Dispatch Box: Tracking Accountability and Ethics Issues
Mulroney government, 1984–93
| 1985 | Tunagate | Fisheries Minister John Fraser is alleged to have overturned decisions of his own officials and ordered a million cans of possibly tainted tuna to be made available to the public. |
| 1985 | Robert Coates | Defence Minister Robert Coates has to resign after his visit to a strip club in West Germany becomes public. |
| 1986 | Sinclair Stevens | Minister of Regional Industrial Expansion Sinclair Stevens is forced to step down due to conflict of interest allegations surrounding a $2.6 million loan to a Stevens family business. |
| Late 1980s | Air India investigation | Public concern grows that the RCMP investigation into the 1985 Air India bombing, the biggest mass murder in Canadian history, was botched due to incompetence and bureaucratic infighting between the RCMP and the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS). |
| 1992 | Somalia | Allegations arise that members of the Canadian Airborne Regiment tortured and murdered two Somali youths. |
| 1993–95 | Airbus investigation | Allegations emerge that former prime minister Mulroney was the recipient of secret commissions, kickbacks, and possibly bribes respecting the sales of Airbus planes and helicopters. |
Chrétien government, 1993–2003
| 1993–97 | Somalia | Allegations of cover-up, obstruction, and manipulation of documents are levelled at the department of National Defence headquarters respecting the investigation of the 1992 Somalia scandal. |
| 1997 | APEC | Allegations are made against the RCMP of wrongdoing in handling peaceful protestors at the Asia–Pacific Economic Co-operation Conference (APEC) in Vancouver. |
| 2000 | Billion-dollar boondoggle | Allegations arise that Human Resources Development Minister Jane Stewart failed to track $1 billion worth of program grants. It is later determined that less than $50,000 had been lost. |
| 2000–03 | Shawinigate | Allegations arise that Jean Chrétien was in a conflict of interest with respect to government loans to the Auberge Grand-Mère, a resort in which he allegedly had continuing financial interests. |
| 1996–2003 | Sponsorship scandal | Allegations emerge that key officials in the federal government willingly participated in a scheme to funnel federal funds designed to promote Canada in Quebec into Quebec-based advertising companies with close connections to the federal Liberal Party in that province. It is suspected that portions of these misappropriated funds were kicked back into Liberal Party coffers. |
Martin government, 2004–06
| 2004–06 | Sponsorship scandal | Despite calling the Gomery inquiry into the sponsorship scandal, the Martin government experiences its cancerous effect, which leads to its defeat in the 2006 federal election. |
Harper government, 2006–15
| 2008 | Prorogation of parliament | Harper gains the support of the governor general to prorogue parliament in order to avoid a non-confidence motion claiming federal government economic mismanagement in the lead-up to the 2008 global economic recession. |
| 2009–11 | Afghan detainee documents | Allegations emerge that Canadian soldiers in Afghanistan transferred Afghan prisoners to Afghan military authorities, in whose hands they would probably face torture. |
| 2010 | Prorogation of parliament | Harper gains to the support of the governor general to prorogue parliament a second time in order to postpone hearings into the Afghan detainee issue. |
| 2010 | G-8 funding | Allegations arise of wasteful spending of nearly $1 billion for the three-day G-8/G-20 summits in Huntsville and Toronto. |
| 2010 | G-20 Toronto riots | Allegations arise of poor planning and police abuse in dealing with protestors at the G-20 meeting in Toronto. |
| 2012–2016 | Duffy-Senate Scandal | As the Mike Duffy Senate scandal unfolded during 2012–13, questions arose as to whether the Harper PMO was engaged in questionable and unethical behaviour in manipulating Senator Duffy, in providing him with $90,000 to repay his questionable expenses, and in seeking to conceal the PMO’s activity from public scrutiny. On April 7, 2015, Senator Duffy pleaded not guilty to 31 charges fraud and improper behaviour. On April 21, 2016, Justice Charles Vaillancourt of the Ontario Court of Justice found him not guilty on all charges. The Crown decided not to appeal this decision, and over the summer of 2016, Senator Duffy returned to his work in the Senate of Canada. |
Trudeau government, 2015–
| 2016-17 | The Aga Khan Issue | In December 2016 Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, his family, a Liberal Member of Parliament, and the president of the Liberal Party of Canada vacationed on a private island in the Bahamas owned by the billionaire philanthropist the Aga Khan. This vacation was all-inclusive, totally paid for by the Aga Khan. The Aga Khan, a family friend of the Trudeaus going back to the time of Pierre Trudeau, is also someone whose charitable foundations occasionally seek and receive funding from the Government of Canada. Under the federal Conflict of Interest Act it is illegal for parliamentarians to receive gifts worth significant amounts of money from people who are not family or close friends. Both prior to and following this vacation the prime minister failed to disclose this trip to the federal Ethics Commissioner. Was this trip a violation of the federal Ethics Code? When news of this trip broke in the media in early 2017 opposition MPs brought a complaint to the Ethics Commissioner. Later that year, the Commissioner censured the prime minister for accepting this gift and failing to disclose it. |
| 2018–19 | The SNC-Lavalin Scandal | In the fall of 2018 senior officials in the Prime Minister’s Office, the Privy Council Office, and the Department of Finance sought to exert pressure on the then minister of justice and attorney general, Jody Wilson-Raybould, to have her overturn a decision by the director of public prosecutions, an independent legal officer, and have the attorney general grant SNC-Lavalin a deferred prosecution agreement with respect to criminal charges of bribery and corruption then facing the company in Quebec courts. The attorney general refused to intervene in this case and began to complain, in private, to senior officials in the PMO and PCO about inappropriate pressure tending to violate the principle of prosecutorial independence. Eventually Ms. Wilson-Raybould was shuffled to a different portfolio, with this move seen as a demotion, and, when the Globe and Mail broke this story in late January 2019, it became a cause célèbre. See the text for full details of this affair and its complex ethical issues. By the summer of 2019, following various high level resignations within the Trudeau government, the prime minister himself was subject to another scathing condemnation of his behaviour by the federal Ethics Commissioner. But Trudeau resisted calls for his resignation by the Leader of the Official Opposition and, in October of 2019, he led his party to another electoral victory, though with only a minority government. And Jody Wilson-Raybould was returned to Parliament, as an independent MP. |
