Prime Minister Mark Carney categorically denies any ethical conflicts involving his Brookfield Asset Management holdings and defends registering his former company in Bermuda.
He also said he was “absolutely not” beholden to China after taking a sweetheart loan of over $250 million to bail out Brookfield, an issue Tory leader Pierre Poilievre sounded the alarm on on Tuesday.
Carney was grilled by reporters at a Windsor, ON, press conference Monday morning as he announced another $2 billion in spending.
The Liberal leader was specifically asked if he still holds any assets whatsoever in Brookfield, a company he chaired until his January 16 Liberal leadership candidacy announcement, or Stripe.com, another company he used to chair, including any equity or stock options.
“The first thing to say with respect to my personal assets is I have complied with all of the rules,” replied Carney.
“In fact, I've over-complied with all of the rules in advance, so months and months and months in advance.”
He repeated assertions he made earlier this week about setting up a blind trust with “ethical screens.”
“So I actually don't own directly any stocks in those companies.”
“So my approach to public life, and I've been in public life for more than two decades, is to meet all the standards and surpass the standards with the highest integrity.”
“Let me be clear, I own nothing.”
“What I have is … assets that were divested into a blind trust.”
”I don’t know what's in it.”
“I comply with the rules,” repeated Carney, before changing the subject and criticizing Poilievre for not getting his security clearance, a matter the Conservative leader has addressed multiple times.
Poilievre has said he will not play the Liberal game of getting the clearance just to be under a gag order and blocked from speaking about what he has read publicly, and that as a former Cabinet member, he already has the clearance necessary and CSIS can approach him with any information they find necessary.
Carney was further pressed on the fact that Brookfield is registered in Bermuda. The holding company was based in Toronto before Carney helped orchestrate a move to New York. Though Carney denied having anything to do with the move, Brookfield memos indicated otherwise, as the Western Standard earlier reported.
“What was the argument for registering the [Brookfield] funds in Bermuda? Is it ethical to do that? And is it something, as prime minister, that you have to crack down on?” asked a reporter.
“I think the important thing is that the flow through of the funds go to the Canadian entities who then pay the taxes appropriately, as opposed to taxes being paid multiple times before they get there,” replied Carney.
“So that's how we have the structure,” he added, saying that’s the same structure Canadian pension funds have too.
Poilievre on Wednesday scoffed at Prime Minister Carney’s claims his practice of funnelling his corporate revenues through Bermuda banks is ethical.
Carney earlier the same morning defended his use of offshore banks and claimed he “over complies” with ethics standards, though he has been caught in a litany of scandals in the 10 days he’s been prime minister.
Poilievre while at a press conference in Montmagny, QC, was asked about Carney’s holdings and whether he still holds stocks in Brookfield Asset Management, a company he chaired until he announced his Liberal leadership candidacy on January 16 .
“I point out that it's incredible that even the journalists who follow this stuff very carefully do not know all the conflicts that Mr. Carney admits that he has,” replied Poilievre.
“Now he claims that somehow this money gets funneled through a Bermuda [bank] only to come back to Canada.”
“Well, why wouldn't you just leave it in Canada in the first place? If we're going to be taxed in Canada, you wouldn't need to funnel it through Bermuda.”
Poilievre then turned to the workers behind him and asked how many of them funnel their investments through Bermuda before they bring them back to pay taxes.
“The answer is zero!” said Poilievre.
“Carney makes these workers, who are struggling to pay their bills, to pay taxes in Canada while he ships his investments off to Bermuda.”
“He thinks that taxes are just for the little people, not for big shot bankers like him.”
“This is exactly the wrong kind of experience we need in the prime minister and the worst kinds of conflicts of interest.”
The Tory leader then made fun of Carney’s earlier claims that he “knows how the world works” and Canadians should “trust [him].”
“By the way, he says he knows how the world works. He thinks he knows better than all these hard-working people behind me,” said Poilievre.
“I can tell you, they know a lot of things that he has no idea about.”
On the China bank loan issue and Poilievre's assertion he is “beholden to China,” Carney said, “absolutely not.”
“The second thing I'll say, Mr. Poilievre doesn't understand the world,” said Carney.
“He doesn't understand how the world works. China happens to be our second largest trading partner. We have trade disputes with China right now caused by them in the agriculture section, one of the areas where we need to engage on.”
“it's one of the areas where you think about, again, the auto sector and the future of the auto sector, we got to understand where China is, where China is going, whether or not there's any room for partnership in that, but I'd be beholden to absolutely no one except to the Canadian people.”
Carney was in Windsor to announce a $2 billion Strategic Response Fund as a response to pending tariffs from the American administration on Canadian goods.
“Canadian Auto Workers don't just build vehicles, they build Canada," Carney told reporters.
“So in this time of uncertainty and need, Canada will be there for our auto workers.”
The $2 billion fund will “protect the jobs of workers affected by President Trump's tariffs” and “fortify the entire Canadian auto supply chain, from raw materials to finished vehicles.”
He also promised to shrink wait times for employment insurance for trades workers and accelerate building and mining projects. Both promises were already made by the Tories.
