OTTAWA — Prime Minister Mark Carney will have to recuse himself from any discussions directly involving Brookfield Asset Management, payment processing giant Stripe and dozens of companies owned or controlled by them as part of an extensive conflict-of-interest screen.
In a disclosure posted Friday afternoon
on the Ethics Commissioner’s website, Carney said he had agreed with the watchdog’s office to set up a conflict-of-interest screen between himself and Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Corporation, Stripe Inc. and any of 100 other companies owned or controlled by them at the time he set up a blind trust to oversee his assets.
Before jumping into politics,
Carney was chairman of
Brookfield Asset Management, which has US$1 trillion in assets under management, and also helped lead efforts to raise capital for two major Brookfield clean energy funds. He was also on Stripe’s board of directors.
“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,” reads Carney’s declaration.
The screen means that Carney cannot be involved in “any official matters or decision-making processes” that would further either his or the
interests of the 103 companies
, many of which operate in the renewable energy and real estate sectors.
“That’s the largest scope I’ve ever heard of,” commented Ian Stedman, a government ethics specialist who previously worked for Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner.
“I think that they’re going to have to get creative to make administration of this screen efficient,” added Stedman, now an associate professor at York University.
The screen will be administered by Carney’s chief of staff, Marc-André Blanchard, and clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, respectively.
If he is made aware that a matter being discussed with him involves his ethics screen, he must remove himself from the room and make a public declaration of recusal.
But the prime minister isn’t barred from all discussions that may impact those companies. Carney’s screen contains a caveat where he can participate in discussions or decisions on matters that broadly affect any of the 103 companies if they are part of a larger group, “unless those interests are disproportionate to the other members of the class.”
It was not immediately clear what represents a “disproportionate” interest. Stedman said that will be a key question for both administrators of Carney’s screen.
The ethics screen risks posing significant implementation challenges, if only because of the sheer scope of the prime minister’s responsibilities combined with the large number of companies to be screened.
Adding to the complexity is that Carney has repeatedly promised to transform Canada into a conventional and clean energy “superpower.”
Stedman said this is the first time the ethics commissioner will have to police such a broad ethics screen for the highest-ranking elected official whose hand touches nearly all facets of government.
That means there will likely need to be a fair amount of self-policing from Carney regarding any potential conflicts in files brought to him.
“This is going to be a new challenge for this institution to monitor in a way that ensures public confidence. Someone in this position with this robust of a portfolio,” Stedman said.
“If you have the chief of staff and the clerk watching for 103 different companies… at all times, they’re not going to get anything else done. So there’s going to have to be a little bit of self policing on his part,” he added.
Carney’s potential conflicts
were a key critique
from the opponents after he was elected Liberal leader in early March.
At first, he was dismissive of the notion he may have some conflicts of interest relating to his previous work at Brookfield before eventually admitting that he’d likely require an ethics screen.
One of the screens the prime minister will be subject to is with Westinghouse, one of the world’s largest nuclear companies, which Brookfield Asset Management acquired a majority ownership stake in while Carney was co-head of the investment fund.
Carney notably name-dropped Westinghouse while praising nuclear energy during a leaders’ debate during the election, which raised some eyebrows.
Other noteworthy conflict of interest screens relate to some of Brookfield’s investments in India’s clean energy and renewables sector — Leap Green, Avaada Group and CleanMax — through the Brookfield Global Transition Fund which was co-managed by Carney.
With additional reporting from Catherine Lévesque.
National Post
cnardi@postmedia.com
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