Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says Prime Minister Mark Carney 'cannot be trusted to make decisions on housing, energy or AI.'Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
John Turley-Ewart is a contributing columnist for The Globe and Mail, a regulatory compliance consultant and a Canadian banking historian.
Who can Canadians trust to be prime minister? Ask Pierre Poilievre, leader of the Conservative Party of Canada, and he will tell you who you can’t trust: Successful business leaders – unless they cash-out years of private sector rewards and investments, eat the onerous tax implications, and savour the losses as penance for past success.
“Canada’s Prime Minister cannot be trusted to make decisions on housing, energy or AI” says Mr. Poilievre, because, well, Mark Carney has genuine business experience in these fields and investment interests accumulated while establishing that experience. Like most business leaders, Mr. Carney had “skin in the game.” Reverting to the comfort of slogans, which were entertaining when Justin Trudeau was prime minister, Canada’s Conservative leader retorts with a new one: “Sell The Assets To End Carney’s Conflicts.”
But Mr. Carney isn’t Mr. Trudeau. And slogans are not entertaining while U.S. President Donald Trump raids Canada’s economy using tariffs. If Mr. Poilievre is going to project his populist disdain for big business types onto Mr. Carney by making baseless accusations about his integrity and calling that “opposition,” Conservatives will do well short-selling Mr. Poilievre’s political stock. It is a bet they are more likely to win than the next election.
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Mr. Poilievre’s outburst followed Canada’s Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner releasing the list of investments and corporate interests Mr. Carney transferred to a blind trust in March, before his swearing in as prime minister.
Details on what went into the blind trust were published per standard ethics guidelines within 120 days of Mr. Carney becoming Prime Minister, although the dollar value of the investments was not publicly revealed. Bizarrely, Mr. Poilievre characterized this protocol as nefarious: “His long-hidden ethics disclosures were quietly released,” apparently suggesting the Ethics Commissioner was not being forthright.
For financial voyeurs, the list will pique interest. For those familiar with the organization of large, global corporations and executive compensation, it all looks mundane. There is a list of more than 100 legal entities Mr. Carney has ties to, many associated with Brookfield Asset Management Ltd., where Mr. Carney was a senior leader helping to manage the firm before entering politics.
Again, what is typical of corporate structuring with multiple entities for business, legal, financing or compliance reasons becomes a breathless j’accuse from Mr. Poilievre: “The disclosures reveal Carney must recuse himself from decisions involving around 100 companies through a conflict of interest screen. Yet many of those same companies are still included in his investment portfolio – held within a so-called ‘blind trust.’”
The cheapest shot aimed at Mr. Carney by the Opposition Leader refers to his stock investments. Mr. Poilievre’s declares that the Prime Minister’s “disclosures also show 574 separate stock holdings, either directly or through pooled funds – 91% of them headquartered in the United States.”
“Pooled funds,” commonly known as mutual funds and index funds, are investments Canadians are familiar with and that independent money managers oversee – meaning they choose what stocks to buy and sell for the fund.
Together, what Mr. Poilievre has to say about Mr. Carney’s financial disclosures leaves the impression that our country’s Prime Minister is up to no good, that he went into politics to line his pockets and that through his investments, his loyalty to Canada is suspect. Given the serious moment Canada finds itself in, such unfounded accusations from the leader of the Opposition are politically unhinged.
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Mr. Carney is subject to a conflict-of-interest screen managed by the Prime Minister’s Chief of Staff and the Clerk of the Privy Council. The Ethics Commissioner is involved too. When the Prime Minister recuses himself from policy discussions and decisions by the government because of this process, records are maintained, made public and can be scrutinized.
The story of Canada, before, during and after Confederation, is very much a story of business leaders often stepping into public life and putting the public interest first to help build a modern economy. Some even became Conservative prime ministers.
That tradition has withered in the present. Canadian business leaders have retreated from public service, leaving the work to those with legal, academic or public sector experience. It is not for lack of interest or ideas.
Mr. Poilievre’s treatment of Mr. Carney gives them no comfort. But it does give reason for pause when the Conservative leader, a self-proclaimed “champion of a free market,” traffics in anti-capitalist tropes presupposing that the financial holdings of former business leaders render them incapable of serving any interest other than their own.