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OTTAWA — The Federal Court has ordered the lobbying commissioner to take another look at whether the Aga Khan broke the rules by giving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau a vacation in the Bahamas.

In September 2017, then-commissioner Karen Shepherd said there was no basis to a complaint from an unnamed member of the public that the Aga Khan, a billionaire philanthropist, had violated the code for lobbyists by allowing Trudeau and his family to stay on his private Caribbean island.

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Shepherd’s office found no evidence the Aga Khan was “remunerated for his work” as a director of a foundation registered to lobby the federal government, and therefore concluded the code did not apply to his interactions with Trudeau.

Although Democracy Watch was not the original complainant, the Ottawa-based group challenged the ruling in Federal Court.

Democracy Watch argued Shepherd should have considered that as a board member of the Aga Khan Foundation Canada, the spiritual leader of the world’s Ismaili Muslims was directly and legally connected to the organization bearing his name and was acting as its representative in giving a gift to the prime minister.