Due to a separation agreement with Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, Sophie Grégoire Trudeau is exempt from Conflict of Interest Act disclosures..Last year, Sophie registered a new federal corporation to offer “communications services.”.“Sophie and the prime minister have signed a legal separation agreement,” the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said on Wednesday in a statement. .“They have worked to ensure all legal and ethical steps with regards to their decision to separate have been taken.”.READ MORE Trudeau and wife Sophie split.Under the Act, disclosure is mandatory for “a person who is cohabitating with a public office holder in a conjugal relationship.” However, no disclosure is required for “a person from whom a public office holder is separated if all support obligations and family property have been dealt with” by a divorce decree or separation agreement. “A separation agreement or a court order is required,” said Melanie Rushworth, spokesperson for the Office of the Ethics Commissioner..According to Blacklock’s Reporter, the PMO did not provide the date when the separation agreement between Justin and Sophie was signed. .However, on April 6, 2022, Sophie Trudeau registered a federal corporation at Aust Legal, a Toronto law office..Under Your Light Communications Incorporated “provides communication services” and Sophie is the sole director..Previously, Sophie had been a paid speaker with Speakers' Spotlight of Toronto, which is the talent agent of the Trudeau family..In 2020, the talent agency informed the Commons Ethics committee that it had destroyed accounts documenting talent fees paid to Sophie before 2013. It should be noted that Sophie and Justin Trudeau got married in 2005. .Before We Charity received a federal grant of $43.5 million in 2020, according to records, it was discovered that We Charity provided Sophie with talent fees, gifts, and expense-paid trips in London and New York, amounting to $25,681..The grant was withdrawn after it was discovered that We Charity paid $471,751 in fees and gifts to the Trudeau family, which included the prime minister's mother and brother..In July 30, 2020, testimony at the Commons Finance committee, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said he “knew that my brother and mother had worked with We Charity” but was unaware of the details. .“I did not know how much work either of them had done with We Charity or how much they had been paid,” testified Trudeau..During earlier testimony at the Finance committee, Craig Kielburger, co-founder of We Charity, denied that the organization wanted any favours in exchange for hosting Sophie..“Sophie Grégoire Trudeau is more than someone’s wife,” said Kielburger..“We live and we engage with individuals on the merit that they bring themselves as individuals.”.For disclosure purposes, MPs are required by the Office of the Ethics Commissioner to update information about their marriages in their files regularly..Then-Attorney General David Lametti wrote a July 10 note to his file that despite “reasonable efforts to determine my spouse’s private interests, I was unable to obtain any such information.” .Geneviève Saumier, Lametti’s wife, is a law professor at McGill University. In 2021, Lametti took her name off a list called the Public Registry of Designated Travelers for MPs' spouses.
