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During the hastily-convened committee, Dion would not commit to completing ongoing investigations into the prime minister and finance minister if he got the job.

Photo by Adrian Wyld/CP/File

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is being investigated for the use of a private helicopter during his visit to the Aga Khan’s private island last year. Finance Minister Bill Morneau is being investigated to see whether he broke any rules by introducing a pension reform bill to parliament while still holding shares in his own pension company.

“One of the first things I would attend to (is) review the whole genesis of those investigations,” Dion said. “I would own the final result and therefore I have to assess what has been done to date to determine whether I am supportive of that, but abandoning an investigation completely without reason is not something I would do.”

There’s no guarantee the investigations will be completed before ethics commissioner Mary Dawson leaves her post on Jan. 8 and, more troubling for Opposition parties, there’s no requirement for her successor to do so.

Questions have been raised about Dion’s performance in previous roles. In 2014 Canada’s auditor general found “gross mismanagement” in two separate case files during Dion’s tenure as Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. “We did not do the work as we should’ve done it, but it was taking place in the middle of a crisis,” Dion offered in committee.

Kent boiled it down to Dion having been given “a number of very challenging assignments in challenging organizations.”