Prime Minister Mark Carney and other Canadian prime ministers should be required to divest their investment portfolios when they assume office, not just put them in a blind trust, the House of Commons ethics committee recommends in a new report.

In its report made public Thursday morning, the committee said putting assets in a blind trust isn’t good enough, recommending instead "that the Government of Canada amend the Conflict of Interest Act that, for the application of subsection 27(1) the prime minister, as a reporting public office holder, is fully divested from their controlled assets through sale, since placement in a blind trust does not constitute true divestment."

The committee also wants the law amended to require public disclosure of "high-level holdings categories placed in a blind trust by reporting public office holders (sector/asset class, and whether the holdings are Canadian-market concentrated)," a recommendation that could shed new light on the financial interests of a number of top officials and cabinet ministers.

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[–] AGM@lemmy.ca 4 points 15 hours ago (1 children)

That's a bit silly. Assuming his portfolio was well designed before it went into a trust, the asset manager is not going to entirely rebalance the portfolio. It would actually be irresponsible gor them to do so because of the size of costs it would incur to him via forcing realized taxable gains. Also, things like stock options aren't tradable assets in the same way as simple equities. It's true he won't know exactly the composition of his portfolio now, but he'll have a decent idea of it, and when he has to pay taxes on any asset sales he'll have an idea of movesthat were made. He's the opposite of a financial neophyte. And, wrt the ethics screen, it's really silly to think it's actually going to prevent him making decisions that would affect Brookfield or businesses owned by Brookfield. Brookfield is just too big with fingers in too many pies not to be affected by economic and trade policy.

You don't have to assume any negative intent or abuse to recognize that the blind trust and the ethics screen are not sufficient.

[–] NSAbot@lemmy.ca 1 points 11 hours ago (1 children)

I see what you’re getting at. We should figure out how to make someone asked to do that whole for their taxes owed as a result of selling. That would be a way to avoid potential conflicts arising

[–] AGM@lemmy.ca 4 points 11 hours ago

Yeah, we don't want to financially punish someone for taking up public office, but we definitely need a better mechanism for preventing conflict of interests, especially in cases where someone is stepping into office from such a significant private sector life. That's what I was getting at elsewhere in this discussion with my other comment about creating special funds for this purpose