Ethics law for PM, Cabinet ministers, their staff and top government officials has no penalties for violations of ethics rules – but PM can suspend, demote or fire any Deputy Minister as they all serve at his and Cabinet’s pleasure
In contrast, ethics code for federal government employees has penalties for violations including being fired – ethics law should have mandatory penalties
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, April 14, 2026
OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch called on Prime Minister Mark Carney to penalize Department of Defence Deputy Minister Christiane Fox because she violated Canada’s federal government ethics law by, in her former position as Deputy Minister of Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC), giving preferential treatment to someone she and her husband had past direct connections with by improperly intervening in and trying to influence the hiring of that person even though he wasn’t qualified for the position at IRCC.
Federal Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein issued a ruling last week finding her guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act (COIA), which applies to the Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers, their staff and almost 3,000 of the top Cabinet-appointed federal government officials.
Democracy Watch also called on the House Ethics Committee, which is completing its first review since 2012 of the ethics law, to recommend a sliding scale of significant, mandatory penalties for violations of key ethics rules in the COIA. The Committee has met behind closed doors six times since February 23rd considering its draft report on recommendations for closing huge loopholes in the COIA and for strengthening enforcement of the law, including establishing penalties for ethics violations.
Democracy Watch’s testimony before the Ethics Committee on October 1, 2025, and first submission to the Committee in November (en français), called on the Committee to recommend closing a “dirty dozen” unethical loopholes and seven key changes to strengthen enforcement of the COIA, including establishing a sliding scale of mandatory, significant penalties for violations so people like Fox are not let off without any penalty as many others have been in the past including former Prime Minister Trudeau (twice) and past and still current Cabinet minister Dominic LeBlanc.
Have the Liberal MPs on the Ethics Committee deliberately delayed the finalizing of the report for six meetings with the hope that they would get a majority government through unethical floor-crossings and yesterday’s by-elections and, after that, prorogue Parliament or pass a resolution in the House to give the Liberals a majority of seats on each House committee so they could control what the report says? On March 31st, Prime Minister Mark Carney stated publicly that he would not prorogue Parliament or restructure House committees if the Liberals obtain a majority. In any case, the Liberals won’t have a majority of seats until the three new MPs actually enter Parliament which won’t likely happen for another week or so, which gives the Ethics Committee ample time to complete its report on the COIA.
Concerning penalizing Deputy Minister Fox, Prime Minister Carney can suspend with pay, suspend without pay, demote or fire any Cabinet minister, Cabinet staff, Deputy Minister, Assistant Deputy Minister or Associate Deputy Minister for any reason, including an ethics violation, as they all serve at his and Cabinet’s pleasure. The PM can also impose these penalties on any of the hundreds of other top government officials who serve at his and Cabinet’s pleasure.
If the PM does not penalize Fox, she will not face any other penalty. Currently, the Ethics Commissioner cannot impose monetary penalties for violations of the conflict-of-interest prohibition in the COIA that Fox violated, nor can the Commissioner impose monetary penalties for any of the other key conflict of interest and ethics prohibitions in the COIA. Also, the Commissioner cannot recommend any other sanctions. The Commissioner can issue a compliance order, but that is not a penalty or sanction, it is just an order to comply with the COIA in the future.
The Ethics Commissioner can only impose a penalty for violating the requirements in the Act to disclose accurately to the Commissioner (and, in some cases, publicly): assets and liabilities; gifts received worth more than $200; job offers, recusals, outside activities, travel on a private plane, and; details concerning a blind trust. The maximum allowable penalty for violating these disclosure requirements is the ridiculously low amount of $500.
Ethics Commissioner von Finckenstein only proposed in his 2024-2025 Annual Report (pp. 9-10) increasing the fine for violating the disclosure requirements in COIA from maximum $500 to maximum $3,000, which is still a ridiculously low amount that will do very little to discourage violations given the Commissioner is not required to impose the maximum fine, and given almost all office holders covered by the law are paid more than $200,000 a year. Incredibly, he did not recommend any penalty for violating the conflict-of-interest prohibitions in the COIA, and his failure to do that was simply negligent.
In direct contrast, the Values and Ethics Code and Directive on Conflict of Interest, which the federal Cabinet imposed 30 years ago on all federal government employees (other than the people covered by the COIA), do not have the loopholes in them that the COIA has, and section 7 of the Directive sets out significant penalties for violations, which shows clearly that the loopholes can be closed and penalties added in the COIA.
Deputy Ministers are the top enforcement officer of the Directive for employees in their department, so Deputy Minister Fox could penalize an employee at the Department of Defence, or could have penalized an employee at IRCC, for doing what she did.
“If Prime Minister Carney doesn’t penalize his deputy minister even though she violated one of the most important laws that ensures democratic good government, he will show yet again that he doesn’t care about governing with integrity, as he has already shown by having an ongoing, significant financial conflict of interest due to the millions of dollars of stock options he knows he owns in Brookfield’s conglomerate of companies, and by lying to voters about his stock options during last year’s federal election, and by accepting floor-crossing MPs to the Liberal caucus,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch and PhD in ethics, political finance and lobbying law.
“Incredibly, and deeply hypocritically, while federal Cabinet ministers imposed conflict of interest rules on all federal government employees with penalties including being fired for violations, they didn’t include any penalties for violations of the conflict of interest rules in the ethics law that applies to themselves, their staff, deputy ministers and other top government officials,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch and PhD in ethics, political finance and lobbying law. “This is one of many loopholes and flaws that make the federal ethics law almost completely ineffective at stopping the most powerful people in the federal government from acting unethically, and hopefully the House Ethics Committee will recommend closing all the loopholes, correcting all the flaws, and establishing a sliding scale of significant, mandatory penalties for violations of the ethics law in its upcoming report on the law.”
Similar loopholes exist in the MP Code and the Senate Code and those loopholes also need to be closed, and enforcement of those codes also needs to be strengthened, including by adding mandatory, significant penalties for violations.
Many other changes are needed to other federal laws to ensure democratic good government, including closing huge secret, unethical lobbying loopholes, decreasing the donation limit in the Canada Elections Act to $75 (as the current annual individual donation limit of $3,500 (which increases by $50 each year) is essentially legalized bribery for those who can afford to make a top donation), closing huge excessive secrecy loopholes in the federal Access to Information Act, and strengthening the whistleblower protection law.
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
Email: [email protected]
Democracy Watch’s Government Ethics Campaign
