ETHICS COMMISSIONER CLEARS MORNEAU

  Finance Minister Bill Morneau wasn't in a conflict of interest when he introduced a pension bill in the House of Commons while he still owned shares in his family's pension services company, according to the ethics commissioner.
  The ethics commissioner's decision to give Morneau a clean bill of health points to a loophole in the ethics laws — the "general application" clause that can let ministers off the hook for decisions they make that affect their own assets — said a spokesperson for the activist group Democracy Watch.
   "Now that this huge loophole is exposed, the question is whether the Trudeau Liberals will finally close it so that the now 'Almost Impossible to be in a Conflict of Interest Act' will finally become an effective law," said Duff Conacher.