An ethics report just called on Mark Carney to sell his investments. Here’s why it likely won’t happen
OTTAWA — Lots of ink has been spilled this past year about the quandary of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s sprawling past business dealings, significant investments and his many potential conflicts of interest , and a parliamentary committee unveiled some possible solutions this week.
Yet, most of these solutions are very unlikely to see the light of day.
The House standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics unveiled its review of the Conflict of Interest Act on Thursday . It contains 20 recommendations to further strengthen the law, many of which are specifically tailored to deal with Carney’s minefield of potential conflicts given his role in setting policy and regulation that will affect businesses and markets in which he could have an interest.
The chair of the committee, Conservative MP John Brassard, said most members agreed there should be more stringent rules for the position of prime minister compared to other MPs, “because individuals with greater decision-making authority should be held and must be held to higher standards.”
The recommendations were supported by the Conservative and Bloc Québécois MPs, which for the moment form a majority of members on the committee. The Liberal members co-signed a dissenting report, which essentially rejects the committee’s recommendations.
“This is a very partisan report that was created to target a single person,” said the committee vice-chair, Liberal MP Linda Lapointe. “We will not let it go through,” she warned.
The committee heard from a wide range of witnesses, including governance scholars, lawyers, ethics specialists, senior public servants and political staff.
What does the main report say?
The committee is calling on the government to amend the Conflict of Interest Act to require anyone who holds the position of prime minister of Canada to sell all assets he or she controls within 60 days of assuming office.
Currently, the law requires “reporting public office holders,” such as federal cabinet ministers and parliamentary secretaries, to either sell their assets or put them in a blind trust. Carney chose the latter when he became prime minister.
Opposition parties have argued that does not go far enough, since Carney’s recent ties to Wall Street giant Brookfield Asset Management would mean that he could be in a near constant state of conflict of interest. Carney was chairman of the firm, which oversees over US$1 trillion in assets, and continues to hold options and deferred shares linked to its performance.
They have also raised concerns about him indirectly benefiting financially from a wide variety of government decisions related to Brookfield and its subsidiaries.
The report says that the law should be amended to ensure that “the prime minister, as a reporting public office holder, is fully divested from their controlled assets through sale, since placement in a blind trust does not constitute true divestment.”
The clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, one of two senior aides managing Carney’s extensive conflict-of-interest screen of over 100 corporate entities, told the committee he himself decided to sell his Brookfield shares to “better manage” the prime minister’s screen.
The committee is calling on the government to require “binding directives” relating to those screens, namely: that there be a written log of screened matters, that administrators of the screen be non-partisan public servants and that there is mandatory public disclosure of a screen in question.
Among other recommendations is one to broaden the definition of conflicts of interest to add an “apparent” conflict and one for party leaders to “divest fully from tax havens.”
What about the dissenting report?
The Liberal members of the committee blasted the committee’s report and its recommendations which they said “in several instances appear to have been crafted with one individual in mind rather than in pursuit of sound, durable public policy.”
They said the sale of assets for the prime minister disregards expert testimony that “that blind trusts, when properly administered and supplemented by additional compliance measures such as conflict-of-interest screens, are effective and proper use of authority.”
They argued that overly restrictive rules could prevent individuals with private sector experience, like Carney, from choosing to seek public office. They cited Michael Wernick, a former clerk of the Privy Council, who warned that could end up being the case.
They also said that prohibiting public office holders from investing in companies that use “tax havens” is “unworkable” and not grounded in the testimony heard at committee.
What are the next steps?
The committee report has been tabled in the House of Commons, and even though the document is non-binding, it is subject to a vote by MPs. After winning three recent by-elections, the Liberals can now count on 174 votes in the House, so they will use their majority to vote against the report.
Government House Leader Steven MacKinnon has also vowed to change House of Commons committee composition to reflect the new Liberal majority, which Conservatives say will ensure less oversight of government operations and potential ethical concerns.
“I’ll remind everybody that these committees with a majority of membership held by the opposition, including the chair, were the ones that exposed the ArriveCAN situation. We are the ones that exposed the Winnipeg labs situation ,” said ethics chair John Brassard, referring to the scandal of runaway spending on a traveller’s digital app and Chinese spying at a national research institute that had been kept from the public.
“Without a majority on those committees, it will limit and handcuff the ability to expose corruption, to expose cronyism, to expose the type of scandals that we’ve seen in the past.”
National Post
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