An agency Champagne answered for funded the firm his father chairs.

In March 2016, as a new MP, François-Philippe Champagne filed his first ethics disclosure. It listed "Employment income from Bionest Technologies Inc.", the Shawinigan firm. His father is president of its board, his screens say.

That April the firm came up in the House. NDP MP Pierre-Luc Dusseault said that while Champagne was a Bionest board member, he "regularly made transfers to a partner's company, which was located in a tax haven". The answer came from the Finance minister, Bill Morneau: nothing he had done broke the tax law, and the suggestion was "categorically false". It was an allegation, never a finding.

Champagne joined cabinet in January 2017. From then on he filed a screen with the Ethics Commissioner for his father and Bionest at each of these desks: International Trade in May 2018, Infrastructure in October 2018, Foreign Affairs in June 2020, Innovation in February 2021 and Finance in October 2025. The Innovation and Foreign Affairs screens say the screen was required after his own office asked, and that no conflict "has arisen". The Finance screen says he will "recuse myself from any discussion or decision in relation to my father or to Bionest Technologies". That screen is co-administered by his chief of staff and deputy minister.

From his June 2020 filings on, he lists trusts of his own and is a potential beneficiary of another, the Gilles Champagne Family Trust. His own trust holds interests in Capital Bionest and Technologies Bionest.

In January 2021 he took Innovation. The National Research Council's plan for 2022-23 names him as its "Appropriate minister".

On 3 February 2022 a file reached his desk that he chose not to handle. Boston Scientific was buying Baylis Medical, and the sale needed his review under the Investment Canada Act. He handed it to a colleague, to avoid "the perceived appearance of conflict of interest" with Frank Baylis, "an acquaintance of mine as a former caucus colleague". It went on the public registry.

In August 2022 the council signed the first of 4 contributions with Bionest: 18 August 2022, then 7 October 2022, 10 September 2023 and 16 October 2023. Together they came to a reported $327,796. The largest, a reported $231,600, was for "Development of a treatment technology for a 100 to 250 m3/day plant".

The Conflict of Interest Act requires a minister who recuses himself to declare it in public within 60 days. His registry holds no such declaration for Bionest, from his time at Innovation or since. A screen can keep a file away without a declared recusal, so the empty registry does not prove a file reached him. It does mean the public cannot see that one did not.

By June 2026 he ran Finance, and the council agreed to a reported $30,000 more for Bionest. Since he joined cabinet, federal agreements with the firm total a reported $606,796. An acquaintance got a public step-aside. Bionest got screens on the public registry that record no recusal.

The screens he filed are on the public registry, and his Finance screen says: "I understand that recusal means I must remove myself from the room". His Innovation and Foreign Affairs screens were set up "subsequent to a consultation at the initiative of my office". Under a screen, files can be kept from a minister without a declared recusal, so no recusal card does not mean a file reached him. The 2018 contributions came while he was trade minister, when the council reported to another minister. The 2026 one came while he was at Finance. The Commissioner's reports search, read 15 October 2026, returns no report on him.

That is the problem with the system, not a defence of it. His Finance screen of October 2025 is co-administered by his own chief of staff and deputy minister. His screens leave no public trace of what they caught, and for his Innovation years, January 2021 to March 2025, his registry shows no declared recusal for Bionest. He knows how to step away in public: he did it for Frank Baylis.