Brookfield Executive Questioned by MPs About Carney’s Ties to Company

A senior Brookfield executive told MPs that Prime Minister Mark Carney hasn’t spoken with anyone at the company about the business since Carney left the investment firm upon entering politics in January.

Brookfield’s Chief Operating Officer Justin Beber appeared before the ethics committee on Nov. 24 as MPs conduct a review of the Conflict of Interest Act. Opposition MPs have raised concerns about potential conflicts of interest since Carney entered politics, questioning whether his decisions as prime minister could be influenced by his extensive past experience on corporate boards and his sizeable assets.

Beber told MPs that no one from Brookfield has communicated with Carney about the business since Carney left the company on Jan. 16, to run for Liberal Party leadership.

Conservative MP Michael Cooper had said during a Nov. 20 ethics committee meeting that Carney had met with executives from Brookfield on numerous occasions. Asked about the last time he personally spoke to Carney, Beber said he met with the prime minister once since he left Brookfield.

“I contacted him to have a discussion about the rise in hate incidents, particularly anti-Semitism, across Canada,” Beber told MPs, adding that he met with Carney “on [his] own dime” at the prime minister’s office in Ottawa at the beginning of October.

Conservative MP Jacques Gourde noted Brookfield has investment projects throughout the world, including in housing, cargo rail, clean energy, nuclear, data storage, and artificial intelligence projects. He said that many of those projects can also be found in the federal budget, and asked Beber whether this is a coincidence.

Beber said he “can’t speak to what the prime minister has in mind” and said Brookfield doesn’t speak with Carney about government policy or other matters that would impact Brookfield’s business.

“In reviewing the policies that the prime minister has espoused, I would say they’re good for a host of different industries, and how it plays out for any particular company is very uncertain,” Beber said. He added that while Brookfield’s investments in large-scale companies changes over time and could be different from month to month, Carney was aware of the strategies Brookfield was pursuing in its funds before he left the company.

Beber also noted that Brookfield owns more than 2,000 businesses as part of its funds and investment strategies. Brookfield and its portfolio companies are informed of government policy “at the same time as everybody else,” he said.

Cooper noted that only 103 of those 2,000 companies have been publicly disclosed by Carney and are subject to his ethics screen.

“In other words, 95 percent of Brookfield companies are not the subject of the ethics screen,” Cooper said.

“When a Brookfield company makes money, Brookfield makes money… The success of any of these companies contributes to the value of Mr. Carney’s stock options.”

Beber responded that many of the 2,000 companies have no ties to Canada and the list of 103 companies subject to Carney’s ethics screen would have been decided upon in discussions with the ethics commissioner.

Conflict of Interest Act Review

Public office holders, like the prime minister, are subject to the Conflict of Interest Act and are required to divest their controlled assets or place them in a blind trust. Carney chose to place his assets in a blind trust, which includes a number of shares and stock options in payment processor Stripe, Brookfield, and others, as well as shares in more than 500 companies held in an investment account managed by a third party.

In conducting its review of the Conflict of Interest Act, the ethics committee has called witnesses for questioning regarding Carney’s corporate and shareholder interests. Privy Council Clerk Michael Sabia and Carney’s chief of staff, Marc-André Blanchard, appeared before the committee last week to field questions from MPs regarding Carney’s private sector ties and potential conflicts of interest.

Blanchard insisted during his testimony that Carney holds himself to the highest ethical standards and his ethics screen is “rigorous.” Beber told MPs that Carney was “an exceptionally talented executive and a person of great integrity” over the five years he worked with him at Brookfield.