Member of Parliament James Bezan (Selkirk-Interlake-Eastman) wants the RCMP to reopen its fraud case against Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his visit to the Aga Khan’s estate in 2016..He told me the evidence against Trudeau is there but just hasn't been pursued by the RCMP. But Bezan, the Conservative Party’s ethics critic, says a technicality might ultimately seal the prime minister’s fate; he did not give himself permission to accept the lucrative vacation gift..“So we did an ATIP and we got back over 500 pages of very lightly redacted documents on the criminal brief that the RCMP actually put together on investigating and actually charging Justin Trudeau for fraud against the government under Section 121 1c of the Criminal Code,” Bezan told the Western Standard. .“So I think that sort of shocked everyone that they had seriously considered a fraud charge.”.Bezan explained, “If you look at the decision tree that the RCMP had used and went down through the matrix, as to whether or not there was fraud, it was a straight line down until it gets to one of the conditions is that a government official can take a gift if its been approved prior to accepting the gift, approved by a department head. And of course, who’s the boss of Justin Trudeau? It’s himself. So we asked the question, did you give yourself permission to accept the gift and he said he did not. So that all of a sudden changes it that he committed fraud on the government.”."So we wrote the first letter to Commissioner Brenda Lucki to reopen the case.".Bezan says not only did Trudeau never give himself permission to make the trip, the ethics commissioner of the time, Mary Dawson, said although she found Trudeau guilty of violating ethics codes, she was not aware that she could have pressed charges under the Criminal Code..Bezan cites an interview with the Globe and Mail where Dawson said “she was not aware of any potential for fraud against the government. She was not familiar with that part of the Criminal Code and nobody brought that to her attention.".The MP says the RCMP failed Canadians by saying it was not “in the public interest to charge a sitting prime minister with fraud.”.“I think the bigger interest around public interest is that Canadians need to know that their prime minister is not above the law. And they say in their own criminal brief that if it was any other Canadian, if it was any other government official, they would have charged them with fraud against the government but because Justin Trudeau was PM, they did not act, which means that Justin Trudeau can act with impunity and he’s not above the law and should be held to a higher standard than other government officials, not a lower one,” Bezan said..The Conservative investigation has not revealed whether the decision to not charge Trudeau was made by Lucki or at an investigative level. But Bezan says the national police force now has a chance to “redeem themselves.” .“Based upon the new evidence that has come forward. They should be reopening this case. We do not have a statute of limitations, and as much as the Liberals want to argue and the prime minister wants to say this happened six years ago, it doesn’t matter. There’s a crime that was committed, Justin Trudeau needs to be held to account.”.He’s promising that if the RCMP balks, the official opposition will ask the OPP to step in..Trudeau has had a history of ethical violations, as Bezan noted in our interview. There was the SNC Lavalin scandal where he intimidated then Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould. He lost his finance minister Bill Morneau over the We charity scandal, another round of Liberal corruption where insider friends were getting favours from the government..Trudeau never seems to be held responsible for his actions. He walked away from a history of doing blackface routines by blaming alleged Canadian racism and he still has the nerve to suggest it’s everybody else but him who is guilty of racial bias..“There’s a litany of ethical breaches. But is the first time that we can actually talk of criminality as well and that changes the game dramatically,” Bezan told me..“The time has come, I’m hoping the Teflon has worn off and that some of these allegations will finally stick to him.”.On a side note, Bezan also commented on last week’s Conservative Party leadership debate. He’s co-chairing the Pierre Poilievre campaign in Manitoba, so the MP admits his bias. “I thought Pierre did very well.” He suggested former Quebec Liberal Premier Jean Charest “did better than I expected.”.But Bezan is sold on Poilievre as much as he’s convinced Trudeau’s day of reckoning has come..“Canadians are hungry for a true choice between the various political leaders and Pierre has given them conservative choice that I think is so much needed at this point in time of history of getting our fiscal house back in order, of protecting the freedoms and rights of Canadians and at the end of the day in making us more prosperous.”
