I went to Bermuda, and back in one day, not for a vacation, but to track down Mark Carney s hidden billions. And I found a lot of stuff. Here s the story of where they are hiding them.
00:06:23.580Look inside yourself, Rosemary. You start from a prior of conflict and ill will. I have served in the private sector. I have stood up for Canada. I have left my roles in the private sector at a time of crisis for our country.
00:06:50.580I'm complying with all the rules. Your line of questioning is trying to invent new rules. I'm complying with the rules that Parliament has laid out and the responsibilities of the Ethics Commissioner.
00:07:05.580And I will continue to comply with those rules.
00:07:08.580I want to read to you his exact words when he was asked to explain why he was hiding his corporate taxes in Bermuda and normal Canadians had to pay it.
00:07:18.580Let me just read this. Tell me if you can make any sense of this.
00:07:21.580He said the taxes are, in fact, paid in Canada because, quote, the flow through of the funds go to Canadian entities who pay the taxes appropriately as opposed to taxes being paid multiple times before they get there.
00:07:38.580So he's saying, well, listen, the people who are getting rich ultimately live in Canada, so they're ultimately paying the taxes.
00:07:45.580Well, if that's true, why weren't these multi-billion dollar businesses registered in Canada?
00:07:51.580I mean, Mark Carney moved Brookfield's head office to the United States, but these funds go back several years.
00:07:58.580If it's all about making Canadians wealthier, why didn't he locate them in Canada?
00:08:03.580I think he's got trouble telling the truth.
00:08:05.580And I see, again, he still owns $6.8 million worth of stock options.
00:10:03.580And it looks like, I don't know if those are offices upstairs,
00:10:06.580but Brookfield swore a statement with the Securities and Exchange Commission in the United States.
00:10:12.580And they published it to their investors that that was the principal executive office for not just the $25 billion in environmental funds that I mentioned,
00:10:24.580but for tens of billions of other funds.
00:23:17.580But we better get there because I wouldn't want to be stranded here.
00:23:20.580But as you saw, the friendly fellow who answered the door, didn't let us in, of course, didn't say his name, didn't really answer any questions substantively.
00:23:30.580He did take the time to look up the name of a spokesperson in New York City for Brookfield, Suzanne Fleming, and gave me her phone number.
00:23:39.580I'm guessing that by now he's also emailed or called Suzanne to let her know of our appearance.
00:23:45.580So I'm going to call Suzanne right now on my phone.
00:23:48.580And I don't have scripted questions, but they're the kind of questions I've been asking in this video so far.
00:24:39.580I just really have one, actually, which is we just visited the offices in Bermuda and they're small offices.
00:24:47.580And yet your SEC filing says that that is actually the principal executive office for various Brookfield Asset Management companies with $50 billion in assets.
00:26:35.580But is it really the principal executive offices of Brookfield?
00:26:39.580And is that really enough to shield $50 billion from income and other taxes in Canada, including the $25 billion that were personally directed by Mark Carney?
00:28:22.580Dear Suzanne, thank you for taking my call briefly today.
00:28:25.580As I mentioned, I'm with Rebel News Network Limited in Canada.
00:28:28.580We're doing a story about Brookfield's various tax havens and how they relate to your immediate past chairman, Mark Carney, now the Canadian Prime Minister.
00:28:35.580I'd be grateful for an answer by tomorrow morning if possible.
00:28:38.580All right, here's the eight questions.
00:28:40.580One, in various Bermuda filings for Brookfield, you claim that your 73 Front Street office is the, quote, address of principal executive offices.
00:28:50.580The various Brookfield entities are worth tens of billions of dollars, and yet your office there is very small.
00:28:55.580And from what we could see, not an executive office, but more likely compliance clerks.
00:29:00.580Is Brookfield accurately describing its Bermuda operations, or is it just giving the formal statement required to avail itself of preferential taxes as compared to the taxes it would pay if it were taxed where it does business?
00:29:13.580Question two, what business, if any, does Brookfield do in Bermuda?
00:29:17.580Are there any wind turbines, solar panels, or other projects covered in the environmental funds led by Mark Carney?
00:29:23.580Remember, those are worth $25 billion.
00:29:25.580Three, we were recently in the Isle of Man, and there Brookfield's office was even smaller.
00:29:31.580It was literally an apartment in a small residential apartment building.
00:29:34.580Does Brookfield claim that any substantial business is done in the Isle of Man, or is it, again, simply to minimize taxes?
00:29:41.580Question four, in both the Isle of Man and Bermuda, Brookfield appears to be using straw men.
00:29:47.580In the Isle of Man, the straw man appears to be Leslie Commons.
00:31:19.580We landed, we got out of the airport, we went to Front Street, and we pretty much headed home right away.
00:31:25.580That's how brief our visit was, but I think it was useful to do.
00:31:29.580And I'm not sure how much more we would have got had we spent more time on the ground.
00:31:34.580Obviously, the Brookfield people don't want to talk to us.
00:31:37.580And fair enough, the guy who just showed up to work in Bermuda today, he doesn't need to answer questions from a reporter.
00:31:43.580But Suzanne Fleming, their communications officer, hopefully she will.
00:31:49.580I said to her she can answer me tomorrow morning if she needs more time, but I think it's going to be mind your own business all the way down.
00:31:56.580We'll see. I hope she proves me wrong.
00:32:34.580And this is about the new Prime Minister of Canada imposing taxes on the citizens that he himself evades in tax havens like the Isle of Man and Bermuda.
00:32:46.580And it's no surprise to me, even though it is rather shocking, that not a single other journalist came down to Bermuda or the Isle of Man to chase this story.
00:32:55.580That's the regime media versus citizen journalists.
00:33:40.580He said, Ezra, that's me, responding on behalf of Brookfield, we don't have a statement on the record for you.
00:33:48.580To help clarify our use of international legal entities, I provided some information below, which we would like to be treated as on background, not for direct quotation, please.
00:34:03.580Well, I guess at least he got back to me.
00:34:06.580And then he did have a series of points, which I don't know why he didn't want me to quote them exactly for some reason, so I won't quote them exactly.
00:34:15.580But there really wasn't much there that he said, other than he claims Brookfield follows all the rules and all the laws.
00:34:22.580And one of the reasons why things are squirreled away in Bermuda and the Isle of Man, he said, and other places known for tax dodging, is to avoid double taxation, he says.
00:34:33.580He says that no tax is avoided, although the Canada Revenue Agency seems to disagree.
00:34:39.580They're battling Brookfield in court right now, claiming that Brookfield has illegally evaded millions of dollars in taxes.
00:34:47.580Now that Mark Carney is the boss of the Canada Revenue Agency, it'll be interesting to see if they drop that litigation against Brookfield.
00:34:56.580It goes without saying that Simon Main did not answer my specific questions about why their corporate filings claim that a little office above a bike rental shop is the true executive offices of Brookfield, when that's obviously a sham.
00:35:11.580He didn't answer my questions about the straw man and women that Brookfield claims are the decision makers, when they're clearly just placeholders obscuring Brookfield's real activities.
00:35:22.580And he didn't answer my questions about Mark Carney, including whether he's still in touch with Brookfield, or has more interest in Brookfield than the $6.8 million in stock options that Carney bizarrely insists on keeping.
00:35:36.580Here's what I wrote back to Simon this morning.
00:35:42.580I will reflect your response in our story, but I would encourage you to consider answering the specifics of my questions, which I believe are relevant and in the public interest.
00:35:51.580I don't believe your answers here even touch on several of them.
00:35:55.580To be candid, non-answers to legitimate questions in the public interest only magnify the perception that Brookfield considers itself above accountability, and that it bends or even breaks the rules that apply to the little people.
00:36:21.580Yet Brookfield claims it's following the law.
00:36:23.580They say they're paying all the taxes they have to, and not a penny more.
00:36:28.580They're deliberately trying to minimize it.
00:36:30.580Well, the CRA seems to disagree and is fighting them in court.
00:36:34.580But even if Brookfield is right, even if they found a way to game the system, to hide tens of billions of dollars in assets outside the reach of the CRA, even if that's legal,
00:36:48.580put aside the letter of the law just for a minute.
00:36:52.580And what about a prime minister, Mark Carney, who was personally responsible for moving at least $25 billion of these funds to Bermuda, out of reach of Canadian taxes?
00:37:05.580The same Canadian taxes that he imposes on the rest of us.
00:37:09.580That's your prime minister, an oligarch, with passports from three different countries, who has participated in what has been called the largest tax dodge in Canadian history.
00:37:21.580The only thing more gross than that is how easily he's been able to pay off the regime media, including a $150 million campaign bribe to the CBC state broadcaster.
00:37:33.580That's why I was the first reporter to go into that bike shop, according to the kid who works there.
00:37:39.580The rest of the media, they don't care.
00:37:41.580But I can promise you this, at Rebel News, we'll do the work the mainstream media won't.
00:37:48.580If you think that's valuable work, please help me cover the cost of our trip by joining the crowdfund at thecarneyfiles.com.