Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks at a press conference in Mississauga, Ont., on Friday. Mr. Carney said he makes 'no judgment' about principal secretary Tom Pitfield's connection to the tobacco industry.

Prime Minister Mark Carney says he doesn’t judge his principal secretary, Tom Pitfield, for his connection to Big Tobacco and said the question of whether he should recuse himself from health-policy matters is of no importance.

As The Globe and Mail reported earlier this week , Mr. Pitfield is one of the largest shareholders in a marketing and analytics company, Data Sciences, that has for years been working on behalf of Philip Morris International in Canada and globally.

Mr. Pitfield and Data Sciences until now have been best known as the team that oversees the Liberal Party’s digit

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