Whether or not he is guilty of anything and, even if he is, there actually is no real punishment for being guilty of something like this....what the debate over this potential conflict of interest has shown me is that we have a glaring hole in our rules around lobbyists/gifts/etc.
As Den Tandt points out in the article above:
This sort of exceptions seems to fly right in the face of what we as regular folk want conflict of interest rules to do. It encourages lobbyists to get close, real close, to people who are, or may become, in powerful positions. I can just picture the first page of the new manual "How to do business as a lobbyist in Canada"...Step 1...become friends with your target...then they can accept any gift you give them.
What I want is a rule that forces any newly elected parliamentarian (of any party) to look through the list of lobbyists and see if any of them are friends. Then sign a pre-written form letter to each of them that says something like "we are friends, and I truly value your friendship but I am duty bound to tell you that from the point of my election until 'X' years after I leave office I am not allowed to accept gifts in any form from you. I am sure you understand, as I do, that my new role is one of trust and we cannot allow even the perception of improper activity that may arise out of the conflict between our relationship as friends and your position as a registered lobbyist. We can, and will, remain friends and you can, and I suspect will, remain a lobbyist but from this point forward I cannot accept any gifts, no matter how trivial or innocently intended they may be, from you."
JT is not, I am sure, the first elected member of parliament to suffer from such a conflict raised by his personal relationship(s)....and, in all likelihood, he would not place (or care) about the monetary value of free helicopter trips and free accommodation on a private island.....but the reality is, his relationship with the Aga Khan led to him accepting a valuable gift from a registered lobbyist....no matter how honourable or innocent JT's intentions/thoughts were here, we cannot allow such a glaring "loophole" to exist in conflict of interest rules.