Michael Higgins: Liberal DND chief wonders, what even is ethics?

Deputy Minister of the Department of National Defence Christiane Fox appears before a committee in Ottawa April 13, 2026. Photo by Blair Gable /Postmedia

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The sordid little affair involving Christiane Fox, one of Canada’s most senior government officials, in getting an acquaintance a job within the public service is made all the more distasteful because of her blindness to her faults and her casual disregard for accepting any responsibility. 

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Worse, it casts a blight over the public service and diminishes the office of the ethics commissioner when Fox, currently deputy minister at the Department of National Defence, tries to wave away so easily the fact that she has been found guilty of a serious ethical failing. 

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In a defiant appearance before a House Commons committee on Monday, Fox tried to minimize her involvement in the hiring of Björn Charles, a Black acquaintance, and all but cast herself as the hero. 

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The whole matter was about increasing diversity, she said. She had spent her whole career putting diversity at the forefront of what she did. 

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This is supposed to explain why she went out of her way to get Charles a job in 2023 within her then department — Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada — when he was at that time a gym manager, did not speak French, did not know software and had no government expertise or experience. 

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Well, she told the committee, in some departments there were “systemic barriers and there were resistance to change. And so genuinely, as a leader, I believe in these issues. I believe it is important to lead by example.” 

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This was the same saintly defence she used on Konrad von Finckenstein, the ethics commissioner, who was having none of it. 

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It was simply not “credible,” he said. 

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Two witnesses, an acting director general and an office manager within IRCC, testified that the diversity aspect wasn’t mentioned to them. Even Charles, the man being hired, wasn’t told that he was an equity candidate, said the commissioner in his report. 

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“Clearly, the true intent behind her interventions” was to get him a job, he said. 

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Having tried to present herself with the best possible motivation, Fox then blamed underperforming colleagues. 

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“I have to think about the role that I occupy and whether or not it’s best to administer change differently,” she told the committee in relation to the hire, adding, “But this was a context of trying to change an underperforming unit within the department that occupied a lot of my attention.” 

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Not surprisingly, staff reacted badly to having a non-French speaking, unqualified person foisted upon them. 

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“Many assumed he had been personally brought in by someone who knew him. Evidence also shows that senior staff referred to him as ‘the DM’s friend’,” said the ethics commissioner, who noted how one person testified that morale had been greatly affected. 

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After blaming the underperformers and highlighting her noble motivations at the committee, Fox also minimized her relationship with Charles. 

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He was someone she went to university with 25 years ago, she said.  

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But in reading the ethics commissioner’s report we also find out: Fox’s spouse worked as a basketball coach at Carleton University and knew Charles as “part of the university’s broader basketball community.” In fact, Charles told the ethics commissioner that Fox’s spouse was his basketball coach between 2001-2004. Also, he said Fox and her spouse had friends in common and that he saw them at barbecues and basketball events every couple of years.