Amid calling on political opponents for his dismissal, Canada’s finance minister did just that Monday night. But the minister, Bill Morneau, opposed his resignation was not related to a conflict-of-interest scandal that has embraced the government of Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
Instead, Mr Morneau said he resigned because he did not intend to run in the next parliamentary elections and that it was time for a new finance minister to take over, as the response from the government on coronavirus crisis shifts from emergency aid to longer-term plans for economic recovery,
Mr Morneau’s resignation came six days after Mr Trudeau issued a statement confirming that he had “full confidence” in his finance minister.
Mr Morneau and Mr Trudeau have been under political fire for not removing themselves from the cabinet discussion when a substantial contract for no bid was issued to a charity that had ties to both of their families. In Mr Morneau’s case, his daughter has an administrative job with the group, in which he and his wife have been substantial donors.
The group, the WE Charity, has paid Mr Trudeau’s mother and brother more than $ 200,000 over the past five years for talks on agreements.
Both men apologized for not being indifferent when the cabinet decided to contract with the charity to manage the distribution of hundreds of millions of government dollars for a program for summer youth volunteers. After the political controversy developed, the government canceled the contract.
Mr Morneau and Mr Trudeau are now being investigated by the Federal Ethics Commissioner.
When asked at a news conference whether his decision to run for office and not to seek re-election to parliament had been linked to the scandal surrounding the charity contract, Mr. Moreau the idea. But he added, “I wish that, in retrospect, that we did things differently around the WE Charity.”
Mr. Morneau is a multimillionaire through a human resources company founded by his father, and his wife, Nancy McCain, is a member of one of the wealthiest families in Canada. He wrote a check for more than 40,000 Canadian dollars, or about $ 30,000, this year when it was revealed that the charity had not billed the couple for their travel expenses for two trips abroad it had organized.
In the days leading up to his dismissal, there were reports he had repeatedly clashed with the Prime Minister about the extent of economic emergency aid the government had provided during the coronavirus crisis, with the Minister of Finance after saying the government had spent too much. Mr Morneau also denied those claims.
Mr. Trudeau published a statement of support for the work of Mr. Morneau and promised to support his bid to become the next Secretary-General of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Jagmeet Singh, leader of the opposition New Democratic Party, wrote on Twitterr that Mr. Trudeau was focused on fixing his own scandal and not on the needs of the country.
“Every time he catches on ethical laws, he makes someone else hot,” wrote Mr. Singh.
