Con aide to Minister of Asbestos resigns. A question.

An aide to Christian Paradis, Minister of Asbestos, resigned last night over his own meddling in at least four access-to-information requests, one of which involved :

"the backgrounds of members of a government panel examining asbestos."

Would that be the backgrounds of the members of this government panel, by any chance? March 2010 :

The one remaining asbestos mine in Canada, second largest exporter of asbestos in the world, is in the riding of Natural Resources Minister Christian Paradis.

At the last meeting of the Committee on Natural Resources, NDP Pat Martin moved to cut the $250,000 funding the department allocates to the [asbestos lobby group] Chrysotile Institute. No one supported the motion, and the other committee members - I'm looking at you, Libs - slunk away so there was no longer the quorum necessary for the vote.

At the time I wondered why, as per the Sierra Club's allegations, the Natural Resources Ministry was paying the Chrysotile asbestos lobby group to lobby its own minister.

On March 23, 2010, the motion to remove the government subsidy to Chrysotile Asbestos Institute was defeated in committee nine to one :
Geoff Regan, Liberal - NO ............ Nathan Cullen, NDP - YES
Navdeep Bains, Liberal - NO ........ Cheryl Gallant, Con - NO
Alan Tonks, Liberal - NO ............. Richard Harris, Con - NO
Paule Brunelle, Bloc - NO ............ David Anderson, Con - NO
Mauril Bélanger, Liberal - NO ...... Bernard Genereux, Con - NO

and that made me wonder why they all caved on what appears to be such an obvious conflict of interest at the very least.

In May, the minister's aide Sebastien Togneri was questioned by the Ethics Committee over his blocking of information. Shortly thereafter the Cons decided not to allow political staffers or their work/incriminating emails to appear before the committee any more and Paradis showed up in his aide's place.

As Pogge would say - things that make you go hmmm...
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h/t Antonia Z.
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