Conservatives say Champagne is avoiding committee study into Alto rail connection

Mayors are calling on the government to align the new high-speed rail project along Hwy. 401 and to add a stop in Kingston, Ont. CTV’s Kimberley Johnson reports

OTTAWA -- The Conservatives are accusing the Liberals of blocking a House of Commons committee from questioning Finance Minister Francois-Philippe Champagne about his personal connection to the Alto high-speed rail project.

Champagne’s partner, Anne-Marie Gaudet, is a vice-president of environment at Alto, the Crown corporation responsible for the $90-billion rail project that would connect Toronto and Quebec City. She was hired in August 2025.

Conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett tried to launch a study at the ethics committee to question Champagne, the CEO of Alto Martin Imbleau and Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein about the minister’s relationship with Gaudet and the decisions he’s made in government since she was hired.

“We are facing a filibuster that’s gone on for more than 12 hours, a Liberal filibuster designed to block basic accountability,” Barrett said Thursday.

John Fragos, a spokesperson for the Office of the Minister of Finance and National Revenue, said in an email that it’s up to parliamentary committees themselves to agree on which individuals they’d like to see testify.

“What’s already agreed upon, however, is the understanding that the minister acted proactively and above and beyond the guidance outlined in the act to safeguard against the perception of a conflict,” he said. “The commissioner himself determined as much in August, saying, ‘There is no risk of a conflict and no screen is required.’”

“The minister opted to recuse himself anyway and had a screen imposed proactively.”

After questions arose in the media about Champagne’s connection to Alto, the finance minister’s office shared a letter he sent last September to Prime Minister Mark Carney and to von Finckenstein.

The letter states that Champagne was proactively implementing a conflict-of-interest screen “due to a personal connection to someone close to me in the organization, to safeguard against any real or perceived conflict of interest.”

Champagne’s office said the minister has not participated in any discussions or decisions tied to Alto since then. His office also said the initial funding for the project was announced in February 2025 and allocated in the main estimates in 2025, all before Gaudet was hired.

A compliance officer in the ethics commissioner’s office wrote to Champagne earlier this month to say there was no risk of a conflict because “Alto is a Crown corporation accountable to Parliament through the minister of transport and as minister of finance you have no decision-making authority over matters of human resources at Alto, you do not have an opportunity to further the interest of any specific Alto employee.”

Barrett has formally asked the conflict of interest and ethics commissioner to investigate.

He pointed out that the government included legislation to enable the Alto project in its omnibus budget bill, which Champagne introduced and championed in Parliament.

“Why wasn’t the bill with respect to the high-speed rail network act brought forward by the transport minister and not by the finance minister?” he asked.

During the ethics committee’s last meeting, MPs debated for hours but did not vote on whether the minister should appear to answer questions.

The Liberals have four members on the committee, while the Conservatives have four and the Bloc Quebecois has one. That means opposition members could outvote the government members and request that Champagne appear.

“This is the opposite of what the prime minister said that Canadians should expect from parliamentarians at committee, and it is counter to the basic accountability that Canadians should demand of all parliamentarians,” Barrett said Thursday.

Earlier this week, Carney told reporters that his new majority Liberal government would engage in serious debate and accused the opposition of “showboating” and filibustering in committee.

Now that the Liberals have a majority, they could vote in the House of Commons to change the makeup of committees. Majority governments historically have held a majority of seats on committees -- a key step in the legislative process where bills are scrutinized and amended.

By Sarah Ritchie

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 16, 2026.