Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein said former Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) chair Annette Verschuren failed to comply with some provisions of the Conflict of Interest Act. In particular, von Finckenstein said she failed to comply with Subsection 6(1) (decision-making) and Section 21 (duty to recuse) under the Conflict of Interest Act. “When a conflict of interest arises, recusal — not abstention — is the proper way to manage it,” said von Finckenstein in a Wednesday press release.“Instead of abstaining from decisions in which she had private interests, Ms. Verschuren should have recused herself.”After Verschuren was appointed to SDTC in 2019, she continued to serve on the boards of her organization the Verschuren Centre for Sustainability in Energy and the Environment and the MaRS Discovery District. The Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner (OCIEC) said Verschuren declared a potential conflict to the SDTC Board of Directors and abstained from voting on the decisions involving the Verschuren Centre and MaRS. On four occasions, it said it appears she did not abstain from decisions benefiting them. While she often abstained, she did not recuse herself in any of these cases.Throughout her tenure, she remained chair, CEO, and majority shareholder in her company NRStor. Von Finckenstein found she failed to comply with provisions when she participated in SDTC's 2020 and 2021 decisions to give COVID-19 emergency relief payments to all companies, including NRStor, that had been approved for funding.The OCIEC went on to say abstaining instead of recusing falls short of the provisions. It added emergency situations do not make recusals inapplicable. Public office holders must remove themselves from the location where the matter requiring recusal is being decided in person. They must be moved to a separate virtual waiting room online. It said there was no evidence she failed to comply with Section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act. He said she did not use her position as chair to try to influence other board members in those two decisions when she moved the motions for them. Von Finckenstein concluded by saying Verschuren’s actions fell short of what the Conflict of Interest Act requires. He noted it “was clear that Ms. Verschuren took what she believed to be the right steps to manage her conflicts of interest.”“However, she did not meet the Act’s requirements,” he said. SDTC confirmed in November the abrupt resignation of Verschuren. READ MORE: Embattled agency chair quits over self-dealing as ethics commish investigates“The board of directors will discuss next steps until a new chair is appointed,” it said. Liberal MP Ryan Turnbull (Whitby, ON) told the House of Commons the Canadian government was “committed to getting to the bottom of the allegations.”
