OTTAWA (LifeSiteNews) – While Canadians face ever-increasing costs due to rapidly rising interest rates and inflation, recently disclosed records show Canada’s Department of Finance hired a senior adviser for a top role who is a friend of Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.
The hire comes amid the Liberal Party under Prime Minister Justin Trudeau showing a recent history of nepotism in appointments.
According to records disclosed last week, as per Blacklock’s Reporter, Freeland denied she knew anything about the appointment of her friend to the role.
“In the exercise of my official duties as Minister of Finance I recused myself on August 3 from participating in any discussion or decision regarding the department’s process to hire a new senior advisor in the Office of the Deputy Minister,” Freeland wrote in an ethics filing.
Freeland was mandated by the Conflict of Interest Act to make the ethics filing. However, the Office of Ethics Commission did not disclose the number of candidates being considered for the adviser role.
According to Freeland, she claimed she wanted to avoid any “appearance of preferential treatment or any opportunity to further the private interest of a family friend.”
The name of Freeland’s friend was not mentioned.
What could be argued are forms of political nepotism has reared its ugly head in recent months, notably after Trudeau hired a close “family friend” and former governor General David Johnston to investigate alleged Communist Chinese interference in Canada’s recent elections.
However, after a great deal of backlash, Johnston resigned as “special rapporteur” in June.
Last week, LifeSiteNews reported on how 76% of the Trudeau government’s judicial appointees are Liberal donors. This prompted Members of Parliament from Canada’s Conservative Party to blast Trudeau’s apparent appointment of judges who are mostly Liberal Party donors, saying his slow pace of filling vacant positions is being done so that he can put in place new justices who are his “Liberal insider friends.”
In 2020, nepotism prompted the Liberal Party to expel former MP Yasmin Ratansi, who did not disclose that she kept her sister on the payroll of her constituency for eight years.
Trudeau has claimed in the past that the “vast majority” of this MPs “follow” the rules.
As it stands now, nepotism comes with automatic job termination in public service should one be caught engaging in it.
However, Trudeau himself in trying to justify his use of the Emergencies Act (EA) on February 14, 2022, to shut down the popular Freedom Convoy, which took to Ottawa demanding an end to all COVID mandates, hired Liberal-friendly Judge Paul Rouleau to lead the commission.
This decision was heavily criticized by the opposition Conservative Party as a form of nepotism on full display.
Some internal surveys have shown that those in the public sector see hires based on who knows who being commonplace.
A 2021 Staffing and Non-Partisanship Survey, which was led by the Public Service Commission, found that most employees, some 53%, “believe appointments depend on who you know.”
As for the economy, earlier this year, the head of the BoC painted a grim picture for 2023, warning Canadians the coming economic turmoil will not “feel good.”
Both the Conservative Party of Canada and other parties blasted Trudeau’s out of control government spending.
People’s Party of Canada (PPC) leader Maxime Bernier said last month that the most “effective way to address inflationary pressures would be to cut government spending and the number of immigrants arriving in Canada.”
“Instead, it’s families with mortgages that will bear the brunt of Trudeau’s disastrous policies,” he noted.
Conservative Party of Canada leader Pierre Poilievre said last month that “Trudeau’s taxes & deficits have driven up inflation & interest rates. I will reverse Trudeau’s inflationary deficits & taxes to bring home lower rates.”