Trudeau checking if ‘all rules’ were followed in Hussen’s hiring of foodie firm | 24CA News

Prime Minister Justin Trudeau says he’s ensuring “all rules” have been adopted within the resolution to present $103,050 in contracts to a foodie agency with household ties to Housing Minister Ahmed Hussen’s senior staffer.

Global News reported Thursday that Hussen’s workplace awarded $93,050 in communications contracts to Munch More Media, a Toronto-based agency centered on the meals and restaurant trade. The taxpayer funds got here from his constituency workplace funds, not his ministerial funds.

The director of the corporate, Hiba Tariq, is sister to Hussen’s director of coverage and shut advisor, Tia Tariq.

On Friday, Global reported that Marci Ien, the minister of ladies and gender equality, additionally gave $10,000 in contracts from her constituency funds to Munch More Media.

“I know the minister (Hussen) has spoken to this and will continue to answer questions on this,” Trudeau mentioned in a press convention on Monday in Hamilton.

3:34New particulars emerge on contract awarded by Liberal cupboard minister

Trudeau’s workplace has refused to reply questions on what they knew concerning the contract previous to Global News’ reporting, however sources have recommended it was an open secret inside Liberal circles.

“My preoccupation is that the rules always be followed…. But also that members of Parliament continue to put a priority on connecting, communicating with Canadians,” Trudeau mentioned.

Trudeau added that Hussen “is making sure that he’s answering our questions on this.”

MPs are permitted to spend constituency funds — which finally come from the taxpayer — on exterior communications work. But a Global News evaluation of cupboard ministers’ constituency spending exhibits that Hussen is only one of three ministers who spent a big quantity of public cash on exterior public relations assist in current months.

Munch More Media Inc. is a Toronto-based public relations agency specializing in selling the restaurant and meals companies trade. It isn’t clear, exterior of what Global News reported final week, that it has any expertise in political communications.

Lobbying data present Tia Tariq has been working with Hussen since no less than 2017, when he was minister of immigration, and has held a variety of positions with Hussen’s workplace since. She now serves as Hussen’s director of coverage.

Hiba Tariq, her sister, is the director of PR agency Munch More Media Inc., a foodie communications agency in Toronto. In a December 2015 Instagram submit, Hiba tagged a fellow Instagram person, figuring out them as siblings.

&copy 2023 Global News, a division of Corus Entertainment Inc.