Worried that Mario Dion’s mandate does not allow him to fully examine the scandal, Conservatives are calling for an RCMP probe while the NDP wants a public inquiry
OTTAWA — Can Canada’s ethics commissioner get to the bottom of what happened in the SNC-Lavalin scandal?
“Canadians need to know that we have an officer of Parliament who is tasked with a specific role to make sure that in questions where there are disagreements amongst politicians, amongst elected officials, there is an arbiter who is empowered to be like a judge, who is an officer of Parliament, who will make a determination in this issue,” said Trudeau on Thursday.
“I agree that the ethics commissioner should continue his work, but the ethics commissioner can only look at a violation in respect of someone furthering a private interest,” said Conservative MP Michael Chong during Commons debate on Thursday. “He cannot broaden his scope to include the broader constitutional principles at play here, principles concerning the rule of law and the division of power between the judicial and executive branches of government.
When Dion started his examination of the SNC-Lavalin scandal, he said in a letter to NDP MPs Charlie Angus and Nathan Cullen that he had reason to believe section nine of the Act was contravened. “If it is intended that the Act cover political interests, this should be made explicit,” she wrote. “Otherwise, I do not believe that a positive definition of ‘private interest’ is necessary.”
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