On today's show, we're talking about Liberal insiders getting rich, and the Prime Minister being an advanced team for Brookfield, all while Canadians struggle to pay their bills. To talk about this, we bring on the Chair of the Ethics Committee, also the Member of Parliament for Barrie South Innisfil, Jean Broussard.
00:00:00.000Hello and welcome once again to The Blueprints. This is Canada's Conservative Podcast. I'm your
00:00:14.140host, Jamie Schmael, Member of Parliament for Halliburton-Cawortha Lakes, with new content for
00:00:18.140you every single Tuesday, 1.30pm Eastern Time. Don't forget to like, comment, subscribe and
00:00:22.800share this program, because on today's show, we're talking about Liberal insiders getting rich,
00:00:28.560The Prime Minister being an advanced team for Brookfield, all while Canadians struggle to pay their bills.
00:00:34.580To talk about this, we bring on the Chair of the Ethics Committee, also the Member of Parliament for Barrie South Innisfil, Jean Broussard.
00:01:08.860We have your committee, the Ethics Committee, doing kind of a deep dive into what started as the Ethics Act, the review, the Conflict of Interest Act, that kind of guides parliamentarians to be good boys and girls.
00:01:23.760Unfortunately, it kind of took a bit of a detour.
00:01:25.700Why don't you tell us a bit about that?
00:01:27.540Yeah, so we started off with a review of the Conflict of Interest Act.
00:01:34.140You know, obviously, you know, members of Parliament, designated public office holders
00:01:38.820are held to an account, you know, not just under the Act,
00:01:43.420and there are certain requirements under the Act that we all have to follow.
00:01:46.700But, you know, we started studying it as a review of the Act.
00:01:51.000And then, you know, as more and more witnesses started appearing, you know, the question became about the Prime Minister's conflicts of interest and how that relates to the current situation, you know, the blind trusts, the ethics screens that have been put in place.
00:02:09.940all of that started bubbling onto the surface. We actually had a Brookfield executive that came in
00:02:16.100and spoke to the Ethics Committee as well about what the Prime Minister stands to gain as a result
00:02:22.020of his stock options, his deferred stock units, and the carried interest. If Brookfield does well,
00:02:29.460how well does the Prime Minister do? So we've moved in that direction. As it stands right now,
00:02:36.980Now we've completed the study and we are writing a report that should be made public soon with
00:02:45.980some recommendations to the government on how to deal with issues related to the Conflict
00:02:50.520of Interest Act, particularly loopholes that can be used by designated public office holders.
00:02:56.900We've been very careful in this study that it not be specifically about the prime minister,
00:03:04.380but more so about designated public office holders and their obligations under the Conflict
00:03:26.100And so we are looking to, as we suggest to the government to amend the Act, to look at
00:03:32.800closing some of these loopholes that exist.
00:03:36.420So, you know, I can't speak to where, you know, we're at with respect to the report,
00:03:41.300but I can tell you that, you know, we've taken into consideration a lot of the testimony
00:03:47.300that was given to the committee and we'll be making the appropriate recommendations to the government.
00:03:52.140This isn't the first time we've had you on the show to talk about this.
00:03:54.860It was a few months ago we brought this on because it was determined that Carney had
00:04:00.140a lot more conflicts of interest than he actually led on to and disclosed to the public, really.
00:04:05.740Yeah, it was after the election, actually, because if you recall, you know, there was
00:04:11.420that really tense interaction between Rosemary Barton when she dared question the Prime Minister
00:04:17.940about his conflicts of interest because none of them had been revealed at that point.
00:04:22.980And I believe at the time when I was on the show earlier, I said, we really need to keep
00:04:27.200an eye on this because, as we found out subsequently, the amount of shares that he owns and what
00:04:38.400we've found out since, as it relates specifically to the Brookfield Green Transition Fund, the
00:04:44.880amount of entities, as I said earlier, the stock options, stock units, and carried interest
00:04:49.460that he stands to gain, he can make millions and millions of dollars if the Transition
00:04:56.580Fund and some of his stocks and other things do well as a result of the decisions that
00:05:02.860are made by this government in relation to what he holds.
00:05:08.960And again, I think I mentioned it last time I was here, the Prime Minister had been an
00:05:14.220economic advisor to the Liberal Party in the Prime Minister's office since 2020.
00:05:19.360Not paid, so he didn't have to disclose any of his conflicts.
00:05:22.420It wasn't subject to the same regime as designated public office holders are.
00:05:29.300And I said this publicly in the House of Commons on December 2nd, 2025.
00:05:33.900I talked about the alignment between government policy as it related to some of the green funds that had been created under the advice of Mark Carney, as it relates to his role as economic advisor, and how many of them were aligning with Brookfield's strategy.
00:05:52.420whether it was a green fund, a $15 billion green fund, and other decisions that were
00:05:57.420being made by the Trudeau government at the time.
00:05:59.840You know, I said in the House that, you know, having Trudeau as Prime Minister was a dream
00:06:05.140for these well-connected Liberal insiders, you know, the lobbyists, you know, some of
00:06:10.540the others that are, you know, family members and all that stuff, because Trudeau was playing
00:06:16.360Prime Minister, and what they were doing was setting the stage for, in my opinion, and,
00:06:22.360It's starting to prove itself true that they were setting the stage to align those government policies with their own interests
00:06:29.320that were going to pay them millions and millions of dollars, right?
00:06:34.240Not just the prime minister as it relates to what he holds in his so-called blind trust, but others as well.
00:06:40.760That's the problem when you get government centralizing all this money going out the door, right?
00:06:47.840You have companies applying for government funds
00:08:19.640And, you know, what was curious about this, despite the ethics screen that's been in place, that's been put in place,
00:08:26.820that's supposedly monitored by Michael Savia and Andre Glashard, who's the chief of staff and the clerk of the Privy Council,
00:08:36.520Mr. Bieber admitted to the committee that he had access to the prime minister's office by one simple phone call.
00:08:43.000This is the same Justin Bieber who said that the Prime Minister stands to gain millions and millions of dollars through these units, or he didn't refer to them as units, but they're stock units, deferred stock options, and carried interest.
00:08:58.820So it just goes to show that, you know, Mr. Beaver had access because of his connection to Mr. Kearney through Brookfield that I guarantee you no other Canadian would have access to unless you're that well connected.
00:09:27.600But here's the other way to put it, right, to build on what you've said as well.
00:09:31.720When you have a bunch of lobbyists and lawyers within the Ottawa bubble applying for all these grants, using the connections, getting your buddy some contracts to decide what you want, it's easier for a company to do that.
00:09:46.480It's easier for a company to deal with a handful of bureaucrats and politicians to get them to sign off on funding for your project than it is to go to the marketplace and convince 41 million Canadians that your product is better than the one that they may already be using.
00:10:03.260Or tell them why your product deserves to be sold into their hands for Canadians to spend their money on that project.
00:10:10.940It's so much easier dealing with government.
00:10:13.160That's why government gets bigger and that's why people cozy up.
00:11:09.940They have a, the levers of power are all theirs.
00:11:13.580policy decision that's being made at that level and disseminated down through ministers and
00:11:20.300deputy ministers and eventually the bureaucracy, the prime minister is aware of what those
00:11:26.500decisions are and how it relates to what he holds in his blind trust. And Jamie, what he holds in
00:11:34.220his blind trust may be blind to Canadians, but it's not blind to him. So when we talk about
00:11:40.940government policy. When we talk about government policy, he knows everything. He knows everything
00:11:45.280that's in there. When we talk about government policy, whether it's related to artificial
00:11:51.800intelligence, who's the biggest investor in artificial intelligence right now? Brookfield.
00:11:59.940Whether it relates to nuclear, who owns nuclear? Westinghouse and Cameco. I mean, the list is as
00:12:07.840long as the date. But what's really interesting and where he was talking about this carried interest
00:12:13.480where the Prime Minister stands to make millions of dollars is through the Brookfield Green
00:12:17.840Transition Fund One. Within that company, there are literally 2,000 entities that are within that
00:12:27.060company. And every one of those entities that does well, and it also includes partnerships with
00:12:33.980pension plans, et cetera, every one of those entities that does well means that the prime
00:12:40.460minister does very well, right? So this alignment of government policy to Brookfield's strategy
00:12:48.560is almost the perfect storm for the prime minister to use that leverage and those levers of power
00:12:56.440in order to enrich himself and make millions of dollars. But here's the interesting part of this.
00:13:03.980And that is that the Conflict of Interest Act, as it stands, there's a loophole in it where you can literally drive a truck through it that allows the Prime Minister, it's called the General Application Rule, that allows the Prime Minister, in this case Mark Carney, to make decisions of government policy despite the fact, if they're on a broader level, right?
00:13:32.500Well, all decisions at that level are made broadly.
00:13:36.140It allows him to participate in that decision, and he knows that within his blind trust, every one of those policy decisions can actually benefit him.
00:13:49.880And so this is, when we had witnesses come in and talk to the committee about the general application rule, the majority of witnesses said that that loophole needs to be closed.
00:14:02.860And there were many others that suggested, for example, that if we are going to gain trust in, you know, the Prime Minister's office, and I want to make this clear too, this, you know, we've been very careful not to make this about Mark Carney, okay?
00:14:20.880As difficult as that has been, because, you know, like, look, this is, he's got a lot of investments, a lot of interest in the success of government policy.
00:14:30.780What we've really been trying to do is look at the act as a whole and say, okay, how can we ensure that the public has trust that the decisions that are being made are in the interest of the country and not in the interest of any one individual who holds that office, who holds the levers of power,
00:14:56.040who has the power of decision-making that can benefit themselves or their corporate partners, insiders, lobbyists, and all that stuff.
00:15:07.800So we've really been walking that fine line.
00:15:11.500And so as it relates to the general application rule, many witnesses said that we need to close that loophole.
00:15:16.620And there were other witnesses that said the only way to eliminate this conflict, perceived or real, is complete divestment.
00:15:26.040Complete divestment of the assets, because then Canadians and the public can be assured that the decisions that are being made are not in the interest to increase the value of the holdings of the designated public officer that's making those decisions.
00:15:42.320In fact, when we had Michael Sabia, who's the clerk of the Privy Council, he came before the committee and he was asked point blank, you know, did you, you know, what have you done with your Brookfield assets?
00:16:16.280And there were others that came to the committee and said, that is problematic in a way that, you know, these two people are political appointees of the prime minister.
00:16:26.460They're beholden to the prime minister.
00:16:28.320And so can we trust that they are putting up this screen in good faith?
00:16:33.860And we've seen, you know, over the many trips that the Prime Minister has taken, that he's actually met with former business partners when he was chair of Brookfield in India, for example.
00:16:48.820We've seen other examples of where he's actually met.
00:16:59.320you know, the ethics screen is designed to, you know, shield him from those conflicts, right? So,
00:17:07.020you know, for example, I'm of the opinion that the minute that Mr. Beaver made that phone call
00:17:12.060to the prime minister's office, I mean, that should have sent up a flag right away because
00:17:17.620of the connection to Brookfield, okay? The same thing with some of the business, former business
00:17:22.640associates who have connections to Brookfield in India and other countries. There's no way that he
00:17:27.640should have been meeting with any of those people because of those former connections that he had
00:17:32.540with Brookfield. So the ethics screen is actually more of a smoke screen now, and we are not, you
00:17:39.480know, we're not aware of who the prime minister is. In fact, I tweeted at one point, like, obviously
00:17:45.460it's not working because, you know, if you have, if the prime minister has a connection to any of
00:17:50.400these people through his connections with Brookfield, he shouldn't be meeting with them at all. You
00:17:55.380You know, whether there's a conflict or not, the appearance of a conflict then kicks in.
00:18:00.240And that's where, you know, Canadians should be rightly concerned.
00:18:03.560I said this in the House several times that, you know, it's funny because the prime minister is acting more like a, not a PM, you know, the PM prime minister.
00:18:16.120He's acting more like a PM portfolio manager, right?
00:18:19.780Because it seems like everywhere he goes and every trip, it's either an advanced trip, and then Brookfield follows, or it's a follow-up trip after Brookfield has been there.
00:18:29.580And no greater example of that was when the prime minister was down in Washington, and a few weeks after, President Trump announced with Brookfield that they were signing an $80 billion nuclear deal with Westinghouse, who just happens to be owned by Brookfield.
00:19:14.900We understand that you have now placed your assets in a blind trust, so you don't know what's happening to them going forward, but you knew what they were going in to that blind trust. So what are they?
00:19:26.380Look, Stephanie, I follow the rules of the Ethics Commissioner.
00:19:34.300I'm following them well in advance of any of the requirements.
00:19:38.740As you know, because I know you know this, you know that these requirements come into
00:20:49.820But this is a track record of how Liberals operate, right?
00:20:52.760We've, just in recent history, like recent memory, but have been forgotten, memory hold by the media.
00:20:59.540Don't forget the Green Slush Fund, right?
00:21:00.960Where the Prime Minister put the buddies on the board to decide where the money goes.
00:21:05.220And the buddies started thinking, well, we can just approve funding on our own companies.
00:21:11.020So I'll leave the room, you approve my funding for my company, and then you leave the room when your company's up for a grant and we'll grant that.
00:21:17.940Like that in itself in normal times and normal times would have brought down a government, but it's just, well, it's only a couple million, hundred million, who cares?
00:25:03.720You know, as chair of the ethics committee,
00:25:05.400I have a front row seat, to all of this stuff that's going on.
00:25:09.620You know, there are independent journalists who are uncovering these things.
00:25:16.300You know, I can think, you know, Moose on the Loose, if people aren't following him,
00:25:21.400they should, because he's uncovering, like, look, we have our own shop, right,
00:25:26.060internal shop, and we're doing much of the same work that he's doing.
00:25:30.180But, you know, there are places for people to go to truly understand what the hell is going on in this country and who is getting rich from the Treasury right now.
00:29:50.000As easy as it is to get distracted by the situation in the United States, I just want to remind everybody that every single problem we have in this country, every single one, crime, immigration, housing affordability, housing attainability, inflation, the lowest growth in the G7, highest inflation in the G7,1.00
00:30:14.880you know, crime pervading our streets, the immigrants, all that stuff was happening long0.96
00:30:20.680before Donald Trump became the president of the United States. And it's continuing under this new1.00
00:30:26.260liberal prime minister. And I also encourage people to really keep an eye on, you know,
00:30:31.600what's happening in precisely what we talked about. You know, like, I'm not kidding you when
00:30:37.400I say this, this consumes me, Jane, 24 hours a day, seven days a week, I'm thinking about this.
00:30:42.260And then I see the announcements coming out, I see the meetings that he's having with people, and I can't help but think, because he's still fully invested in all of this stuff, that he's not doing it for the good of the general population, that he's doing it to increase the size of his portfolio and ensure that his corporate buddies and others are benefiting at the same time.
00:31:05.780So, I encourage people to keep an eye on this.
00:31:09.380And keep an eye on this report when it's done at the Ethics Committee.
00:31:14.180Keep an eye on it, because I think it's going to have some information that's going to pique a lot of interest.
00:31:19.660All right, John Bursard, Member of Parliament for Barry South Innisfil.
00:31:22.860Thank you very much for your time, Chair of the Ethics Committee.