Mounties should have steered clear of any probe into Trudeau’s Bahamas vacation: MP
Elizabeth Thompson
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police should have recused themselves from deciding whether Prime Minister Justin Trudeau should be investigated in connection with his controversial vacation on the Aga Khan’s island because the national police service owed the island’s managers money and its officers took part in the trip, says Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre.
Instead of rejecting a call for an investigation into whether Trudeau broke the law by receiving a benefit from someone who had dealings with the government, the RCMP should have turned the question over to another police force, said Poilievre.
“The RCMP has a lot of explaining to do. It is a criminal offence for a government official to accept a benefit from someone who has government business,” Poilievre told CBC News on his way into Wednesday’s Conservative caucus meeting.
“Mr. Trudeau did exactly that. We filed a criminal complaint with the RCMP to investigate it and instead of doing the honourable thing, which would have been to refer the matter to another police agency that is not implicated in the issue, the RCMP simply killed it and refused to investigate it.”
The RCMP have not yet responded to CBC’s questions about why they didn’t recuse themselves from the case.
Poilievre’s comments came after CBC News revealed that the RCMP still owed the managers of the Aga Khan’s island more than $56,000 for accommodations, meals and jet ski rentals during Trudeau’s vacation on Bell Island three years ago.
While the RCMP decided the costs should be reimbursed, their efforts to pay the tab have been stymied by the government’s financial rules and the refusal of the managers of the Aga Khan’s island to issue a formal invoice for the expenses the RCMP incurred.
Overall, Trudeau’s vacation on the Aga Khan’s island cost Canadian taxpayers more than $215,000, with the RCMP accounting for $153,504 of the tab. The RCMP have not yet responded to questions from CBC News about whether the $56,000 they have yet to pay for meals, accommodations and jet ski rentals is included in that amount.
Trudeau has repeatedly come under opposition attack for taking the trip to the Aga Khan’s private island in the Bahamas over the Christmas holidays in 2016/17.
Then-ethics commissioner Mary Dawson found in December 2017 that Trudeau violated four sections of the Conflict of Interest Act, which governs public office holders, when he accepted the vacation from the Aga Khan. She rejected Trudeau’s argument that the Aga Khan, whose foundation and Global Centre for Pluralism deal with the federal government, was simply a family friend and said the vacations could be perceived as an attempt to influence Trudeau.
A separate case, which centres on the question of whether the Aga Khan violated Canada’s lobbying rules, is to be heard by the Federal Court of Appeal on Dec. 12.
full story at https://www.cbc.ca/news/politics/trudeau-aga-khan-rcmp-bahamas-1.5384792