Tories demand answers on finance minister's potential high-speed rail conflicts
· Toronto Sun
OTTAWA — This weekend’s news of federal Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne recusing himself over the federal government’s high-speed rail project has the Conservatives calling for an investigation by the ethics commissioner.
Visit esporist.org for more information.
And Prime Minister Mark Carney defended his finance minister to reporters on Tuesday, saying Champagne followed the rules and that spouses of cabinet ministers are entitled to pursue their own careers.
News broke of the recusal over the Easter weekend with Champagne reportedly releasing a letter Monday removing himself from any discussions or decisions concerning the $60-billion to $90-billion Alto project , which aspires to build a high-speed rail corridor between Toronto and Quebec City.
The most recent federal budget put aside $100 million for the Alto project — one of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s “nation-building” projects announced last year.
Champagne reportedly filed letter last year
The issue surrounds Champagne’s partner Anne-Marie Gaudet, who since last August has served as Alto’s vice-president of environment.
In the letter, reportedly penned in September before the federal budget was announced, Champagne delegated authority over the project to Wayne Long, s ecretary of state for the Canada Revenue Agency, with this ethics “filter” overseen by his chief of staff and deputy finance minister.
“I am proactively applying a conflict of interest filter to Alto, a wholly owned subsidiary of the government of Canada,” the letter reportedly said, which has not been viewed by the Toronto Sun, and does not appear on the Office of Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner website.
“This measure is being implemented due to a personal connection to someone close to me in the organization, to safeguard against any real or perceived conflict of interest.”
The letter was reportedly dated Sept. 10, 2025 — but the date was reportedly in a different font than the rest of the letter.
RECOMMENDED VIDEO
Carney defends minister, says he did ‘right thing’
Speaking to reporters at an unrelated news conference in Brampton, Carney said Champagne did the right thing by recusing himself and that there are plenty of other ministers capable of handling the file.
“It’s important that we have a system where those individuals can continue to pursue their career,” he said.
“There are rules and regulations and the minister of finance has followed those rules and regulations with a notification of the ethics commissioner in recusing himself from dealings in respect to Alto.”
That explanation wasn’t good enough for the Tories, who on Tuesday afternoon called on conflict of interest and ethics commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein to launch an investigation.
“The prospect of a finance minister making decisions as part of the federal government’s budgetary process, which present distinct benefits and advantages for his partner and her employer — and acting and voting in Parliament to give those effect — is a very troubling development,” Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett wrote in a letter to the commissioner.
“An investigation is absolutely essential here, including to validate the existence and application of his unpublished — and only now revealed — ‘conflict of interest filter’ in addition to all of his parliamentary engagement on this matter.”