Carney Must Be Honest About His Conflicts Of Interests
Ottawa, ON – Michael Barrett, Conservative Shadow Minister for Ethics and Accountable Government, sent the following letter to Mark Carney:
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Dear Prime Minister Carney,
Now that you have been sworn in as Canada’s Prime Minister, I am writing once again to implore you to publicly disclose the full extent of your financial assets, including your past and present interests in Brookfield Asset Management and any other private sector investments that could present a conflict of interest.
Canadians deserve to know that their Prime Minister is making decisions in the national interest and be assured that they are free from any undue corporate influence. On March 15th, the National Post released an article regarding your financial entanglements with Brookfield Asset Management, where you previously held a senior leadership role. The details of this report are worrisome to many Canadians.
On February 25, you categorically stated, “I do not have a connection with Brookfield Asset Management.” Yet in a new report in the National Post, you notably did not deny continuing to hold Brookfield assets: “Despite repeated attempts, Brookfield Asset Management and Carney’s transition team have declined to clarify if the new prime minister still possesses any financial interest in Brookfield.” Canadians are left wondering if you have lied to them yet again.
According to the Post, you remain entitled to carried interest payments from Brookfield’s investment funds—potentially amounting to tens of millions of dollars in the coming years. As you know, carried interest is not a passive investment; it represents a direct financial stake in the performance of investments that you personally made while at Brookfield. If you maintain these undisclosed assets, you risk serious conflicts of interest in key policy areas, including energy, infrastructure, and finance—sectors where Brookfield has billions of dollars invested. Again, if you do not still hold any financial interests in Brookfield, it would be very easy to say so.
While you claim that placing these assets in a blind trust is sufficient, carried interest cannot truly be separated from its owner. You are still aware of its existence, its potential value, and the policy decisions that could impact their profitability. What’s more, as you were highly involved in setting up these funds, you are intractably aware of what investments these Brookfield funds hold. And unlike stocks, your presumed stake in these Brookfield funds cannot be freely traded. Your ’blind’ trust would hold these Brookfield fund assets unchanged. For this reason, a blind trust is not an ethical safeguard in this situation—the only responsible course of action is full disclosure and divestment.
As the Prime Minister of Canada, the credibility and the integrity of your government will depend on whether you are willing to prove to the public that you are committed to transparency, which thus far you have failed to do. Canadians deserve to know:
- The full extent of your financial interests in Brookfield Asset Management and other private sector investments, including the Global Transition Fund (BGTF I), the second Global Transition Fund (BGTF II), and the Catalytic Transition Fund (CTF), amounting to $27.4 billion that you personally raised and managed for Brookfield.
- The structure of any carried interest, stock options, or deferred compensation you may still hold.
- The “full and robust conflict of interest management plan” your legal team presented to the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, and whether you plan to recuse yourself from government policy decisions where your Brookfield funds have interests, including but not limited to energy, environmental, industrial and financial policy.
Canadians should not have to question whether their Prime Minister is conflicted by private financial interests. Unfortunately, up to this point, you have consistently refused to be transparent, you have lied about your role in moving Brookfield’s headquarters from Canada to the United States, and your actions have made Canadians question whether they can trust you on a wide range of matters. By taking immediate action to disclose your holdings—or better yet, divesting from them entirely—you have the opportunity to repair public trust in you as Prime Minister. If you have nothing to hide, then you should have no issue being transparent and forthcoming with Canadians.
The office of the Prime Minister demands absolute transparency, integrity, and independence—anything less risks further undermining the trust Canadians place in their government.
I look forward to your response and hope that you will take swift action to address these concerns.