He is required to disclose his financial interests, he has an active big business consulting website, and he is a Senior Fellow of the C.D. Howe Institute

He has buried 8 complaints, one about the PM, and created 6 new loopholes in rules – is he the handpicked lapdog Trudeau wants as Commissioner?

Ethics standards and enforcement will be dangerously weakened if he is appointed to another term – opposition parties must stop his re-appointment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Wednesday, February 7, 2024

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch released the open letter it has sent to Interim Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein calling on him to disclose his assets and liabilities, and his consulting clients, and all the communications and records of communications he had with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and Privy Council Office (PCO) during his appointment process for his six-month term that began last September.

Democracy Watch also called on MPs on the House Ethics Committee to call Mr. von Finckenstein back very soon to testify about his negligently bad enforcement record and his appointment process, before his current term ends on February 29th, and to reject any attempt by the Trudeau Cabinet to re-appoint him for another six-month term or a 7-year term (the Cabinet is required to consult with opposition party leaders before making a 7-year term appointment).

Mr. von Finckenstein has an active website for consulting and doing arbitrations for big businesses, and is a Senior Fellow of the C.D. Howe Institute (which is a big business lobby group as the members of its Board of Directors make clear), both which can create clear conflicts of interest for him in his role as Interim Ethics Commissioner.  He is also, it seems, a Count from the aristocratic von Finckenstein family.

As well, as far as Democracy Watch can determine, the Interim Commissioner was required by December 31, 2023 to disclose a public summary of his assets and liabilities in the Public Registry under the Conflict of Interest Act (s. 2 “public office holder” and “reporting public office holder”, ss. 25-26, s. 62.2, and the related Cabinet order).  However, there is no listing for him in the Public Registry.

In violation of the Access to Information Act, the Trudeau Cabinet is hiding communication records that show how they chose Mr. von Finckenstein, and also details about how many qualified candidates have applied to be appointed as Ethics Commissioner for a 7-year term in the process that began in April 2023.  Mr. von Finckenstein did not apply to be appointed for a 7-year term by the May 23, 2023 deadline, and so it would be a violation of the rules to appoint him.

The Federal Court of Appeal ruled unanimously in 2020 that the Cabinet is biased when it chooses democracy watchdogs like the Ethics Commissioner.  The Trudeau Cabinet in 2016-2017 used a similar secret, partisan, Cabinet-controlled process to appoint several key democratic good government watchdogs, and the opposition parties pushed back a bit but then rolled over and let the Liberals get away with it.

Mr. von Finckenstein has buried 8 ethics complaints, including one about Prime Minister Trudeau, and created 6 new loopholes in federal ethics laws to add to the 10 huge loopholes in the MP Code and the 10 huge loopholes in the Conflict of Interest Act that applies to the PM, Cabinet ministers, Cabinet staff, Cabinet appointees and top government officials.  Click here to see details about the 6 new loopholes he has created, which are:

1. Mr. von Finckenstein is now allowing Cabinet staff, Cabinet appointees and top government officials to secretly own up to $60,000 in shares in businesses they make decisions about, which allows them to profit from their own decisions;
2. He is now allowing members of the Canadian Energy Regulator (CER) to secretly invest in energy companies, which is possibly why the CER just approved Trans Mountain Corp. changing its pipeline construction plan;
3. He is now allowing the Prime Minister to appoint anyone to any government position, even family members and friends (like David Johnston) even when they are investigating wrongdoing by the PM;
4. He is now allowing Cabinet ministers (like Jonathan Wilkinson, Minister of Energy and Natural Resources) and top government officials to participate in a decision-making process even if their spouses have significant financial interests that will be affect by the decision;
5. He is now allowing Cabinet staff and top government officials to leave their position and move to another position in the government, or take a contract with the government, without any cooling-off period, even if the position conflicts with the past position, and;
6. He has set a precedent by deciding not to investigate ethics complaints about a former MP simply because the MP is no longer an MP, which means all MPs have to do is hide their wrongdoing until they resign or retire or are defeated and then they will never be found guilty of violating the law.

“Given Mr. von Finckenstein has one of the worst enforcement records of any ethics commissioner across Canada in the past 20 years after being in the job only five months, and has ties to big businesses that lobby the federal government, appointing him to another six-month term or even worse a seven-year term as ethics commissioner would dangerously undermine federal political ethics standards and allow Cabinet ministers, Cabinet staff, top government officials and MPs to make many more unethical decisions and be let off every time,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch. “Canadians can only hope that opposition parties do the right thing and stop Prime Minister Trudeau from once again, as he did in 2017, appointing his own ethics lapdog after handpicking him through a secret, partisan, Cabinet-controlled process.”

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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 Stop Bad Government Appointments Campaign and Government Ethics Campaign