The “Other Randy” scandal took another plot twist as Global Health Imports co-founder Stephen Anderson spoke before a committee of MPs and confirmed that the company had only ever employed one Randy, Liberal MP and cabinet minister Randy Boissonault.
Anderson was called to testify before the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics on Wednesday as MPs grilled him on the identity of the “other Randy” referenced in text messages. The saga stems from questions about whether Boissonault remained active in managing the business he co-owned following his cabinet appointment, involvement that would violate ethics rules.
After a slew of text messages referring to “Randy” were presented to the committee, Anderson not only claimed that they were not referring to Boissonnault, but that they were a series of accidental text messages about someone with a different name.
While Anderson would not provide the identity of who the “autocorrected texts” were referring to, he repeatedly stated that it was not Boissonnault.
Initially, the defence was that there are many “Randys” in Canada and that the text messages would have likely just been referring to another Randy employed at the 121-person company that Boissonnault co-founded with Anderson in 2020.
Anderson maintains that Boissonault left the company before taking office in 2021.
Committee member Anthony Housefather defended Boissonnault, going as far as to present the fact that 28,000 Randys were born in 1956, saying that Canada has “a lot of Randys.”
However, after Conservative MP Mike Barrett got confirmation from Anderson that there was only ever one person named Randy employed with GHI and that it was Boissonault, the defence narrative shifted to the claim that another name was autocorrected to “Randy” in nine text messages.
You sir, are the person who said Randy’s name” said Barrett, referring to the string of text messages. “Is it your testimony today that, how many times did you use it? Nine. references to Randy. Every one of those nine is an autocorrect?” asked Barrett.
“Yes,” answered Anderson.
“You used the term Randy at least eight times,” said Conservative MP Dane Lloyd. “You expect us to believe that you autocorrected eight times without correcting yourself even once?”
Anderson responded by saying, “That is the truth, yes.”
Lloyd then asked why the Ghaoui Group, a California-based personal protective equipment procurement company on the other end of the text messages weren’t wondering who “Randy” was, considering no one was employed at the company with that name in 2022, at the time of the text exchange.
“Why didn’t the Ghoaui Group ever ask ‘who’s this Randy person that we’re dealing with?’ if it was an autocorrect?” asked Lloyd.
Anderson responded by saying that the Ghaoui group never had “any linkage to Randy Boissonault” and that he was a “private citizen with nothing to hide.”
Boissonault had initially claimed to not know who the other “Randy” was when he testified before the committee but a spokesperson for his office confirmed that the other “Randy” served as “head of logistics” for GHI and also happened to be a 50% shareholder in the company.
“That person is not me,” Boissonault told the ethics committee last month, His office refused to make the last name of the other “Randy” public.
“And by pure coincidence, the minister of employment by the same name founded Global Health Imports and is a 50% shareholder. Now we just heard the minister say that he’s not involved, but isn’t he at all curious about who this Randy fellow is that’s committing fraud at a company he owns 50% at? Why won’t he tell us who this Randy is?” asked Conservative MP Dane Lloyd in June.
The “other Randy” scandal began after Boissonnault became embroiled in a conflict of interest investigation regarding text messages of alleged business dealings done while holding public office.
“New text messages unearthed today in a House of Commons Committee suggest that Randy Boissonnault continued to direct his company while he was a minister in Justin Trudeau’s government,” reads a statement from Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre’s office.
“In fact, Boissonnault’s companies received nearly $120 million in government grants and contracts, including during the time when he was a minister. If Boissonnault continued to influence his company while serving as a cabinet minister, then this is a clear violation of Canada’s ethics laws.”
