Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc recused himself from a vote involving his sister-in-law the day after it happened, according to an ethics filing that the Privy Council Office refused to comment on.. Privy Council Office .“I am referring your questions to Privy Council,” said a press secretary to LeBlanc. .The Privy Council did not reply..LeBlanc, in an ethics filing, said he never participated in a cabinet vote to appoint his sister-in-law as interim Ethics Commissioner. .“I recused myself on March 28,” wrote LeBlanc. Records for the prime minister’s itinerary show cabinet met that day, the 28th..READ MORE Liberal MP didn’t help sister-in-law become ethics commissioner.However, in a website notice of cabinet orders, the Privy Council Office indicated that LeBlanc’s sister-in-law was appointed by vote the previous day, March 27. .“How do you recuse the day after the Order In Council was approved by the Governor General?” wrote Mario Dion, now-retired Ethics Commissioner, on his Twitter account..The LeBlanc error is not the first by the Privy Council, the most senior branch of the federal public service. The same office in 2017 published a website notice of a cabinet order dated April 31. April does not have 31 days..LeBlanc’s sister-in-law Martine Richard was senior counsel and director of investigations in 2018 when he was censured for breach of the Conflict of Interest Act. .Then-Fisheries Minister LeBlanc, on February 21, 2018, awarded a $24 million surf clam license to the Five Nations Clam Company. .According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the firm’s general manager was his wife’s cousin. The license was subsequently revoked..“Public office holders are not expected to have knowledge of the private affairs of each of their birth relatives, much less those of relatives by affinity,” said the Ethics Commissioner’s LeBlanc Report. .“However, when they are aware of an opportunity to further the private interests of a relative through the exercise of an official power, duty or function, they must be vigilant in taking appropriate action to avoid a conflict of interest.”.READ MORE Interim ethics commissioner sister-in-law to Liberal minister, raising conflict of interest concerns.Evidence showed LeBlanc and cousin Gilles Thériault discussed Five Nations Clam Company business at a private meeting at a Shediac, NB, coffee shop. .The company was awarded the license over eight other applicants..“Mr. LeBlanc knew or reasonably should have known that Mr. Thériault as general manager would have received some form of compensation for his involvement in the event the license was awarded,” wrote the Commissioner. .Thériault was to be paid a portion of license revenues..“Mr. LeBlanc told me neither he nor his spouse has a close, personal relationship with Mr. Theriault, and he has seen him at family gatherings fewer than 10 times in the past 15 years,” wrote the Commissioner. .LeBlanc, in earlier remarks in the House of Commons, said his wife had numerous cousins in New Brunswick and claimed no relatives stood to gain from the Five Nations Clam Company license.
