Although he has been listed as a member of the Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee since shortly after the 2011 election, the Ontario MP hasn’t attended a single meeting in more than nine months.
His last appearance at the committee, June 5, 2012, came the day before the Citizen and Postmedia News revealed he was under investigation by Elections Canada for allegedly overspending on voter-contact calls in his 2008 campaign in Peterborough, Ont.
He has since missed 26 meetings, according to committee minutes.
As the ethics committee began its scheduled hearings into the Conflict of Interest Act on Wednesday afternoon, Del Mastro was spotted entering the Victoria Building, elsewhere in the parliamentary precinct.
He would not say why he no longer attends the committee on which he sits, but denied anyone told him not to go.
“I’m doing my job,” Del Mastro said before walking away.
In the meetings Del Mastro has missed, another Conservative — usually Alberta MP Chris Warkentin — replaced him on the committee.
On Wednesday, as he arrived at the committee hearing room, Warkentin said there was a chance Del Mastro would show up.
“He may be here today. We’ll see,” Warkentin said.
Del Mastro did not show up.
“I honestly don’t know why he doesn’t come,” said Conservative MP Brad Butt, another committee member. “I haven’t discussed it with him.”
For scheduling or strategic reasons, it is common for one party MP to be substituted for another on occasion. It’s unusual for the arrangement to become permanent.
Del Mastro does not receive extra pay for sitting on the ethics committee but does earn $15,834 annually for serving as Stephen Harper’s parliamentary secretary, on top of his $157,731 base MP salary.
NDP MP Charlie Angus said Del Mastro has effectively been dropped from the committee, even if the government refuses to admit it.
“It’s clear Mr. Del Mastro has been removed from his post because he’s not doing his job,” said Angus, also a member of the ethics committee.
“It would be better if we knew what was the situation rather than creating the fiction he’s holding the post,” Angus said.
“If he’s been sidelined, why doesn’t the prime minister just say it? There’s no shame in stepping down while he’s being investigated while he clears him name.”
Before his own Elections Canada issues were made public, Del Mastro often responded in the House of Commons to opposition attacks over Elections Canada’s ongoing investigations of misleading robocalls in the 2011 election campaign.
Now, Nepean-Carleton MP Pierre Poilievre responds to the opposition on ethics issues. Poilievre previously served as Harper’s parliamentary secretary and is now playing the same role to the transport minister. Del Mastro rarely speaks in the House during question period.
The lone Liberal on the ethics committee, Newfoundland and Labrador MP Scott Andrews, said Del Mastro should be stripped of his job.
“I think he should have been sacked as parliamentary secretary when this all started. He’s collecting his salary now but doing nothing, not even answering questions in the House,” Andrews said.
“They’ve made a whole farce of the ethics committee.”
For more than 20 months, Elections Canada has been probing allegations that Del Mastro’s 2008 election campaign under-reported its spending and tried to cover up the cost overruns. Del Mastro has repeatedly said he expects he will be cleared of any wrongdoing.
Elections Canada is also looking into claims Del Mastro’s 2008 campaign received donations funnelled through employees of a Mississauga electrical contractor owned by his cousin, David Del Mastro.
David Del Mastro had denied allegations he paid employees to make contributions to the campaign and says he merely asked people he knew to give voluntarily.
Original Article
Source: canada.com
Author: glen McGregor
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