Canada’s parliamentary ethics commissioner plans to launch a third preliminary probe into Employment Minister Randy Boissonault’s alleged conflict of interest violation in the other “Randy” scandal.
Text messages recently surfaced from Boissonault’s former business partner Stephen Anderson which repeatedly refer to someone named “Randy” in a 2022 Global Health Imports business deal, the company he co-founded with Anderson.
Being legally required to step down as partner when he took office in 2021, Boissonnault remained a 50% shareholder in the company until recently, as Ministers are permitted to own stakes in private companies.
However, the latest string of text messages were from 2022, making it increasingly difficult for the Edmonton Centre MP to distance himself from the company which he claimed to have left upon being elected.
Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein wrote a letter to Boissonnault on Wednesday saying he was “concerned” about new text messages.
Cabinet members are prohibited from operating or managing businesses while in office under federal ethics law.
When the text messages referring to “Randy” were presented to the investigating committee last month, Anderson not only claimed that they were not referring to Boissonnault, but that they were a series of accidental text messages about someone with a different name.
While Anderson would not provide the identity of who the “autocorrected texts” were referring to, he repeatedly stated that it was not Boissonnault.
Initially, the defence was that there are many “Randys” in Canada and that the text messages would have likely just been referring to another Randy employed at the 121-person company that Boissonnault co-founded with Anderson in 2020.
Anderson maintains that Boissonault left the company before taking office in 2021, however, he was still a partner at GHI up until he was appointed to cabinet.
von Finckenstein initially looked into Boissonnault in May of this year regarding the possibility that he had still been actively operating the company while in office.
Then a second preliminary probe occurred in June after text messages surfaced referring to someone named “Randy” asking for a “partner call.”
In both cases von Finckenstein didn’t think it was necessary to launch a formal investigation.
However, while the committee was discussing the ArriveCAN probe on Thursday, Conservative MP Michael Barrett asked von Finkenstein if he had watched Anderson’s recent testimony regarding the newly surfaced texts.
“Does this new information require a further look into the matter by you?” asked Barrett.
The commissioner responded by saying that while he was initially satisfied with Boissionault’s claim, the new text messages were a problem.
“We looked at all of that, and there was absolutely no way that there was contact between him and Mr. Anderson. Now this new stuff has come up,” Von Finckenstein said.
The commissioner has now requested phone records and screenshots from Boissionaults phone on all messaging apps for the dates Sept. 6-7, 2022. Only messages from Sept. 8, 2022 were provided to him in the initial probe.
“When I get that, I will determine whether Mr. Anderson is using (Boissonnault’s) name in vain or whether there were actually conversations.”
Alice Hansen, Boissonnault’s director of communications, confirmed that the minister will provide all requested records to the commissioner in a statement.
“The Ethics Commissioner has twice examined Minister Boissonnault’s past business affairs and has twice concluded there is no cause for concern,” wrote Hansen. “Minister Boissonnault was not involved in any of the text conversations that have been reported on and we are happy to show that again to the Ethics Commissioner.”
Boissonnault will have to testify before the ethics committee again in September when the House resumes.
“I have unilaterally surrendered my shares of GHI for no compensation, and am no longer a shareholder. As the records I’ve given to the committee show, I have had no involvement whatsoever with the operations of GHI since September 2021,” said Boissonault in a statement released after Anderson’s testimony.
“If Mr. Anderson has subsequently been using my name without my consent to gain influence, he should simply explain that to the committee.”
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