Bureaucratic catch-22 creating headache for first-time P.E.I. cabinet minister | CBC News
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P.E.I.’s Conflict of Interest Act is forcing the newest member of the provincial cabinet into a corner, and he says he plans to fight his way out.
Progressive Conservative MLA Sidney MacEwen has served the district of Morell-Donagh since he was first elected in 2015, but he’s never held a cabinet portfolio.
That changed last week when Premier Rob Lantz named him the minister of transportation, infrastructure and energy, and the minister of housing and communities.
At issue is MacEwen’s two-decade career as a lobster fisherman. The Conflict of Interest Act states that cabinet ministers must place their business assets into a blind trust during their time on executive council — but Fisheries and Oceans Canada’s owner-operator policy requires MacEwen’s fishing licence to stay in his name.
“I think we need a change to the Conflict of Interest Act,” MacEwen said Tuesday. “I do have a business. I can put that into a trust. I can put those assets into a trust. It’s just the licence name itself.”
Sidney MacEwen has spent more than two decades on the water fishing for lobster, and wants clarity around rules that have kept him out of provincial cabinet — until now. Despite being asked more than once, he’s always had to say no to a cabinet post, he says, because of P.E.I.’s Conflict of Interest Act and how it applies to lobster fisherman. CBC’s Wayne Thibodeau explains.
MacEwen said he’s applied to DFO to name a substitute operator for his lobster fleet, and that he has no intention of fishing this spring — but he wants to keep the licence in his name, which would contravene the province’s act.
He has 60 days to comply.
“There’s no other industry in Canada that has this where that [business] absolutely has to stay in your name,” he said. “It’s a very simple change, I think, that needs to be made.”
MacEwen said he will speak with P.E.I.’s conflict of interest commissioner, Judy Burke, for advice on whether the act can be changed or if an exemption or extension is possible.
CBC News has reached out to the conflict of interest commissioner but did not receive a response before publication.
‘It’s very personal’
MacEwen said he always intended to get the conflict sorted, and said he was approached by Lantz to “get it over with.”
“Any fisher that runs for any party in P.E.I. should be able to sit at the executive council if they’re called upon,” he said, adding he hopes to pass his lobster fleet on to his children.
“For me, it’s very personal. I want my family to stay in the industry. I want to pass this along to my sons and daughters and continue it on, generation after generation.…
“I shouldn’t have to sell that to serve the people of P.E.I.”
Lantz said MacEwen is doing what any other minister would do with their business assets, but the need to find a substitute operator through DFO adds an extra step.
“In the past, he’s been told that for some reason there’s something unique about being a lobster fisherman,” Lantz said. “We’re not sure what that is, but if there’s … additional steps we need to take, we’ll look at those.”
Lantz said he has “spoken to people at the highest level of the federal government” about the issue.
“I’m assured that this can be made to happen,” he said. “We’ll go through the same steps that everyone else goes through here. If we run into particular roadblocks, I’m sure we can all deal with that.”
This isn’t the first time such a conflict has raised concern in Prince Edward Island.
In 2008, Liberal MLA Allan Campbell sold his fishing licence to serve in the cabinet of Robert Ghiz.
Campbell was defeated in the 2011 election, and never returned to fishing.