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National Post
15-07-2025
- Business
- National Post
Michael Higgins: Mark Carney's ethical guardrails more of a smokecreen
If Prime Minister Mark Carney is truly serious about making sure he does not breach the Conflict of Interest Act then he is going to be exiting cabinet meetings on a regular basis. Article content Carney has pledged to literally leave the room if a discussion starts involving matters that he has placed behind a conflict-of-interest screen. Article content But the 103 companies behind that screen are extensive and have tentacles stretching far and wide in the business world. Article content Article content And it is not just the screen that is problematic, but also a blind trust in which Carney has shares in hundreds of different companies, a full 16 pages worth, everything from Adobe through to Zoom Communications. Article content Article content Such is the extent of Carney's business dealings that no matter how scrupulous and ethical he tries to behave, the man is bound to breach the Conflict of Interest Act in some way. Article content However, worryingly, Carney in his statement to the ethics commissioner's office, has inserted certain caveats that could act as loopholes. Article content Carney has agreed to put a conflict-of-interest screen between himself and investment firm Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Corporation, financial services company Stripe Inc. and another 100 companies owned or controlled by them. Article content Before running for the Liberals, Carney was chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, a company that loudly boosts about all the investments under its umbrella. Article content 'We are one of the world's largest infrastructure investors,' says the Brookfield website. 'We are a large-scale global investor focused on acquiring high-quality businesses that provide essential products and services,' it adds. Article content Article content With $1 trillion of assets under management, Brookfield has its fingers in a lot of pies. Article content Article content And when it comes to Brookfield, Carney has always been cagey and defensive. Article content When asked in March about Brookfield moving their headquarters to New York from Toronto, the prime minister essentially said it had nothing to do with him — before it was revealed he played a key part in the decision. Article content For the record, as National Post reported, Brookfield's annual report said Carney was entitled to 209,300 stock options at $35.13 each and 200,000 options at $40.07 each, for a market value of more than $6.8 million as of Dec. 31, 2024. Article content It was also in March that the prime minister took umbrage at reporters questioning him about conflicts of interests. Article content 'I'm complying with all the rules,' said Carney. Article content The CBC's Rosemary Barton pressed the prime minister saying, 'For a guy who has spent most of his life in the private sector, there's no possible conflict of interest in your assets? That's very difficult to believe.' Article content 'Look inside yourself, Rosemary. You start from a prior of conflict and ill will,' replied Carney with a comment that tended more towards the condescending than the introspective. Article content But Barton hit the nail on the head. It will be difficult for Canadians to believe that Carney is not in some way in a conflict of interest because of his extensive business dealings. And it will be more difficult now we know just how vast and sprawling those dealings are. Article content 'This screen will prevent me from giving preferential treatment to any of the Companies while I exercise my official powers, duties, and functions as a reporting public office holder,' says Carney in a statement to the ethics commissioner. Article content But the very next paragraph raises two very serious concerns. Article content 'This screen is administered by my Chief of Staff and by the Clerk of the Privy Council,' says Carney. Marc-André Blanchard, the chief of staff, and Michael Sabia, the Clerk to the Privy Council, were both hired by Carney. Article content Having people so intimate with the prime minister running the screen is troublesome, but the paragraph goes on to insert a major loophole for Carney. Article content 'I may, however, participate in a discussion or decision on a matter that is of general application or that affects the Companies' interests as a member of a broad class of persons unless those interests are disproportionate to the other members of the class,' says Carney. Article content Who decides whether something is of a general application? Presumably Carney or one of his minions. Who decides whether the interests are disproportionate? Probably the prime minister and his inner circle. Article content 'The loophole is that as long as the decision applies generally or affects a broad group of people or entities, then PM Carney is allowed to participate in the decision even though it will affect a business he is invested in, and even though he can profit from the decision,' says a statement from Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, an organization devoted to government accountability. Article content This is no way to run a conflict-of-interest screen. Canadians are supposed to be able to trust public officials are not abusing their position. Article content As the ethics commissioner makes clear, 'Canadians must feel confident that those officials do not use their public office for private gain. The things they do in their jobs should be to benefit the public, not themselves or someone they know. Competing interests must not interfere with their ability to be fair and objective.' Article content In the event that someone in a meeting points out that Carney may be in a conflict of interest he has promised, 'to recuse myself from that matter by removing myself from the room where the discussion or decision is taking place.' Article content But will he really leave? Article content Conacher called the 'ethics' screen 'a loophole-filled, unethical smokescreen that allows him to participate in, and hide that he is participating in, almost every decision that affects the companies in which he is invested.' Article content Conacher was also scathing of the so-called blind trust.
Winnipeg Free Press
14-07-2025
- Business
- Winnipeg Free Press
Poilievre wants Carney to cash out blind trust, says ethics screens insufficient
OTTAWA – The Conservatives want Prime Minister Mark Carney to sell all the assets in his blind trust to avoid any possible conflicts of interest. Carney set up a blind trust after he was sworn in as prime minister in March and the details of how it works were made public on Friday. They show that the prime minister has set up screens to avoid potential conflicts related to his previous interests in Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Corporation and Stripe Inc. But Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre says that's not enough, arguing Carney could still benefit personally from decisions that affect Brookfield's wide portfolio of businesses. Poilievre is calling on Carney to cash out his holdings and give them to a trustee to invest without any knowledge of what he held previously. A spokesperson for the Prime Minister's Office says Carney worked with the ethics commissioner to 'exceed' the existing rules by creating the blind trust days before he took office. — with files from Sarah Ritchie This report by The Canadian Press was first published July 14, 2025.
Bloomberg
14-03-2025
- Business
- Bloomberg
Nvidia Looks Past DeepSeek and Tariffs for AI's Next Chapter
On a Monday in mid-January, Jensen Huang held a party for a crowd of health-care and tech executives in San Francisco. As about 400 guests filled up the Fairmont hotel's opulent Gold room, the Nvidia Corp. chief executive officer, wearing his default black leather jacket, worked through a routine of tech-themed dad jokes. 'What do you call a robot that's better at finding your pills than you are?' he asked. 'Computer-aided drug discovery!' The night progressed, and Huang downed at least two glasses of red wine, a bit of the harder stuff and—to the amusement of many in attendance—let fly. Huang taunted Stripe Inc. CEO Patrick Collison, a Massachusetts Institute of Technology dropout, for not being as smart as his wife, and told Ari Bousbib, the CEO of health-care software provider Iqvia Inc., that his company's name looked like 'you fell asleep at the keyboard and then sent it in.' Those who know Huang would recognize the style: self-assured, a bit guileless and goofy enough to come off as either charming or cringe. One key thing has changed, though: the size of the audience. The artificial intelligence boom has made Nvidia a multitrillion-dollar company, even if it's not quite a household name. (There isn't consensus on how to say the name. Nvidia's official brand guidelines suggest pronouncing the first syllable 'en,' but some people still use 'in,' or even 'nuh,' which is clearly wrong.) Still, it's an undeniable force in global tech. Huang—now the world's 15th-wealthiest person, according to the Bloomberg Billionaires Index —is constantly on the road evangelizing for Nvidia and AI. Sizable press gaggles have documented him slurping noodles in a Taipei night market; he's held babies and signed countless autographs, thrown out first pitches at Major League Baseball games, led tech conference crowds in chants, appeared onstage with the CEOs of Goldman Sachs, Meta Platforms and Salesforce, and chatted privately at the White House with President Donald Trump.
