By Krista Hessey, Global News, and Charles Rusnell, Special to Global News
Global News
Published July 16, 2024
9 min read
Liberal Cabinet Minister Randy Boissonnault’s former partner in a medical supply company has ties to an Edmonton woman who was detained in a massive cocaine bust in the Dominican Republic in April 2022.
Federal incorporation documents show Stephen Anderson, chief operating officer of Global Health Imports (GHI), created a numbered company with Francheska Leblond in December 2021, about four months before her detention in the Caribbean country.
Boissonnault and Anderson co-owned GHI until about two weeks ago, when Boissonnault sold his 50 per cent stake in the controversial medical supply company, effectively cutting ties with Anderson.
His former partner is scheduled to appear before a parliamentary ethics committee Wednesday to answer questions about the company’s questionable business practices and what, if anything, the minister knew about them.
Last month, in a unanimous vote, the commons ethics committee passed a motion inviting Anderson to testify before the committee.
Global News found no direct tie between Boissonnault and Leblond.
In a case that generated international headlines, Dominican authorities detained 12 Canadians, including Leblond, after the crew from the Canadian charter company Pivot Airlines said they discovered 210 kilograms of cocaine hidden in their plane. Dominican prosecutors launched an investigation, but no charges were laid.
Global News has confirmed that Leblond was one of several people on the flight who was under RCMP investigation and that she has a history of drug charges under a previous name: Francheska Quach. Leblond was never charged by the RCMP in the Dominican incident.
Nine years earlier, Edmonton police arrested her and two others in a drug bust. Police said they seized loaded handguns with silencers, a bulletproof vest, and more than $31,000 in cash. They also said they seized $25,000 worth of cocaine from a car equipped with secret compartments. All charges against her were eventually withdrawn.
Anderson said he did not know of Leblond’s previous identity and past criminal charges when he incorporated the company with her. In a statement, Boissonnault said he has never met or spoken with Leblond and has no knowledge of her dealings with his former business partner. Anderson said he never told Boissonnault about it.
Boissonnault cuts ties with GHI
Almost overnight in early 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic created a massive worldwide demand for PPE. Like many other entrepreneurs, Boissonnault and Anderson founded GHI to cash in on the windfall business opportunity.
Both were looking for a fresh start. Boissonnault, first elected in Edmonton Centre in 2015, had lost the fall 2019 election. That same year, the hockey club that employed Anderson as a coach sued him in a dispute over the purchase of hockey equipment. The dispute ended with a mediated $8,000 payment from Anderson to the club.
Global found no evidence either had any experience in the medical supply market.
After his re-election in September 2021, Boissonnault resigned as director of GHI but continued to own a 50 per cent stake in the company until late June. Public office holders are allowed to own private companies as long as they do not operate or manage them.
Boissonnault’s sale of his share of the company comes after Global News published a series of stories that detailed GHIs’ troubled history, including unusual contract wins, half a dozen lawsuits, nearly $8 million in court-ordered debts, a civil allegation of fraud against Anderson, and a fire at the company’s warehouse started by three arsonists in the dead of night.
Boissonnault is not named in any of the lawsuits. Anderson denies the fraud allegation and the arson case remains unsolved.
Global News consulted several experts in ethics and governance about Boissonault’s recent business ties to Anderson, who is associated with someone linked to the drug trade, and the numerous legal and financial issues faced by GHI.
“I think it’s bad ethics, but I’m absolutely certain it’s awful politics,” said Arthur Schafer, founding director of the University of Manitoba’s Centre for Professional and Applied Ethics.
Dalhousie University governance and ethics professor Lori Turnbull said Boissonnault distancing himself from GHI and Anderson is “the smart thing to do.”
“If there is any possibility of any continued investigation or suspicion or negative attention to the government, the easiest thing to do from a political standpoint is just make it go away and so you sell the shares and then it’s harder to to pose questions,” she said.
Global News told Boissonnault about the link between Anderson and Leblond on March 28, 2024. Alice Hansen, Boissonnault’s director of communication, did not address Global’s questions about Anderson and Leblond at the time.
Boissonnault has never publicly acknowledged the reputational issues created by the company. When Global reporters asked him why he continued to own part of the company with Anderson, his office did not answer the question, nor did it inform reporters that he had sold his shares.
Boissonnault has repeatedly denied having any involvement with the company since he won back his Edmonton Centre seat in the fall of 2021 and resigned from his position as director. He served in Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s cabinet as minister of tourism and associate minister of finance before being promoted to minister of employment in mid-2023.
After Global reported that Anderson sent texts to a buyer in 2022 in which someone named “Randy” instructed him on how to handle a business deal and asked for a “partner call,” Canada’s ethics commissioner launched a preliminary probe into Boissonnault.
Under the Conflict of Interest Act, public officeholders are prohibited from managing or operating businesses while in office. Both Anderson and Boissonnault said the minister was not the “Randy” in the texts.
Still, the Tories and NDP have grilled Boissonnault in the House of Commons and in the parliamentary ethics committee over the past six weeks.
On June 25, Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein decided not to launch a formal investigation after reviewing Boissonnault’s phone records. Alberta business registry documents show Boissonnault sold his shares in GHI two days later.
Hansen said in a statement that the ethics commissioner has twice declined to formally investigate Boissonnault.
That “does not exonerate Minister Boissonnault so long as important questions remain unanswered,” Tory MP Micheal Barrett said in a statement.
NDP MP Matthew Green said the sale of the shares “demonstrates that Mr. Boissonnault understands that his connection to this company is problematic.”
Schafer said the optics for Boissonnault and Trudeau, who has so far declined to comment on the allegations, are terrible.
“This is a government already under fire for its perceived inability to see an ethical issue when it lands on its head,” he said.
“So why have they kept (Boissonnault) around? I mean, he is kind of a ticking time bomb for them. He is a gift to the Conservative opposition and to Mr. Poilievre.”
Leblond’s checkered past
In 2008, Francheska Leblond was known as Francheska Quach. Edmonton police charged the 21-year-old with possession of marijuana for the purposes of trafficking and possession of money under $5,000 obtained by crime. Those charges were stayed, but she received a conditional discharge and a year of probation for a third charge of possession of a controlled substance.
Five years later, in July 2013, Edmonton police charged Quach with more serious crimes. The drug and gang unit said officers found a 9mm handgun, bulletproof vest, radio jamming devices, homemade tracking devices, and more than $31,000 in cash at a house in Edmonton where Quach and two others were arrested.
Police also said they found $25,000 worth of cocaine, another handgun with a silencer, and ammunition in a hidden compartment of a car associated with the accused. Quach was charged with possession of cocaine with the purpose of trafficking and a handful of weapons charges. It’s unknown why the charges were later dropped.
Anderson said he met Leblond at a mutual friend’s birthday party in 2019 and she later proposed starting a cleaning business together.
He incorporated 13560449 Canada Limited on Dec. 1, 2021, about two months after Boissonnault resigned as a director from GHI.
Anderson said the numbered company does not have anything to do with GHI or his other company, Global Healthcare Solutions (GHS).
About four months after Anderson incorporated the company, Leblond was detained and jailed in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic alongside 11 other Canadians. The crew said they discovered 210 kilos of cocaine — about $25 million worth — in duffle bags hidden in their chartered jet destined for Toronto.
A CTV W5 investigation from December 2022 revealed the company that hired the plane was fake and at least two of the plane’s passengers from Edmonton had criminal histories that involved drugs or drug trafficking.
Anderson said he learned about Leblond’s detainment from the W5 documentary.
The cleaning company “did not proceed beyond the early discussions and due diligence,” Anderson said in a statement.
“As a result, no actual business was transacted, no bank accounts opened and no revenues received.”
Global News tried to track down Leblond in Edmonton. The phone number she provided on corporate documents was not activated, and the address did not exist. But removing one number in the street name yielded an address that matched a UPS Store in a southeast Edmonton strip mall.
The store manager confirmed that Leblond had a mailbox there, and that she also received mail under her former name, Francheska Quach.
Unprompted, the manager called her in the presence of a Global reporter and asked if she would speak to them, but she declined and instructed the owner not to share her phone number.
Ethics expert Arthur Schafer said the emerging details — the arson fire at GHI’s warehouse, a civil allegation of fraud against Anderson, and Anderson’s link with Leblond — all “reinforces the general question, ‘What is going on here?’”
Former RCMP investigator Garry Clement said Global’s findings raise “a number of red flags,” especially because ministers must have security clearance.
In a statement to Global, the Prime Minister’s Office said it “has full confidence in the security clearance processes done by the government security agencies.”
Schafer said inaction by Trudeau only reinforces the public’s mounting cynicism with this government.
“The Trudeau government has squandered public trust in a number of different ways and can’t afford to waste anymore. They really ought to act decisively in this case.”
With files from Patti Sonntag
If you have information for this story, or information for another story, please contact me in confidence at krista.hessey@globalnews.ca
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