Why the contract won by Boissonnault’s former company went undisclosed for months

The federal contract awarded by Elections Canada to a medical supply company co-founded by cabinet minister Randy Boissonnault was delayed in being publicly posted for seven months due to an “internal error,” the agency told Global News.

Global Health Imports (GHI), co-founded by Boissonnault, secured a $28,000 contract in January to supply disposable gloves to Elections Canada. At the time, Boissonnault, now Canada’s employment minister, owned a 50% stake in the company. Conflict of interest laws prohibit ministers from having a stake in private companies that benefit from federal contracts.

A cross-partisan group of MPs had already been questioning Boissonnault since June over an unrelated allegation that he was involved in GHI’s business dealings while in office, potentially violating ethics rules. Both Boissonnault and his business partner, Stephen Anderson, testified before the parliamentary ethics committee, denying that Boissonnault had any involvement in those dealings.

The contract with Elections Canada came to light recently and was not part of the previous ethics discussions. The contract was uploaded to the Open Government database on Aug. 9, 217 days after it was awarded. It should have been posted by the end of May according to access laws. Elections Canada attributed the delay to an “internal error.”

Boissonnault has stated he was unaware of the contract, having resigned as a director of GHI after his re-election in the fall of 2021. Tory ethics critic Michael Barrett has called for an investigation into whether Boissonnault benefited from the contract, while NDP ethics critic Matthew Green noted that the delay in disclosure has affected the ethics committee’s ability to ask relevant questions.

The Air Line Pilots Association has not set a strike date, but the pilots have voted overwhelmingly to approve a strike mandate if an agreement on a new contract cannot be reached.