Juno News - Carney’s $50B conflict of interest？

00:00:00.000 and welcome to straight up with mark patrone appreciate you tuning in my friends well it's

00:00:09.160 budget day in canada the carney government is about to unveil its long-awaited first budget

00:00:14.940 prime minister carney has promised to spend big on capital projects with an aim towards

00:00:20.460 spurring economic growth a key spending commitment has leaked to the globe and mail a 50 billion

00:00:27.080 dollar local infrastructure fund and that will include money for things like hospitals and

00:00:33.240 transportation and housing there will have to be money allocated to the health care sector including

00:00:39.340 emergency services also big spending in military upgrades the budget will also announce plans to

00:00:46.560 retire aging military fleets to make way for a wide range of new equipment that will be purchased

00:00:53.060 through billions of dollars in increased defense spending now all those so-called investments will

00:00:59.020 push the deficit way up meaning the cost of servicing the interest on the debt will also go way up

00:01:05.280 canada's debt stands at about 1.28 trillion dollars and climbing now will the pm personally benefit from

00:01:14.020 those investments well that's a loaded question his substantial holdings of brookfield stock options

00:01:20.060 almost guarantees it depending on which corporate entities get a slice of those government investments

00:01:26.480 duff conacher has some concerns and uh he's going to answer the question you know what guarantees do

00:01:32.900 canadians have that this that the decisions made by our government are in the best interest of

00:01:38.420 taxpayers and not the prime minister that's coming up shortly well canadians still have no answer as to

00:01:44.440 whether the federal government got a jobs guarantee from stellantis before the liberals committed to

00:01:50.340 giving that company 15 billion dollars i mean earlier this month the company announced it is shifting

00:01:56.560 production of the jeep compass from its brampton ontario plant to a facility at illinois 3 000 jobs are

00:02:03.340 affected by the move asked repeatedly if the government secured a guarantee from stellantis before it handed over

00:02:09.580 the money industry minister melanie jolly deflected you should be able to tell us if there is a jobs

00:02:15.280 guarantee for the 3 000 jobs i think you're falling into the trap of trying to find a problem where

00:02:22.100 there's none well the problem is that because the thousand people were laid off the government

00:02:25.820 and your government committed thousands millions and billions in fact of dollars and we're trying to

00:02:31.060 understand whether you want this to be a monologue are you this you want to meet you because the

00:02:35.040 question i'm asking you is very clear i don't need to be here jolly did say that her government is 0.73

00:02:40.280 looking to recover tax dollars given to the company that was supposed to use to grow production in

00:02:46.040 canada manitoba premier wab canoe took a shot at the supreme court ruling last week that a one-year

00:02:52.360 mandatory sentence for those convicted of possessing child pornography is unconstitutional let's listen

00:02:58.420 child sexual abuse images and video this is like one of the worst things that anyone can do

00:03:05.000 not only should go to prison for a long time they should bury you under the prison

00:03:10.820 you shouldn't get protective custody they should put you into general population if you know what i

00:03:16.100 mean skinners this is the worst i know my friend doug ford has spoken out against this i know premier 0.99

00:03:23.560 smith uh the federal leader of the opposition peer polio have all made comments on this and uh yeah i

00:03:30.380 think i'm on the same page as as they are i think the average person out there hears an announcement

00:03:35.520 like this it just kind of shakes their head well the supreme court's five to four ruling found that

00:03:40.400 a one-year mandatory sentence infringes on the canadian charter of rights and freedoms which prohibits

00:03:47.680 cruel and unusual treatment or punishment ontario premier doug ford contradicted the prime minister of the

00:03:54.660 the controversial anti-tariff ads carney said he expressed reservations before those ads were

00:04:02.200 released to the public but ford says it didn't happen that way prime minister says he had to

00:04:07.640 apologize and he said that he asked you specifically not to run the commercial well again i'm not going

00:04:12.640 to go back and forth i had a different recollection recollection of our conversation but that's you know

00:04:19.060 people don't need that they want to move forward are you able to share your recollection premier again

00:04:24.920 again i'm just i'm just not going to go down that avenue i'm not jumping into that bear trap

00:04:29.840 uh we have a great relationship uh i'll tell you one thing what he did do uh he uh called me from

00:04:36.360 asia a couple times and said pull the ad and i said i wasn't going to do it until we're going to

00:04:41.000 pause the ad on monday and that's exactly what we did what was the prime minister's tone when he

00:04:45.260 asked you a couple of times to pull the ad was he personally angry with your actions no he

00:04:48.820 wasn't he wasn't angry at all do you think he should have apologized or do you are you upset

00:04:53.100 that he apologized well that's up to the prime minister uh i'll tell you what i do i'd never

00:04:57.180 apologize to donald trump the prime minister apologized to president trump for the ads but

00:05:02.180 ford says as you heard him it was the right thing to do and duff conacher is with democracy watch he

00:05:08.260 says the current ethics rules in canada were never intended to deal with a very wealthy prime minister

00:05:14.860 so heavily invested in a company like brookfield duff welcome to the show thank you very much

00:05:20.780 okay so here we have now uh an announcement a budget line that is worth 50 billion dollars

00:05:29.200 an allocation of uh just a huge amount of money towards infrastructure or the construction of capital

00:05:36.300 projects so we're talking about transportation uh projects uh talking about hospitals um

00:05:44.580 all sorts of you know innovation involved in that um what guarantees do we have with a guy like

00:05:51.200 prime minister carney who's heavily invested in brookfield that that money isn't shifted

00:05:57.240 to that particular company with an aim towards enriching further enriching our prime minister

00:06:03.480 we don't have any guarantees we have a loophole filled sad joke of a law it's called the conflict

00:06:11.440 of interest act and it doesn't prevent prohibit or penalize conflicts of interest it's truly orwellian

00:06:19.840 and uh as a result uh mark carney and every other cabinet minister is allowed to have

00:06:27.120 secret investments uh in the case of carney we know that he has stock options in brookfield at least

00:06:32.240 until 2033 and that creates conflict of interest for about a hundred companies within the brookfield

00:06:38.800 conglomerate uh and he is allowed to uh secretly participate in decisions that further the interests

00:06:46.880 of brookfield which furthers his interests in terms of those stock options going up in value and

00:06:52.560 as a result he's allowed to secretly profit from his uh his own policies and decisions as prime minister

00:06:58.320 so you take no comfort on the fact that it's in a blind trust

00:07:00.960 no the blind trust is a sham facade it was recommended by uh two inquiries into conflict

00:07:10.240 of interest the star sharp report back in the mid 80s and then uh the justice parker commission

00:07:17.520 back in 87 both recommended that blind trusts be prohibited because you know what you put into the

00:07:24.320 trust you're allowed to choose your own trustee and you're allowed to give them instructions such as

00:07:28.720 don't sell anything which means you'll continue to know what's in the trust and with brookfield

00:07:34.400 and the prime minister in particular uh he owns stock options in brookfield and it's been confirmed

00:07:41.520 that those stock options cannot be uh what's called exercised sold by him until 2033 2034

00:07:49.680 and so uh he he's not blind to the fact that he owns shares in the brookfield conglomerate

00:07:55.920 and as well trustees rarely according to our own federal ethics commissioner who's a real lapdog

00:08:02.000 on this and is trying to facilitate the prime minister and other cabinet ministers actually

00:08:06.080 having investments and conflicts of interest instead of preventing them our own ethics commissioner

00:08:11.200 said trustees rarely do anything with the portfolio they're handed by a politician because they don't

00:08:17.040 want to lose money for the politician and the politician is actually allowed to get updates from the trustee

00:08:23.040 as to the value of the trust uh regular updates so it's not a blind trust at all it's a total sham

00:08:29.840 and the uh the whole law is just a sad joke doesn't prevent prohibit or penalize conflicts of interest

00:08:35.520 and allows cabinet ministers and top government officials to profit secretly from their own decisions

00:08:41.280 isn't he supposed to be out of the room when those types of decisions are made i can recall from my days

00:08:46.720 at the crtc that if there's any suggestion that you might have a personal stake in any of the

00:08:51.920 proceedings that people would have to leave the meeting is you just don't participate i mean

00:08:56.720 doesn't that provide canadian taxpayers with some protection i wish that was true but it's not true

00:09:03.840 because there's a gigantic loophole in the law uh that it really should be called the almost impossible to

00:09:10.880 be in a conflict of interest act because of this loophole what the loophole says is you can't have

00:09:16.800 a private interest so there's no conflict of interest possible when you're dealing with a matter that

00:09:22.800 applies generally or that applies to a broad class broad group of people or entities businesses

00:09:29.360 other types of organizations well 99 of the decisions that prime ministers cabinet ministers and

00:09:34.960 top government officials make apply generally like a budget he's creating a fund and brookfield and

00:09:43.200 dozens of other companies will be able to apply to that fund if he does a tax credit tax credits apply

00:09:48.320 to a whole industry and so it applies generally uh all laws apply generally there's no royal bank act

00:09:54.560 there's a bank act that applies to all banks and so pretty much uh every time that uh you're making a

00:10:02.400 decision as a cabinet minister it's something that applies generally so he's allowed to sit at the

00:10:06.320 table even though he has a direct financial interest in the outcome of the decision and could profit from

00:10:12.240 it and what's worse is the law says he's supposed to declare that publicly every time that there is a

00:10:19.360 conflict and he's supposed to step aside but uh the past ethics commissioner created these things

00:10:25.120 called ethics screens and what they are is really a smoke screen because he states once that i will not

00:10:31.120 participate in decisions that affect brookfield and the other he's invested in 550 other companies

00:10:37.600 except all i will take part in decisions that apply generally or apply to a broad group of people

00:10:42.960 again exploiting the loophole and he just declares that once and then after that what he actually does

00:10:48.960 is kept a secret so uh these screens actually violate the requirement in the law to uh declare

00:10:56.800 publicly when you have a conflict and that's why the whole system is just set up to hide and allow

00:11:03.920 cabinet ministers and top officials to secretly profit from their decisions and he will be at the

00:11:08.880 table 99 of the time the only time that he would have to step aside is if he handed a contract to

00:11:15.360 brookfield he wouldn't be able to take part in that because that would be a specific decision that

00:11:19.120 only benefits brookfield but every other decision applies generally and he's allowed to be there

00:11:23.600 yeah i mean his very presence as prime minister was probably going to affect the stock price of the

00:11:29.920 value because of course he's in a position to allocate billions of dollars to that company

00:11:36.160 and so essentially and not only an inside lobbyist for the company because he's invested in it but he's

00:11:43.840 also the decision maker so he's lobbying himself has a conflict of interest direct financial conflict of

00:11:49.040 interest and he may say oh it's not going to affect me but really your investments for your retirement

00:11:55.840 don't affect how you make decisions of course it does he's not human if he says that because

00:12:01.760 every study that's been done worldwide shows that financial conflicts of interest are the most serious

00:12:06.080 ones that create the greatest conflict within someone's mind about what decision they should make

00:12:12.560 and so again it's just a sham facade a sad joke and uh it's going to allow him uh to secretly

00:12:19.360 profit from his decisions uh and it's it's really really bad situation and we need the law changed and

00:12:25.760 thankfully a house committee is reviewing the law now and it looks like conservative mps and block mps

00:12:31.600 are going to recommend uh closing some at least some of these loopholes which would be an improvement and

00:12:36.800 hopefully they'll pass them through the house if the government refuses to make those changes

00:12:41.600 yeah he should have been forced to divest himself and all of all those investments i mean that's

00:12:45.840 yeah which was recommended you sell off you you collapse your funds your investments with brookfield

00:12:53.280 and then there's no question you've got cash i mean you can you're certainly welcome to put it into

00:12:58.720 you know a stock like a stock portfolio of some kind where you're you've got all sorts of

00:13:04.720 investments in that but you know where you've got so much of this guy's personal wealth

00:13:09.520 invested in one company and that company stands to gain huge as a result of its association with

00:13:16.960 the government of canada that just stinks to high heaven and yeah in 1987 the parker commission

00:13:23.200 recommended selling now if you had a family farm or a family business you don't force your family to

00:13:28.400 sell just because you've become a politician what would happen then is you would just have to step

00:13:34.000 aside every time there was anything that directly or indirectly affected your family business but

00:13:39.920 otherwise sell it all invest in gic's government bonds they don't cause conflicts of interest and

00:13:45.760 you'll get a nice rate of return while you're serving the public as long as you're invested in the stock

00:13:51.200 market you're serving yourself and it's amazing that he is so really just uh his attitude is i'm fine

00:13:59.760 everyone should just trust me um he's created a horrible situation for himself because literally

00:14:06.480 every time he makes a decision that affects any business sector in canada he's he's very likely in

00:14:11.600 a financial conflict of interest which means the opposition parties can raise it every time did you

00:14:15.840 make this decision to profit yourself or or to uh do something in the public interest and it's going

00:14:22.240 to haunt him and uh but it just shouldn't be allowed and and that's hopefully that's the law is going to

00:14:28.320 be changed by opposition mps who have a majority in the house if the liberals refuse to change the law

00:14:34.000 it's it's being reviewed as i mentioned by a house committee right now yeah he bristles when he's asked

00:14:38.800 about it now he really doesn't want to go there well too bad for him because didn't he meet with

00:14:43.760 officials from brookfield shortly after he became prime minister i heard that do you know if that's

00:14:49.440 true uh well it was confirmed by the the registration of of brookfield that uh there there was lobbying

00:14:58.640 of carney after it and uh we don't have full disclosure of uh who ministers uh communicate with trudeau

00:15:07.200 broke a promise that he made in 2015 to require minister's office to be subject to the access to

00:15:13.360 information act which would have brought out some of those details but the lobbyists do have to

00:15:18.080 disclose uh some of their communications and and that has been confirmed and it's not surprising at

00:15:23.600 all i mean uh brookfield is in multiple industries in canada and that's why i say carney is very likely

00:15:29.920 in a financial conflict of interest can profit from his decisions when when he ever he makes a decision

00:15:35.920 that affects any business sector in canada and also international you know making decisions about trade

00:15:41.680 and things like that as well because he's invested in a lot of companies that are multinationals from

00:15:47.040 other countries as well yeah i mean even in the housing sector for instance where brookfield is

00:15:53.840 major investor i believe owner of a manufactured home uh company you know if you're putting in

00:16:00.720 billions of dollars in the manufacture of homes you know you want to roll these things out i mean

00:16:06.880 brookfield is going to be a beneficiary of that and through that alone i mean so is this so is

00:16:14.960 we've asked the federal cabinet office um okay you have this ethics screen and and the ethics

00:16:21.840 commissioner is allowing you to hide whether you're actually stepping aside from any decisions okay so you

00:16:27.840 do have to disclose to us the numbers though how many times has that screen been activated to say to

00:16:33.680 carney you can't go to that meeting you can't participate in that discussion or that decision

00:16:38.240 or vote and uh we requested that for his initial screen because he initially had a screen when he

00:16:44.480 was prime minister uh uh before the election and running up until mid-july and then he had a second

00:16:51.040 screen put in place by the ethics commissioner he never disclosed what the first screen said actually

00:16:56.480 and prevented him from doing so we've asked for that and we've asked for the number of times he's been

00:17:01.520 prevented from participating in discussion decision or vote and also who's administering the screen and

00:17:07.600 those kind of details and what came back uh these are simple numbers right they should know them if

00:17:13.520 they're actually using the screen they would know how many times they've done it and that's all we've

00:17:17.600 asked for is the number not all the details but just the number and they said oh we're not we're going

00:17:22.880 to give ourselves an extension they were supposed to disclose it by the end of september and they're not

00:17:27.520 going to disclose it now till january and i'll expect more delay in january because he doesn't

00:17:32.880 want this to come out what it's going to show is he's at the table all the time he's maybe stepped

00:17:37.520 aside once or twice and uh that means he's there every time there's a decision that affects brookfield

00:17:43.440 and the 550 other companies he's invested in he's there at the table making decisions where he can

00:17:50.080 secretly profit from the decision yeah so we're going to keep on digging and get it out uh they can delay

00:17:56.320 they can run and hide but uh the information has to be disclosed under the federal access to

00:18:02.720 information act there's no excuse for it they're making excuses now that are illegal they're actually

00:18:07.840 violating the act right now but uh as i say they can run and hide but we're going to keep digging and

00:18:12.720 we're going to get that information out yeah in the meantime mark carney stands to become even richer

00:18:18.640 than he is i mean yeah again again crazy crazy because according to reports uh people added up

00:18:27.760 what his investments are likely worth 10 million dollars could have invested in a gic government

00:18:33.280 bonds got you know set three five percent interest rate while he was prime minister that would have

00:18:40.400 made him a significant amount of money through that time period and then when he goes back out start

00:18:46.400 serving himself again instead he's trying to serve himself and while claiming to serve the public

00:18:51.280 and it just doesn't wash he's a walking talking conflict of interest now you also want to talk

00:18:56.400 about the federal government's weak and vague proposed measures on bank account fraud and financial

00:19:02.800 crime talk a little bit about that yes so budget bills should stick to just budget matter spending

00:19:08.480 but they often throw in other measures and one of them that's going to be in there are changes to

00:19:13.200 the federal bank act uh to finally do something uh the liberals promised in 2021 about this rampant

00:19:22.240 problem of bank account fraud and and canadians uh the estimate last year lost more than 640 million

00:19:30.640 uh to fraud a lot of people being fooled by spoof websites spoof phone calls people call pretending to

00:19:38.240 call from the cra or from their bank and asking them to move money out into certain accounts 640 million

00:19:45.680 this has been a problem that's been well documented for almost a decade liberals made promises in 2021

00:19:52.320 didn't do anything and uh now here we are in 2025 and the finance minister francois philippe champagne

00:19:59.280 announced on october 20th these really weak vague measures uh far far weaker than what's been done in

00:20:07.120 australia and in england what's been done in those countries is they've said if if a bank or a

00:20:12.800 telecom company that's hosting a spoof website or allowing spoof phone calls uh over their lines if

00:20:19.440 they can't prove their did their due diligence to protect financial consumers then they have to repay

00:20:25.120 them the amount of money that they lost and uh reversing the whole onus and making the banks and

00:20:31.760 telecom and internet companies prove that they've actually protected people because they set up this

00:20:37.280 whole online system and if they didn't put in the safeguards and the guardrails then they're the ones

00:20:42.320 at fault for people getting fooled by spoof websites and spoof phone calls so uh what unfortunately the

00:20:49.600 federal liberals promised was just a rehash of the hot air promises they made in 2021 really weak vague

00:20:56.160 measures is saying banks are going to have to have procedures in place to protect customers well they

00:21:02.800 put in 2018 they put a provision in the bill that said banks have to have procedures in place to protect

00:21:08.480 customers and unfortunately we have this lapdog agency called the financial consumer agency of canada

00:21:16.000 that just doesn't enforce those requirements uh effectively at all far weaker than the consumer

00:21:22.160 watchdog groups in the us and the uk and almost never goes after the big banks and so of course

00:21:28.720 they don't have procedures in place because they know that's not required they're not even if they're

00:21:32.880 caught they're not going to get fined or prosecuted and that's all they're proposing again now is for

00:21:38.640 anti-fraud that you have to have procedures in place and that's not going to change anything if the

00:21:43.920 banks aren't required to have those procedures in place and also required to pay customers if they're the

00:21:49.200 ones uh the banks or the telecom or internet companies are the ones that are really at fault

00:21:53.680 for someone getting fooled and losing all their life savings duff conacher democracy watch how do

00:21:59.680 people support your organization democracy watch.ca they can see all the campaigns for uh government

00:22:06.480 ethics straight strengthening those standards as we talked about and also uh some key bank

00:22:11.200 accountability measures to protect people from gouging fraud and abuse by our big banks thank you so

00:22:17.760 much for coming on the show appreciate it thanks we'll be interested to see what's in the budget

00:22:22.000 bill and and happy to talk again about the details when they come out absolutely thank you duff

00:22:29.360 and that is it for this edition of straight up appreciate you tuning in my friends let's do it

00:22:33.520 again real soon shall we bye bye for now

00:22:45.120 you

Juno News - November 04, 2025

Carney’s $50B conflict of interest？

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