Tories ask RCMP to take a fresh look at Justin Trudeau’s Aga Khan vacation – National

The federal Conservatives need the RCMP to re-open an investigation that ended greater than 4 years in the past that examined whether or not Prime Minister Justin Trudeau dedicated a legal act by accepting a free vacation on the personal Bahamas Island owned by the Aga Khan.

Trudeau accepted the invitation from the Aga Khan to spend the 2016 Christmas holidays at his island within the Bahamas. Trudeau flew to Nassau on an RCAF jet however, from there, the Aga Khan’s helicopter took Trudeau to the island the place he, his spouse Sophie, then MP however now Labour Minister Seamus O’Regan, and a few Liberal Get together officers loved the Aga Khan’s hospitality.

Parliament’s Battle of Curiosity and Ethics Commissioner would subsequently decide that Trudeau broke provisions of the Battle of Curiosity Act in accepting what she deemed to be items from the Aga Khan, whose group, The Aga Khan Basis, was then receiving federal authorities grants for its humanitarian work.

Researchers with the Conservative Get together, in the meantime, filed a request beneath the Entry to Info (ATI) Act to the RCMP to find out what steps investigators took to find out if Trudeau had damaged different legal guidelines.

The outcomes of that ATI request had been not too long ago supplied to the occasion and the occasion has, in flip, supplied them to a number of information organizations, together with World Information. Among the many 623 pages of RCMP paperwork launched to the Conservatives was a “determination tree” movement chart ready by investigators to find out if, in accepting the holiday provided by the Aga Khan, Trudeau might be charged with fraud on the federal government.

In line with the paperwork, the investigators concluded that every one however one aspect of a possible fraud cost had been current, and that it was unlikely a cost might be upheld due to the lacking aspect: Authorities officers are allowed to obtain items, resembling journey and holidays, as long as they’ve the written permission of their division head. Authorities officers who should not have that written permission might be charged with “fraud on the federal government.” However within the determination tree and elsewhere within the RCMP paperwork launched to the Conservatives, the investigators say it’s “unknown” if Trudeau had the “consent in writing of the pinnacle of the department of presidency for whom he labored.”

The RCMP paperwork clarify the actual difficulties with this case: As prime minister, Trudeau is the “head of presidency” and so, technically, there can be nobody with the authority to grant him permission.

The RCMP concluded its investigation with out submitting any fees in opposition to Trudeau.

However on Tuesday within the Home of Commons, Trudeau responded to a query from interim Opposition Chief Candice Bergen that, “No,” he didn’t have written permission for the Aga Khan vacation.

That revelation, within the eyes of Conservative MP James Bezan, may have modified the end result of the RCMP’s determination tree and, in Bezan’s view, is sufficient to warrant a recent investigation.

“In my respectful view, Mr. Trudeau’s reply to that query … requires the nationwide police power to re-open the matter and start a legal investigation instantly,” Bezan says in a letter to RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki.

“The workplace of Prime Minister is now beneath a cloud of suspicion. The very integrity and honesty of Mr. Trudeau is now in query.”

A duplicate of that letter was supplied to World Information.