Watchdog Asks Whether RCMP Brass Shielded Lobbyists in Ottawa’s Influence Scandals

From ArriveCAN to SNC-Lavalin, new scrutiny of Ottawa’s regulators raises questions about whether the RCMP and federal oversight bodies have become politically neutered.

OTTAWA — Canada’s federal lobbying commissioner and the RCMP are under new scrutiny from a national transparency watchdog demanding to know whether the lobbying regulator has concealed rulings in nine violations that were referred to the Mounties — and later quietly sent back without prosecution — in a wide range of cases from the ArriveCAN procurement imbroglio to the explosive SNC-Lavalin affair, in which a former attorney general told the RCMP they could look at criminal obstruction charges.

The allegations relate to testimony now before a Parliamentary ethics committee, which has revived long-standing concerns from critics about Canada’s politically appointed watchdogs — and about the RCMP itself.

Framing his most pointed suggestion — that the RCMP may be politically neutered — in the form of questions, Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch, a witness before the committee, asked in a release Thursday:
“Did former RCMP Commissioner Brenda Lucki let off the lobbyists because she was appointed by and served at the pleasure of former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau? Did … current RCMP Commissioner Michael Duheme let off the lobbyists so Trudeau would appoint him first as Interim Commissioner in March 2023 and then as Commissioner in April 2024?”

Conacher’s statement presses for the release of nine rulings by Lobbying Commissioner Nancy Bélanger — cases referred to the RCMP and later returned to her office without charges. He accuses Bélanger’s office of failing to release those rulings for more than a year, despite access-to-information requests dating back to 2023.

In Conacher’s October 30 release, Democracy Watch accused both the RCMP and the Commissioner’s office of “blatantly violating” the Access to Information Act. The hidden cases, the watchdog said, may involve unregistered or unethical lobbying by major corporations including Facebook, WE Charity, SNC-Lavalin, and Imperial Oil.

“By continuing to hide her rulings on nine lobbying violations, Commissioner Bélanger is covering up scandalous situations, protecting the lobbyists and the public officials they were lobbying,” Conacher said. “It’s shameful that the RCMP, whose top officers are chosen by and serve at the pleasure of the ruling-party Cabinet, continue to take so long to investigate lobbyists who violate the law — and that they fail to prosecute almost all violations.”

Renewing his attack on RCMP leadership, Conacher added: “Their negligently bad enforcement record is more clear evidence that a new, fully independent anti-corruption federal police and prosecution force is needed.”

Conacher cites hearing evidence that Bélanger testified before the House Ethics Committee on April 16, 2024, acknowledging that her office had referred 15 cases to the RCMP since 2018 — and that the Mounties had “let off” the lobbyists in nine of them. In her most recent appearance on October 6, 2025, she updated that total to 18 cases referred, with 10 returned without charges, two prosecutions completed, two “in discussion,” and two still under investigation, Conacher said.

Conacher pointed to Bélanger’s confrontational exchange over the ArriveCAN procurement scandal with Conservative MP Michael Barrett during the April 2024 hearings.
“I wrote you about a month ago regarding GC Strategies. This is the Liberal government’s hand-picked favourite IT firm. They don’t do work on the applications but collect a commission for connecting the government with unknown firms,” Barrett said. “Can you tell us today if you’re investigating GC Strategies or its principals for contravening the Lobbying Act?”
“As I told you in the letter, I’m very much aware of the facts of that case, and I cannot confirm whether I’m investigating. You know that I do that because I do not want to jeopardize a possible RCMP investigation,” Bélanger answered.

Barrett then listed the company’s reported meetings with senior officials across government, including former Chief Information Officer Paul Girard and a series of departmental directors.

While contracting rules were breached, no criminal charges have been laid. In June 2025, Public Services and Procurement Canada barred GC Strategies from federal contracts for seven years. The government also barred two other firms involved in the ArriveCAN project — Dalian Enterprises and Coradix Technology Consulting — from future federal tenders.

The ArriveCAN app was launched in April 2020 as a digital tool to track traveller health information and customs declarations during the COVID-19 pandemic. Auditor General Karen Hogan later reported that poor record-keeping and excessive reliance on outside contractors caused the project’s cost to balloon from an initial $2.35 million to about $60 million, exposing what she called “a breakdown of basic management controls.” According to her report, GC Strategies alone was awarded more than $19 million for its share of the contracts.

An independent audit by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada found that the federal government awarded 106 contracts valued at approximately $92.7 million between April 2015 and March 2024, many without competition.

Conacher’s most recent demand for disclosure dovetails with the committee’s ongoing probe of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, following testimony by former Privy Council Clerk Michael Wernick. In that tense hearing earlier this week, Wernick was pressed on whether prime ministers’ conflicts of interest should be policed internally through “ethics screens,” or whether blind trusts and full public disclosure are required. Wernick defended the current system as “one tool in a broader toolbox,” while Conservative MPs Michael Barrett and Michael Cooper countered that it leaves Canadians relying on “hope and trust.”

The hearings also raised concerns about Prime Minister Mark Carney’s extensive Brookfield holdings, now shielded by an ethics screen covering about 100 files — what Wernick called “the most extensive private-sector record since Paul Martin.”

The parallels between the Bélanger and Wernick hearings highlight the same structural concerns: officials accountable to the Prime Minister are also responsible for policing the Prime Minister and Cabinet’s conflicts. For Democracy Watch, that circular system — extending from the Lobbying Commissioner and Ethics Commissioner to the RCMP Commissioner — represents not oversight, but insulation.