As everyone knows, Mr. Speaker, seaports play an undeniably important strategic role in our country's development.
Since 1999, port authorities have had some flexibility in how they manage day-to-day activities, but they are still required to represent Canada in the marine sector.
They are shared-governance corporations, which are corporate entities without share capital for which the Government of Canada, either directly or through the intermediary of a crown corporation, has a right to appoint or nominate one or several members to a governing group.
We recently learned that at the port of Sept-Îles, an individual the Conservatives appointed to the board of directors in 2006 reported making $94,000 for the 2011 fiscal year, which is $22,000 more than any other port administrator in Quebec. We also learned that his helicopter transport company occasionally receives contracts from the port authority he runs.
Are we to conclude that the candidates for the Conservatives' partisan appointments are exempt from complying with ethics rules and that they can scoff at the code of conduct and legal provisions that define conflicts of interest? It is a question worth asking.