A reader’s guide to the Boissonnault inquiry

The parliamentary ethics committee will examine Employment Minister Randy Boissonnault’s business affairs on Tuesday, June 4, at 11 a.m. ET.

The Edmonton Centre MP and entrepreneur won the 2021 election by a thin margin and is the sole federal cabinet minister representing Alberta.

Committee members will ask him about his business ties to a lobbying firm and a medical supply company. Global News revealed these connections in reports published in late April and early May.

The hearings will likely involve tracing payments across a network of businesses connected with the minister and questions about whether the payments comply with the Conflict of Interest Act, the Lobbying Act, the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct and the Open and Accountable Government code.

Here’s a guide to the questions ahead, with an expanded map of the connections between the key players.

The questions will likely look at whether the minister and his business associates benefitted from his position in cabinet.

The ethics committee launched its inquiry on May 7 after Global News revealed that Poon, a rookie federal lobbyist who had taken control of Boissonnault’s two dormant small businesses after his election, had solicited high-level political staff across the federal government as part of her work for her consultancy, Navis Group. As she helped her client land$110 million in federal grants, she lobbied ministerial advisors at Finance Canada, when Boissonnault was associate minister.

Global Health Imports Corporation (GHI), a medical supply startup Boissonnault co-owns with former hockey coach Stephen Anderson, also successfully competed with national and multinational firms. GHI wonat least $8.2 million in provincial and municipal contracts between 2020 and