Liberal Party of Canada leadership candidate Mark Carney speaks to the media in Calgary, on March 4.Jeff McIntosh/The Canadian Press
For someone who likes to profess his status as a non-politician, Liberal leadership contender Mark Carney sure is a fast learner in the art of prevarication and hair splitting.
The most prominent example is Mr. Carney’s murkiness on the question of whether he was still the chair of Brookfield Asset Management Ltd. when the company moved its headquarters to New York. After the Feb. 25 Liberal leadership debate, Mr. Carney told reporters that “the formal decision of the board happened after I ceased to be on the board.”
That is true, but it is not the whole truth. The Brookfield board voted unanimously in favour of the move while Mr. Carney was chair; he issued a letter to shareholders backing that proposal, as would be expected.
Mr. Carney could have simply said that he was fulfilling his fiduciary duties, that the change was largely a matter of paperwork and that Brookfield retains a vigorous Canadian presence. Instead, he tried to leave the (misleading) impression that he did not play a role in the decision.
His attempt at the end of the week at cleaning up his rhetorical muddle was scarcely better. Speaking at an event in Oakville, Ont. on Friday, Mr. Carney said the Brookfield move was a “technical change,” a phrase he used four times. But he did not make it clear that he was part of the decision to make that technical change, nor did he apologize for misspeaking.
Then there is the more substantive matter of when Mr. Carney, should he win the leadership and become prime minister, intends to file a financial disclosure with the federal ethics commissioner. On Friday, Mr. Carney said he would follow “all the appropriate rules” before turning to the question of why Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre has refused to obtain a security clearance. “What you’re asking effectively is, am I going to do more than others do, when Pierre Poilievre doesn’t even do the basics of what he should do as leader,” Mr. Carney told reporters. (He gave much the same answer after the leadership debate, as did his campaign staff in response to an emailed query this week.)
There are several problems with Mr. Carney’s answer, the least of which is the clumsy pivot to the unrelated matter of Mr. Poilievre’s security clearance.
Canadians should take comfort, one supposes, that Mr. Carney intends to obey the law. The problem is that the rules governing disclosures are far too lax, particularly for a private citizen who becomes prime minister without already being a member of the House of Commons.
The Conflict of Interest Act requires public office holders (including ministers of the Crown) to disclose certain financial details to the ethics commissioner on a confidential basis within 60 days of assuming office. A more limited public disclosure must be made within 120 days of assuming office.
That timeline means that Mr. Carney, should he become prime minister next week, would be obliged to fill in Canadians only by some time in late July. A federal election could have been called, contested and decided on by that point.
Mr. Carney hints that he should not have to “do more than others do.” He is wrong, for two reasons. First, his situation is unusual, given that he would be an unelected prime minister not previously required to make ethics disclosures. Unusual situations require more than usual responses.
More to the point however, Mr. Carney would be a prime minister seeking a mandate shortly. Those public disclosures must be made before a federal election campaign, not after.
Meeting the bare minimum requirements of the law is not enough, and it is disturbingly reminiscent of Justin Trudeau’s approach to ethics rules. His response to reporters’ questions also mirrors Mr. Trudeau’s recipe for political evasion – word salads paired with a soupçon of deflection.
Canadians deserve different, and better. Mr. Carney can start by committing to a clean break with Mr. Trudeau’s government, including cleaning house in the Prime Minister’s Office. Mr. Trudeau’s departure should be the start, not the finish, of a reset within the Liberal government.
More broadly, every party leader must understand that Canada is entering a years-long period of uncertainty. The next prime minister will have to call on the trust of Canadians to lead the country where it needs to head but may not want to go.
Mr. Carney, should he become prime minister, will need to earn that trust. He will not do so through overly clever follicle cleaving.