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Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre is pointing to a list of assets that Prime Minister Mark Carney transferred to a blind trust as evidence that the Liberal leader wasn’t being honest with Canadians on the campaign trail.
Last week, the ethics commissioner publicized a list of Carney’s investments before they were transferred to the trust. Carney transferred his assets shortly after winning the Liberal leadership but before being sworn in as prime minister.
“We want him to explain why he told Canadians the opposite of the truth during the election campaign,” Poilievre said Monday during a news conference in Ottawa.
During the campaign, Carney declined to say what stocks he had transferred into the trust — stating that he had gone above and beyond what’s required in the ethics rules.
A blind trust means the trustee is the legal owner of the assets and can buy and sell them as they see fit. The trustee is barred from seeking input from Carney — and Carney is barred from knowing what assets are in the trust.
Poilievre said Carney had made “false statements” by saying he didn’t know what was in the trust — though he would have known what the assets were when he transferred them.
Poilievre also pointed to Carney saying he owned only cash and personal real estate as an example of a false statement.
“It was patently and provably false for him to say he owned nothing but cash and real estate,” the Conservative leader said.
But those comments referred to assets that Carney held outside of the blind trust. The ethics filing shows the only other asset Carney holds outside the trust is the copyright to his book Value(s).
The filings show Carney had held hundreds of different stocks in an investment account managed by a third party.
Poilievre says Carney should sell all his assets, arguing they compromise his decision-making.
But it’s not entirely clear if Carney would be able to do so, given that they are legally controlled by the trustee.
The Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) said in a statement on Friday that Carney has worked “to not only comply with his obligations under the Conflict of Interest Act but to exceed them — including having his team working with the [ethics] commissioner even before he was elected — and he will continue to do so.”
CBC News has asked the PMO for a response to Poilievre’s specific claims.
According to the filing posted by the commissioner, Carney also held assets in Brookfield Asset Management and Stripe, Inc. He previously sat on the board of directors for both companies.
The commissioner is required by law to make the prime minister’s ethics disclosures public within 120 days of taking office.
The ethics commissioner also published details about the conflict of interest screen designed to prevent Carney from making decisions to the benefit of his former employers.
Marc-André Blanchard, Carney’s chief of staff, and Privy Council Clerk Michael Sabia are tasked with ensuring Carney is not made aware of and does not participate in “any official matters or decision-making processes involving” Brookfield and Stripe.
Duff Conacher, director and co-founder of Canadian non-profit and non-partisan organization Democracy Watch, agrees that Carney should sell the assets inside the blind trust.
“Carney’s ethics screen is an unethical, loophole-filled smokescreen as it allows him to participate in almost all decisions that affect the companies he is invested in,” Conacher said in a statement.
Poilievre has defended blind trusts
Poilievre previously appeared to have no issue with public office holders using a blind trust.
In 2010, Nigel Wright was brought on to be then prime minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff after a career in the private sector.
Wright appeared before the House ethics committee — of which Poilievre was a member — to discuss his appointment, a conflict of interest screen that was set up with the ethics commissioner and a blind trust.
Poilievre, a parliamentary secretary at the time, said opposition MPs had “attacked” Wright’s motives for taking the job and asked him to explain his blind trust.
“I transferred all of my controlled assets into the blind trust in late October. The blind trustee is the legal owner of them all now, and I’m not to have any communication of any sort — no direction, no advice, no information about what’s in there. I do not know and will not know what’s in there,” Wright told the committee.
Poilievre responded by acknowledging Wright’s experience in the private sector.
“There are going to be people in this public service world who come from different backgrounds,” he said.
“But that is a strength for our country. We look forward to inviting people from various sectors, in this case the business sector, but from all sectors, to make a future contribution to our country.”
During his news conference on Monday, Poilievre said the current ethics laws need to change and that his party would be putting forward proposals.