Twice before, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has been found to be in violation of government ethics rules. If the WE Charity contract controversy has the same impact, the Liberals could find their hold on their minority government in danger.
The controversy over the federal government’s decision to grant a $912 million contract to a charity with links to the prime minister’s family opens Prime Minister Justin Trudeau up to the conclusion that he violated federal ethics rules a third time.
What impact could it have on public opinion?
Twice already, Canada’s conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, has found the prime minister violated ethics rules. The first occasion was in 2017, when former commissioner Mary Dawson ruled on Trudeau and his family accepting a vacation on the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas.
The second occasion was just last year, when the current commissioner, Mario Dion, found that Trudeau had tried to influence then-justice minister Jody Wilson-Raybould to overrule a decision not to grant a deferred prosecution agreement to SNC-Lavalin.
Dion already had announced he would be looking into the decision to grant the WE Charity a sole-sourced contract to administer the Canada Student Service Grant when the charity revealed it and its affiliates had paid the prime minister’s mother and brother about $300,000 for speaking engagements over the last four years.
It takes time for the commissioner to complete an investigation. His office tweeted Friday that it usually takes about seven months. But if this scandal does any political damage to the prime minister and his party, it’s likely to inflict it now — and not when the commissioner finally releases a report.
That’s what happened the last two times, at least.
The vacation on the Aga Khan’s island in 2017 effectively ended Trudeau’s post-election honeymoon. His party had racked up huge leads in the polls after its 2015 victory, surging to between 45 and 50 per cent support. According to the CBC’s Poll Tracker, the Liberals had about 43.2 per cent support before the story about the vacation was first reported.
There was an immediate impact on Liberal support, with the party falling to 37.3 per cent over the subsequent six weeks. Those 5.9 percentage points were never entirely recovered — to this day, the Liberals have never hit 43.2 per cent in the Poll Tracker again.
But with a solid majority government, the Libe