Poilievre slams alleged Carney conflicts, pledges new ethics law

“While Pierre Poilievre continues his desperate attacks, Mark Carney is taking action to stand up to Donald Trump’s tariffs and build a stronger economy for all Canadians.”

A group that advocates for tougher ethical rules in government was lukewarm on Poilievre’s proposals, saying that while well-intentioned, they’re muddled and don’t go nearly far enough.

The Conservatives propose to ban blind trusts because of their lack of transparency, for instance, yet suggest cabinet ministers need only disclose their investments to the ethics commissioner, not the public, noted Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch.

And while they say the prime minister should sell all his or her assets, other public officials would face no such requirement, he said.

As well as requiring political candidates to say where they’re paying taxes, Poilievre proposes:

• Requiring business leaders and other private citizens who act as government advisers to register as lobbyists if they stand to profit from their advice;
• Banning politicians from making decisions that benefit them or their families disproportionately;
• Increasing fines for ethics violations to $10,000;
• Forcing cabinet ministers to sell off investments in tax havens and disclose assets to the conflict of interest commissioner;
• Making party leaders disclose their assets within 30 days of getting the job, and selling off assets within 30 days of becoming prime minister.

But Conacher suggested the proposed measures largely skirt around the real issues.

He said one of the most important reforms to the current law would be to require all cabinet members and other top government officials to simply sell off their investments, lessening the chance of financially benefiting from decisions.

He said the current law also exempts “99 per cent” of decisions governments make from conflict rules, because the legislation does not cover policies that apply generally, as opposed to a specific company or other entity.

As for a $10,000 fine, that would provide little incentive for compliance when a politician could potentially earn millions of dollars from a government decision, said Conacher.

A reporter asked Poilievre after his announcement whether he would favour putting the nomination elections for party candidates under the authority of Elections Canada to prevent meddling in them by foreign powers. Such contests could be a “gateway” for foreign interference, Justice Marie-Josée Hogue had said in a report on the federal foreign-interference inquiry.

Loose rules around who can vote in those elections, for instance, have led to allegations of instant party members — some who are neither citizens nor even permanent residents — helping to elect candidates.

Poilievre did not directly answer the question, but said a government he led would take foreign interference seriously and criticized Carney’s response to one of his candidate’s controversial remarks.

Paul Chiang, the incumbent in Markham—Unionville riding, encouraged people to turn Conservative politician Joe Tay into the Chinese consulate and collect a bounty placed on his head by Hong Kong police. Tay’s alleged “crime” was to run a YouTube channel here that was critical of the city’s China-dominated government. Carney defended Chiang, though the former MP later stepped down as a candidate.

Conacher said Elections Canada must take over responsibility of running both nomination and party leadership elections.

“As long as the parties run nomination contests and party leadership contests, foreign interference will be covered up whenever it happens in those contests,” he said. ”The Parties just will not expose foreign interference in their own contests because of how embarrassing it would be.”