We agree with Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland that it was right and necessary for John Tory to resign as Toronto’s mayor over his unethical decision to have an extramarital affair with a subordinate member of his staff.

Freeland, a Toronto Liberal MP, made that observation in denying an incorrect report she urged Tory to stay.

Now that Freeland has declared it was right for Tory to resign over his serious ethical failure, what does she have to say about the repeated serious ethical failures of her boss, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau?

Trudeau violated the federal conflict of interest act twice, in the Aga Khan and SNC-Lavalin scandals.

He only escaped censure a third time in the WE Charity affair because, according to federal ethics commissioner Mario Dion, the conflict law has a serious weakness in that it contains no provisions for politicians engaging in apparent conflicts of interest.

Given Trudeau’s record, it’s not surprising present and former senior members of Trudeau’s government have failed to comply with the act.

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This week, Dion ruled Trudeau’s parliamentary secretary, Quebec MP Greg Fergus, violated the act by writing a letter to the CRTC supporting the granting of a mandatory carriage licence to a small Quebec television company.

In December, he found International Trade Minister Mary Ng violated the act by awarding two government contracts to a friend.

In 2021, he found Trudeau’s former finance minister, Bill Morneau, broke the act in the WE Charity affair.

He found Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Dominic LeBlanc, while fisheries minister in 2018, violated the act by awarding a lucrative fishing licence to a company linked to his wife’s cousin.

In 2020, Dion ordered nine senior government officials, including Freeland, to have no official dealings with David MacNaughton for a year after, after Dion concluded MacNaughton, Trudeau’s former U.S. ambassador, engaged in improper lobbying of the government after leaving office.

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Dion, who announced his retirement this week for health reasons, has recommended mandatory training for cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries to comply with the conflict law.

“The act has been there for 17 years, for God’s sake, so maybe the time has come to do something different so that we don’t keep repeating the same errors,” he told the National Post. Indeed.