The Conservative Party of Canada wants an investigation to be launched to know who was responsible for the outsourcing of an $84 million dollar federal government contract for a rent subsidy program given during the pandemic.

The contract was since awarded to a company where Robert Silver, Justin Trudeau’s Chief of Staff Katie Telford’s husband, holds a senior executive position.

As Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s top political staffer, she has nearly unlimited access to documents and discussions in policy-making affairs in the PM’s office. 

The Opposition’s finance critic Pierre Poilievre calls on the finance committee to look into why the program was directed through a non-government entity instead of the CRA.

He also said that he would be submitting a request to the lobbying commissioner to begin an investigation into whether the company should have registered their lobbying activities and whether they did so or not. 

When speaking of the situation, Poilievre went on to say “It reminds us of the WE Charity scandal,”. This is due to the similarities of the Prime Minister’s Office engaging in outsourcing large government contracts to individuals and companies with whom members of his office hold close ties to. 

“It reminds us of the WE Charity scandal,”

Pierre Poilievre

Poilievre stated during the press conference that the Canadian Federation of Independent Businesses has said that the rent assistance program has “been a disaster, helping barely 15 percent of businesses”. 

Watch the entire press conference with Pierre Poilievre and Michael Barrett below: