Neil Robinson, conflict of interest commissioner, resigns

Neil Robinson, P.E.I.'s conflict of interest commissioner, has announced his resignation following media reports linking him with a company connected to the province's controversial plan to regulate e-gaming.

Robinson told CBC News earlier this week that he was not in a conflict when he purchased a $15,000 stake in the company Capital Market Technologies in August 2012.

He also says he was willing to appear before a committee of the legislature to explain that and the committee agreed to meet March 16 for that purpose.

Robinson says despite this meeting planned for March 16, Rob Lantz, leader of the province's Progressive Conservative party, called for an emergency sitting of the legislative assembly this weekend to vote on whether Robinson had the confidence of the house. 

According to Robinson, Lantz says the emergency meeting was called because of an issue Finance Critic Steven Myers raised. 

Lantz had concerns about conversation between Myers, Robinson

A story published in the Guardian this weekend says that Lantz was concerned about a conversation that allegedly happened between Myers and Robinson. 

During a question period in November, Myers asked about an e-gaming related trip to London by Wes Sheridan, the province's finance minister at the time.

The paper says a few days later, Myers had an informal conversation with Robinson about whether he should file an official complaint against Sheridan over accepting the trip. 

"He left me with the impression that it might not be worth the time and effort to pursue it," Myers told the Guardian.

Myers told Lantz that, based on that conversation, he decided against pursuing a formal request to investigate the matter.

"He was sitting there as a shareholder of CMT and advising [Myers] that's it's probably not worth pursuing. There is a very, very obvious perceived conflict right there," Lantz told the Guardian.

Robinson recalls different conversation

However, in a news release on Sunday, Robinson says he remembers things differently. 

"Unfortunately, Mr. Myers' recollection of the conversation does not match mine and does not make sense. There was no valid reason for Mr. Myers to ask the commissioner whether his potential complaint was 'worthwhile,'" says Robinson in a release. 

"It was Mr. Myers' sole responsibility to determine if there was any merit in filing a complaint and it was his choice alone whether or not to do so."

Robinson says he did have an "informal conversation" with Myers that day in November but "​he did not ask my opinion as to 'whether it would be worthwhile for him to pursue a formal complaint'"

"My recollection is that Mr. Myers volunteered to me that he was not going to initiate a complaint with my office because he would rather have his allegations about Mr. Sheridan remain outstanding and unresolved thus allowing Mr. Myers to continue his criticism of Mr. Sheridan in the Assembly."

He said the decision by Lantz and Myers "to publicly advance such a story and Mr. Lantz's decision, based on that same story, to call for an emergency sitting of the legislative assembly make it abundantly clear that I, as an independent officer of the legislature, do not have the necessary confidence of the assembly."

"Therefore, I have no alternative but to resign."

There are no guidelines — no definition of what constitutes a conflict of interest — that apply to the conflict of interest commissioner himself.