“The Prime Minister has conflicts of interest because government decisions give billions of dollars to Brookfield, a company that makes him richer. His blind trust is not really blind because he chose the investments himself and still owns stock options. The ethics committee told him to sell all his ties to Brookfield, and he should do that.”

“Mr. Speaker, I rise to follow up on a question I posed regarding the ethical cloud surrounding the Prime Minister in respect of decisions that his government has made to the benefit of Brookfield and, by extension, his personal financial portfolio. It is an undisputed fact that the Prime Minister has vast conflicts of interest with respect to Brookfield. Indeed, he has acknowledged more than 100 such conflicts of interest. Notwithstanding this, he has dismissed concerns about these conflicts on the basis that his assets are in a blind trust. The problem with that, of course, is that his blind trust is not truly blind because he knows exactly what went into it. Let us look at some of the facts. The Prime Minister stands to make tens of millions of dollars in future bonus pay from a Brookfield investment fund that he set up when he was the chair of Brookfield. Accordingly, he knows exactly what companies the fund has invested in because he hand-picked the companies. What exactly is blind about that? Then there are the Brookfield stock options for which the Prime Minister stands to make millions. What is blind about that? All of this to say that there is nothing blind about his so-called blind trust. Since the Prime Minister took office, time and again we have seen Brookfield at the front of the line, doing very well under the government. I will provide some examples. The government funnelled half a billion dollars to the European Space Agency. Why the European Space Agency? Could it be because Brookfield has a 50% ownership in the space agency’s headquarters? Could that be the reason or part of the reason? Then, there is the Pathways Alliance carbon capture scheme, involving billions of dollars of investment in carbon capture. The leading carbon capture company connected to Pathways Alliance is Entropy. Who owns Entropy? None other than the same Brookfield investment fund the Prime Minister’s future bonus pay is directly tied to. What a coincidence. Then there is the $50-billion maple fund that ties the retirement savings of millions of Canadians to Brookfield, and on it goes. Billions of dollars are flowing to Brookfield as a result of decisions made by the government. When Brookfield does well, the Prime Minister does well. That is verified by none other than the chief operating officer of Brookfield. What we have amounts to one big conflict of interest involving the Prime Minister. In the face of that, the ethics committee issued a report in the spring calling on the Prime Minister to end these conflicts of interest by divesting himself fully from Brookfield. Why has he not?”

“The Prime Minister makes money when Brookfield makes money, and Brookfield has made billions under his government. He broke his ethics rules by meeting with Brookfield, and his trust is not truly blind. He also refuses to share the times he made decisions despite clear conflicts of interest. I want the parliamentary secretary to tell me which of these facts is wrong, and why the Prime Minister is hiding these conflicts.”

“Mr. Speaker, let me spell it out for the parliamentary secretary. The Prime Minister has significant financial interests in Brookfield. He elected not to divest himself of those interests. Consequently, he does well when Brookfield does well, and Brookfield has done very well under his government, to the tune of billions of dollars. Which of those facts does the parliamentary secretary dispute? In addition to the so-called blind trust, which is not a blind trust, the Prime Minister set up an ethics screen, which he has repeatedly defied, including by meeting with Brookfield on multiple occasions in direct contravention of the screen the Ethics Commissioner set up. Also, he refuses to disclose times when conflicts were identified but he made a decision anyway. Why is the Prime Minister hiding those potential conflicts?”