Ministers benefited from government program, Tories charge
Last Updated: Thursday, October 15, 2009 | 2:13 PM AT
CBC News
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The P.E.I. government is hiding the involvement of cabinet ministers in a controversial immigrant investor program, the Progressive Conservative opposition believes.
On Tuesday, Liberals on the public accounts committee blocked an opposition motion to have Auditor General Colin Younker reveal the names of all MLAs, past and present, who received money from potential immigrants from the provincial nominee program.
Tory MLA Jim Bagnall believes the order to block the motion came directly from Premier Robert Ghiz.
"It was obvious that they had their direction from the fifth floor [premier's office]," Bagnall told CBC News Wednesday.
"Robert Ghiz directed this committee to not allow this information to come forward."
Younker has said there are 15 past and present MLAs who received investment money for businesses they owned from potential immigrants. Most of those names are known. Bagnall is after those last few, and believes there are cabinet ministers on the list whose business interests are held in blind trust.
"They can hide behind their blind trust all they want," said Bagnall.
"To me it's a major conflict of interest."
Government house leader Rob Vessey led the Liberal arguments in the public accounts committee not to release the list of names.
"I'm not going to sit here and put forward names for political aspirations for the opposition," said Vessey.
He said there is a formal process for conflict of interest charges, and if the opposition has a problem it should go to the conflict of interest commissioner.
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