Preston Manning

A letter to the Ethics Commissioner sent April 9th, 2025

On April 4, 2025, during the current federal election period, in which employees of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation (CBC) report on all aspects of the election, the unelected Prime Minister, without any consultation with or authorization by parliament but apparently with the concurrence of the Minister of Heritage, promised an increase of $150 million in the budget of the CBC on top of its $1.38 billion budget for the current fiscal year.

The CBC consistently and for obvious reasons tends to share the ideological orientation of the governing Liberal Party and its political allies, and supports many of their policy positions. It tends to ignore or oppose those of the Conservative Official Opposition which proposes dismantling the CBC.

The unelected Liberal Prime Minister promising a $150 million bonus to the CBC in the middle of an election campaign would thus strike any objective observer as unethical, damaging to public confidence in our democratic institutions, and deserving of investigation and commentary by your office.

In particular, it is respectfully requested that you address the following questions:

1. Has the Prime Minister acted unethically by promising the state owned broadcasting corporation, sympathetic to the governing party, a $150 million increase in its budget, during a federal election campaign?

2. Is the promise of a $150 million increase in the budget of the CBC, during an election period in which the CBC is expected to give objective coverage to the campaign, in effect a defacto bribe and contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Conflict of Interest Code and Act?

In addition, on April 7, 2025, again during the current election period, the Prime Minister has announced that the federal government will distribute approximately $4 billion in carbon rebate payments directly to approximately 13 million Canadians, many of whom are eligible voters, and will do so prior to the election day of April 28.

This naturally raises the following questions which it is again respectfully requested that you address:

3. Has the Prime Minister and the federal government acted unethically by authorizing the distribution, prior to election day, of almost $4 billion in rebate payments to approximately 13 million Canadians, many of whom are voters, and doing so with the suspected intent of winning the support of those voters?

4. Is the promise and delivery, prior to election day, of almost $4 billion in rebate payments to approximately 13 million Canadians, many of whom are voters, in effect a defacto attempt to bribe those voters with their own money, and contrary to the spirit and the letter of the Conflict of Interest Code and Act?

To assist in the consideration of these allegations, suppose the UN were to ask Canada to supervise a national election in a third world country where democracy is frail and elections subject to abuse by those in authority. Suppose further that the unelected president of that country, during the election campaign period, endeavored to secure:

· The support of the state broadcasting corporation by promising it a huge increase in its budget, and,

· The support of millions of voters by ensuring that they received a generous personal payment from his government just prior to election day.

In such a situation, would not the Canadian monitoring authority be obliged to strongly censure such behaviors and report to the UN that such behavior calls into question the democratic legitimacy of the election subjected to such abuses?

If we as Canadians would consider such political behaviors anti-democratic and unacceptable if practiced in a foreign country, ought we not to come to the same conclusion even more quickly and certainly when they are regrettably practiced in our own?

Please respond to questions 1-4 above prior to April 25, 2025 and please ensure that your responses are made public prior to that date.

Thanking you for your service and your commitment to safeguarding public confidence in Canada’s democratic institutions and processes.

Your sincerely,

Preston Manning PC CC AOE