Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault is leaving the Liberal cabinet to clear the allegations he is facing, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) has announced.
“The Prime Minister and MP Randy Boissonault have agreed that Mr. Boissonnault will step away from Cabinet effective immediately,” the PMO said in a Nov. 20 statement.
“Mr. Boissonnault will focus on clearing the allegations made against him.”
Boissonnault has been dogged for months by allegations of improprieties regarding his business dealings. More recently, he has come under scrutiny due to inconsistent indigenous heritage claims.
The PMO said Veterans Affairs Minister Ginette Petitpas Taylor will take on the employment portfolio on a temporary basis.
Boissonnault, an Edmonton MP, had not made any public comments about the development as of press time.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau was asked by reporters on Nov. 19 why he continued to have confidence in Boissonnault despite the allegations.
“Minister Boissonnault has addressed these and will continue to answer directly for those,” Trudeau said. “In the meantime, I’m happy that he is continuing to lead on issues around jobs and employment and represent Alberta and our government.”
Indigenous Heritage Claims
Boissonnault faced calls to resign this week from the Conservatives, an NDP MP, and some indigenous leaders because of his previous claims about his indigenous lineage.He has been described as indigenous in Liberal Party communications, and he previously referred to one of his great-grandmothers as a “full-blooded Cree woman.”
The indigenous lineage claims also tie into Boissonnault’s business dealings, which have been under scrutiny for months.
Some of the latest issues to surface include his former business partner claiming the business was indigenous-owned when bidding for a federal contract. This practice recently came under scrutiny after it came to light that some businesses made false claims to get easier access to government contracts.
Boissonnault addressed both matters in a statement issued on Nov. 8, saying the family into which he was adopted “has Indigenous ancestry with his mother and brother both being status Métis.”
Further clarification came after the National Post reported that, based on census records, Boissonnault’s adopted great-grandmother had a German father and he was in fact of Métis heritage. This contradicted the “full-blooded Cree” claim, which his office had acknowledged.
“I myself do not have status, though I have participated in Indigenous caucus as an ally throughout my time as an MP,” Boissonnault said on Nov. 8.
He offered an apology on Nov. 15 for the shifting claims of indigenous heritage.
On the business side, he said his former partner at Global Health Imports (GHI), Stephen Anderson, had made “false representations” without his consent to portray the company as an indigenous-owned company.
“I regret my error in judgment in having gone into business with Mr. Anderson,” he said.
Anderson hasn’t responded to requests for comment.
Business
Boissonnault co-founded GHI, a medical supply company, with Anderson in 2020 while he was not serving as an MP.Boissonnault lost his House of Commons seat in 2019 and regained it in 2021, and joined the cabinet. He says he resigned from GHI at that point, and maintained a 50 percent stake in the company until recently, without being involved in operations. Conflict of interest rules prohibit ministers from maintaining operational control of businesses involved with the federal government.
Text messages from Anderson mentioning a “Randy” in the context of operational issues multiple times while Boissonnault was in office have been probed by MPs on the House ethics committee.
“What is going on? I just received this from Randy,” Anderson wrote in a September 2022 text, following up with a copy of a message that reads: “It literally takes 10 seconds to complete a transfer. I’m telling you we are not allocating like this … Be available for a partner call in 15 minutes.”
Boissonnault has denied being the “Randy” cited in the text messages, and denied having been involved in GHI business during that time. The ethics commissioner probed the matter and cleared Boissonnault.
Anderson told the committee on July 17 the repeated appearance of a “Randy” in his text messages was due to the autocorrect function on his phone.
Boissonnault parted with his GHI stake in June while under scrutiny.
The Canadian Press contributed to this report.
