Commissioner can recommend that he be banned from sitting if the Minister refuses to comply.

In January, in an interview with The Canadian Press, A.^{I am} Mignolet indicated that there would be no free pass for him.

At the beginning of March, the government adopted a decree ensuring that any request for financial assistance submitted by the two companies in question to the Ministry of Economy is analyzed from now on, and then exceptionally redirected to the Conseil du trésor for additional examination.

By behaving this way, according to a Rosemont member, the government is not seeking to obey the Code of Ethics, but rather seeking to circumvent it. In his letter, he called for sanctions to be imposed if the minister still refused to comply with the rules.

To justify his position, Mr. Fitzgibbon has already said that some bets are difficult to sell and that he does not want to sell at a loss. He described the code of ethics as “outdated.”