Ethics commissioner dismisses counter-complaint Vic Toews made against Pat Martin
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Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 31/03/2015 (3307 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.
OTTAWA — The federal ethics commissioner has dismissed a complaint from Manitoba Justice Vic Toews that an NDP MP violated the Conflict of Interest Act by going public with a complaint against Toews.
NDP MP Pat Martin wrote to Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson last month asking her to investigate Toews’ lobbying work in the eight months between when Toews left cabinet in July 2013 and when he was appointed to the Court of Queen’s Bench in Manitoba in March 2014.
Martin based his request on media reports that Toews had contracted with a lawyer for Peguis First Nation, a band with which he had several dealings during his tenure as the regional minister for Manitoba.
Cabinet ministers are barred for two years under the Conflict of Interest Act from working for anyone or any organization they had direct dealings with in the year before their departure. They are barred for life from using information gleaned from cabinet to further their private interests.
Two days after Martin wrote to Dawson, Toews sent her his own complaint alleging that Martin violated the same act by going public with the information. The act has a section barring MPs from disclosing information about a possible violation of the act.
However, in a letter to Martin Wednesday, Dawson said the complaint had no merit because the prohibition on disclosure is not relevant if the information was already in the public domain.
“The only information you referred to was from media reports and other public records,” wrote Dawson. “It does not appear that you received confidential information from any particular member of the public that you then shared with me.”
However, Dawson did chastise Martin for going public with his complaint before she had received his letter and had a chance to inform Toews.
“I would appreciate receiving it in advance of its release to the media and being afforded time to notify the person who is the subject of the request,” Dawson wrote.
Martin had called the complaint from Toews a “knee-jerk, tit-for-tat reaction” and was not surprised Dawson had rejected it.
Dawson’s investigation of Toews continues.
mia.rabson@freepress.mb.ca
