Prime Minister Mark Carney withdrew the reporter’s questions about his financial holdings during a press conference on Monday.
Carney announced last week that he has put his financial assets in a blind confidence to protect himself from any conflict of interest.
But that has not prevented conservatives from asking the new prime minister to publicly reveal their financial holdings, which suggests that Canada could be in an election campaign before Carney assets are publicly revealed.
Blind confidence means that Carney financial assets are managed by an administrator who has the legal authority to administer them, but is forbidden to seek their opinion. Carney would not know what is in her blind trusted portfolio, but I would know what those assets were before they are divided.
According to current government ethics standards aimed at protecting against the conflict of interest, Carney had 60 days to reveal his assets to the ethics commissioner to the oath and another 60 days before this information is made public.
When asked on Monday if he revealed what financial holdings he had before they were put in blind trust, Carney said that he has exceeded the expectations of the current rules and that he is subject to a different standard.
“It complies with the rules of the Ethics Commissioner, through the processes and all the things that are necessary,” he said, before Pivotar to point out that the conservative leader Pierre Poilievre has refused to obtain his security authorization.
When journalists press it on their assets, Carney withdrew and said that the questions depend on an assumption of “bad will.”
“His line of questions is trying to invent new rules. I am complying with the rules that Parliament has presented and … I will continue to comply with those rules,” he said.
On Sunday, conservative ethics critic Michael Barrett wrote an open letter to Carney, asking him to reveal his assets.
“Canadians deserve to know that their prime minister is making decisions in national interest and make sure they are free from any undue corporate influence,” Barrett wrote.
Before entering politics, Carney served in the Board of Directors of some prominent companies, non -profit organizations and philanthropic organizations, including one of the companies that quote on the largest stock market in Canada, Brookfield Asset Management (BAM).
According to the company’s records, as of April 2024, Carney had about 41,000 units of deferred shares (DSU), which can be charged for common BAM shares at a later date. The action currently lies at approximately $ 82 per share, which means that, on paper, those DSU could be worth more than $ 3 million.
Carney also had 303,049 actions on shares from last year, which in turn can be settled at some point in the next decade.
The company valued these options in $ 1.7 million last April, but they could be worth much more than that later.
