Golf course was not in blind trust
By CAMPBELL CLARK--Globe and Mail-- Feb.10,2001
Ottawa - Ethics counsellor Howard Wilson contradicted Thursday an assertion by Industry Minister Brian Tobin that Prime Minister Jean Chrétien had no knowledge of business dealings in a golf course beside a controversial inn in his riding.
Mr. Tobin jumped to defend Mr. Chrétien earlier Thursday against conflict-of-interest allegations by opposition leaders, telling reporters that the Prime Minister's dealings in the golf course in Saint-Maurice were handled by a blind trustee, who could not inform him of developments.
But Mr. Wilson said in an interview there was no blind trust regarding the golf course because the rules didn't require it.
The Prime Minister has come under fire because he contacted the federally appointed president of the Business Development Bank of Canada several times over a $615,000 loan to the Auberge Grand-Mère, owned by his friend, Yvon Duhaime.
In February, 1996, he met with a group of immigrant-investment brokers seeking to lobby him to keep alive Quebec's immigrant-investor program. They included Louis Leblanc, the broker arranging an immigrant investment in the Auberge which was completed the next day.
Mr. Chrétien faced allegations Thursday that he still had an interest in the well-being of the inn, because he had not at the time been paid for the sale of the neighbouring golf course. He sold the golf course in 1993 but was not paid until it was resold in 1999. In 1996, he advised Mr. Wilson that he had not been paid, and that he was still seeking his money from the new owner.
Merely advising the ethics counsellor indicated that the Prime Minister knew there was a potential issue over the money owed to him, Progressive Conservative Leader Joe Clark said. "I believe he's in conflict of interest, by any normal reading," Mr. Clark told the Commons. "Not by the law, because he wrote the law, but by any normal standard."
Mr. Tobin, the Prime Minister's appointed defender on the case, rose to take questions on the issue, and later told reporters that Mr. Chrétien could not have had an interest in the golf course, because it was in a blind trust, where a lawyer managed it without his knowledge.
"Ministers are required to ensure that their affairs are dealt with by putting those shares in trust in Canada," Mr. Tobin said. "That is what the Prime Minister did, he had a trustee in place, that is what all ministers must do. At that stage, the individual in question ... should not be and ought not be directing their affairs. And the Prime Minister wasn't."
However, Mr. Wilson said Mr. Chrétien's shares in the golf course were never placed in a blind trust.
He said that because Mr. Chrétien sold the shares in 1993, he did not have to place them under the trust. Although he was not paid, there was no provision in the contract that allowed for the shares to be returned to Mr. Chrétien, so Mr. Wilson concluded he did not own them.
Even if they had been returned, Mr. Chrétien would only have had to declare that he owned them, not set up a blind trust, because the golf course does not do a substantial amount of business with the federal government, Mr. Wilson said. Mr. Chrétien had the right to make decisions about that kind of asset, he added.
Because Mr. Chrétien could not repossess the shares, he was forced to either negotiate with the new owner for his money, or sue, Mr. Wilson said. He chose to negotiate, and after lengthy wrangling, was finally paid in late 1999.
Mr. Wilson ruled last November that Mr. Chrétien did not violate cabinet ethics guidelines in calling the BDC president, because no rules apply to contacts between the Prime Minister and the heads of Crown corporations.
He met with the Prime Minister Thursday to discuss changing the rules to include stricter regulation of dealings with Crown corporations.
"He's following up on it, and the Prime Minister is interested in hearing his recommendations," said Randall MacAulay, Mr. Chrétien's press secretary.
In the Commons Thursday, Mr. Chrétien did rise to dismiss questions about his 1996 meetings with the immigrant-investment brokers as a brief session. "A group came, they took a picture and I never talked to anybody. I had nobody to take any notes." |
