MP alleges Boissonnault’s former business partner ‘in contempt’ of parliamentary order

A former business partner of Liberal cabinet minister Randy Boissonnault failed to comply with a House of Commons order to turn over records of his phone calls and texts by Friday.

While Anderson provided some emails, Global News was also unable to verify that Anderson shared with the committee’s clerk the name of the person he referred to as “Randy” in text messages.

The parliamentary ethics committee demanded on Wednesday that Stephen Anderson, who once co-owned the medical supply business Global Health Imports (GHI) with Boissonnault, produce the name along with phone records, text messages, instant messages and other documents by noon on July 19.

This information would allow committee members to verify the truth of Anderson’s testimony before the committee on Wednesday. They did not ask for emails.

Anderson is chief operating officer of GHI. He told the assembled MPs that Employment Minister Boissonnault did not instruct him on how to run the business in September 2022, when Anderson sent the text messages referring to “Randy.”

While MPs are permitted to own shares in companies, which Boissonnault did until last month, they cannot be involved in their businesses’ operations without breaching conflict-of-interest laws.

The entrepreneur told the MPs, who had gathered in Ottawa during Parliament’s summer recess to meet with him, that 10 text messages about “Randy” he sent to a client between Sept. 6 and 8, 2022, were the result of an “unfortunate autocorrect.”

Anderson also said he had lied to a Global News reporter who asked about the messages, telling her that they referred to another Randy and not Boissonnault.

“I don’t think I want to get into … what you think an ‘autocorrect’ is,” Conservative MP Michael Barrett said to