A climate change holdout, Canada’s most powerful Aboriginal woman and four more people to watch in 2016

Conflict of interest ‘screen’ enforced on Bill Morneau to keep him from participating in family business

Trudeau went a step further than existing legislation in December when he made public his “Open and Accountable Government” policy statement that contained three key components:

• Ministers “must avoid conflict of interest, the appearance of conflict of interest and situations that have the potential to involve conflicts of interest.”

• Public office holders “shall act with honesty and uphold the highest ethical standards so that public confidence and trust in the integrity, objectivity and impartiality of the government are conserved and enhanced.”

• “Public office holders have an obligation to perform their official duties and arrange their private affairs in a manner that will bear the closest public scrutiny, an obligation that is not fully discharged by simply acting within the law.”

Conacher alleged that the Wilson-Raybould situation has not met this standard.

“The appearance of a conflict is apparent just from the fact that he was hired to lobby for these entities soon after she became minister,” he said. “It raises the question why, if he is so good at what he does, did they not have him as a lobbyist in past years when the Liberals were not in power and she was not an MP or the minister?”

I assume her husband and her share their incomes and expenses, so she still has a financial interest in his income even if she has sold her interest in the company.

He said politicians, political staff and senior bureaucrats dealing with Tim Raybould will all know his spouse is one of the government’s most powerful players, creating a potential incentive to favour him, even though the federal law prohibits favouritism.

He also questioned the tangible effect of her split with KaLoNa.

“I assume her husband and her share their incomes and expenses, so she still has a financial interest in his income even if she has sold her interest in the company.”

Wilson-Raybould, in addition to her work in aboriginal politics, was from 2004 until the October election a lawyer and chief executive officer with KaLoNa.