Daily Times

OTTAWA: The Conservatives have demanded Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau to answer more questions about his vacation on the Aga Khan IV’s island on his request in 2016.

The demand has been made by Conservative ethic critic Peter Kent through a letter to Bob Zimmer, the Conservative chair of the House of Commons’ committee on access to information, privacy and ethics. In this regard, the committee will hold a meeting on Tuesday to discuss whether the government’s ethics committee should invite Justin Trudeau to testify before its members.

In his request, Kent made the demand for an “extraordinary meeting”. “I believe the findings in the Trudeau Report clearly warrant the extension of such an invitation to the prime minister,” Kent wrote.

Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, after holding investigation into the matter, had released the report on December 20. The report found that Trudeau breached multiple aspects of the federal ethics code by accepting a vacation on the spiritual leader’s island during the 2016 holiday season. Conservatives are of the view that there are two main reasons why they want to hear more from Trudeau. They want to find out who else was on the island at the time of Trudeau’s vacation, and whether the prime minister will reimburse taxpayers for the full cost of the trip.

However, the PM’s office has previously said Trudeau has already reimbursed the commercial cost of flights for him and his family, which is standard practice.

Kent expressed the desire to hear from Trudeau by the end of the month, requesting the prime minister appear on either January 17 or 18, more than a week before the House resumes sitting.

In response to the report, Trudeau had said: “I’m sorry. In the future I will be clearing all my family vacations with the commissioner’s office. I’ve always considered the Aga Khan a close family friend, which is why I didn’t clear this family trip in the first place. But given the commissioner’s report, I will be taking all precautions in the future.”

Aga Khan IV, Prince Shah Karim Al Husseini, is leader of the world’s Ismaili Muslim community, owner of a private island in the Bahamas and chairman of the board for the Global Centre for Pluralism, an institution in Ottawa to which the federal government pledged a $15-million grant in July 2015. The report found the PM violated sections 5, 11, 12 and 21 of the Conflict of Interest Act.

The report said the PM has not been found guilty of corruption – the commissioner found no evidence Trudeau acted to advance any of the Aga Khan’s projects or interests. The commissioner ruled that Trudeau and the Aga Khan did not constitute “friends” in a way that might have exempted their interactions from one section of the Conflict of Interest Act.

The Aga Khan had been a friend of Pierre Trudeau, father of Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau had vacationed with the Aga Khan’s family as a boy, and the Aga Khan had been an honorary pallbearer at Pierre Trudeau’s funeral.

The commissioner took the view that Trudeau and the Aga Khan have “a warm relationship rooted in family history and built on common values and goals,” but believed it unlikely the invitation would have been extended “had there not been official interactions between the Government of Canada and the Aga Khan, and had Mr Trudeau not become a significant player on the Canadian political scene.”

Published in Daily Times, January 7^th 2018.