OTTAWA—The federal watchdog’s reprimand of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty marked the second time in a week that a Conservative cabinet minister has been forced to own up to a breach of rules meant to keep government actions free of political influence.

On Friday, ethics commissioner Mary Dawson said Flaherty ran afoul of conflict-of-interest rules by sending a letter to the federal broadcast regulator on behalf of a company in his riding seeking a radio licence.

Dawson’s unusual compliance order to Flaherty came to light a day after Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s office defended Flaherty’s letter to the Canadian Radio-Television and Telecommunications Commission (CRTC) on behalf of Durham Radio Inc., which is based in the finance minister’s Whitby-Oshawa riding.

The PMO said Flaherty’s intervention was permissible because he was acting in the capacity of an MP trying to help a constituent in his riding.

But Dawson’s compliance order points out that Flaherty wrote to the CRTC in his capacity as the minister of finance and minister responsible for the GTA.

As a result, the order says, it was “improper” for Flaherty to have penned such a letter on behalf of a constituent to an administrative tribunal “in relation to its decision-making.” Dawson ordered Flaherty to refrain from writing any similar letters without seeking approval of the ethics commissioner.

Earlier in the week, Julian Fantino, the former Ontario Provincial Police commissioner who is now international cooperation minister, had to remove two signed letters from the website of his department, the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA).

The highly partisan letters slammed the NDP and the Liberals. This was in violation of federal Treasury Board rules meant to guarantee the taxpayer-backed public service and government websites are not exploited for political purposes by elected officials.

Fantino’s office acknowledged the letters were posted in error and took them off the CIDA site.

“It’s pretty clear that it runs right through the Harper cabinet,” NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus commented. “They believe rules exist for other people and they can break them with impunity.

“There is no such thing as an ethical bar right now with this government,” he said. “They will do whatever they want, however they want, and say there should be no consequences.”

“Jim Flaherty — how many years has he been in Parliament,” Angus asked. “Does he not know the rules or does he just not care? And what about Julian Fantino? Are we to believe that Ontario’s former top cop doesn’t know the importance of following the rules?”

In the wake of the Fantino letters, opposition parties want a Commons committee to examine whether the Conservatives are complying with guidelines governing political neutrality in the federal public service.

On Friday, Flaherty responded to Dawson’s compliance order with an email in which he called the use of his ministerial title in the letter to the CRTC “regrettable.”

“The letter to the Secretary General of the CRTC on behalf of a constituent was fully intended to be written and sent in my capacity as Member of Parliament for Whitby-Oshawa,” Flaherty wrote.

“It was drafted in my community office and printed on my MP letterhead,” he wrote. “However, due to an oversight my ministerial title was used in the signature block. This is regrettable and I can assure the ethics commissioner that this will not happen again.”

A spokesperson for Dawson said that was the end of the matter and there is no plan for a deeper probe of Flaherty’s action.

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“As the facts are clear and an order has been made, the commissioner will not be launching an investigation,” the spokesperson said.

The NDP asked Harper to open an investigation into Flaherty’s contact with the CRTC. But the Prime Minister’s Office suggested the case was closed.

“(Flaherty) has acknowledged the administrative oversight and that it was regrettable,” a PMO spokesperson said.

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