Barry and Honey Sherman: Will The Lobbying Investigation Continue?

On December 15th, the founder and former CEO of Apatex, Inc. pharmaceutical company, Barry Sherman and his wife were found in their Toronto home by police in which they first described as a murder-suicide. A month later, the Sherman family's private investigators determined the couple had been murdered.

"It’s double murder, not murder-suicide. Barry and Honey Sherman were killed in what looks like a professional, contract killing"

Apatex, Inc. donated $2.2M in medical supplies to ‘Direct Relief’ who co-ordinated with the Clinton Foundation to send medical supplies to Haiti after the horrific earthquake in 2010.

Since before his death, Barry had been under investigation by outgoing lobbying commissioner Karen Shepherd. He was facing a possible five-year ban from lobbying because of the fundraiser he hosted at his home during the last federal election, which featured soon to be Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and now Liberal MP Michael Levitt.

“Federal lobbyist ethics rules also say it is illegal for anyone to help a party, candidate or politician with fundraising or campaigning and then be involved in lobbying them any time within the following five years.”

See the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct – Conflict of Interest Rules Here: https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/eic/site/012.nsf/eng/01180.html

Democracy Watch found that at the time of the event, Apotex was registered to lobby the House of Commons (which means it claimed it was lobbying at least some MPs, possibly including Trudeau) and Mr. Sherman was included as a registered lobbyist in that registration.

Barry Sherman’s death is forcing the newly appointed lobbying commissioner Nancy Bélanger to make a tough decision. On Feb. 2, she’ll decide whether to keep investigating Sherman’s cash-for-access fundraiser featuring Justin Trudeau.