Six Conservative MPs, including the party’s deputy leader, disclosed last year they personally invested in companies related to Brookfield Corp., despite attacking Liberal Leader Mark Carney for his work chairing one of its spinoff companies.
Deputy leader Melissa Lantsman reported in 2024 she personally held an undisclosed number of shares with Brookfield Renewable Partners L.P., documents from the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner show. The company is based in Bermuda, which is considered an offshore tax haven.
Brookfield Renewable invests in renewable energy assets and said in its annual report it broke records last year for its strongest “financial results ever.”
Lantsman, the Conservative candidate in the Ontario riding of Thornhill, took direct aim at Carney and offshore tax havens during the first week of the campaign.
“Mark Carney dodged Canadian taxes using offshore tax havens while running Brookfield [Asset Management],” she posted on X on March 26. “He’s gotta answer for why he put his personal profits ahead of Canadians — and whether he’s still cashing in on this scheme. Canadians deserve a leader who puts Canada first, not Mark Carney first.”
Carney has cited both his work in the private sector and as governor of Canada and the United Kingdom’s central banks as credentials for Canadians to trust him in trade war negotiations with U.S. President Donald Trump. But the Conservatives have sought to portray Carney’s work with Brookfield as showing he’s a corporate elite and not in it for Canadians.
Lantsman included a picture of a CBC News story with her post on X about Carney personally co-chairing two investment funds during his time at Brookfield Asset Management worth a total of $25 billion that were registered in Bermuda, among other locations. They allowed investors to benefit from significant tax advantages, according to information obtained by Radio-Canada.
A Brookfield spokesperson said the company and its affiliates are committed to adhering to all applicable tax rules in Canada and other jurisdictions in which they do business. Carney has also defended registering the funds in Bermuda, saying it was a question of “efficiency,” not tax avoidance.
Five other Conservative MPs — Cheryl Gallant, Scott Reid, Scot Davidson, Stephen Ellis and Greg McLean — also disclosed last year they owned stocks with Brookfield Corp or related companies, as first reported by the Investigative Journalism Foundation.
Reid told CBC News in an email that this information is public because he posted information about his holdings on his website. Reid reported in 2024 holding Class A limited voting shares in Brookfield Corp. and units with Brookfield Infrastructure Partners L.P. (which was also formed in Bermuda, according to a Brookfield report).
Reid said he’s gone further and publicly disclosed all of his correspondence with the government’s ethics commissioner on his own website about his “far larger ownership stake in Giant Tiger” for “maximum transparency.”
“Now, please contrast this with Mr. Carney’s behaviour,” Reid wrote. “He has disclosed to the ethics commissioner, but refuses to disclose to Canadians, as I have done — and he’s the prime minister of Canada, while I’m just a lowly MP.”
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre claimed on Sunday that Carney is refusing “to tell Canadians what investments he continues to own or even where he pays his taxes.”
Carney has repeatedly said that aside from cash and real estate, all of his assets are in a blind trust that he has no control over and this week said he pays taxes in Canada. Carney has not said what exactly those investments included.
The Liberal leader has also said that in co-ordination with the ethics commissioner he’s set up “screens” to avoid potential conflicts of interest related to his past work, including at Brookfield.
While Poilievre has repeatedly criticized Carney’s involvement in Brookfield, his party disclosed he’s invested in Vanguard FTSE Canada Index ETF, which in turn invests in dozens of companies including Brookfield Asset Management and Brookfield Corporation, as first reported by the Toronto Star.
Brookfield Asset Management was founded in 2022 as a spinoff of the asset management operations at Brookfield Corporation.
Political science professor at Dalhousie University, Lori Turnbull, says it’s hypocritical for the Conservatives to be making a case against Carney for his time at Brookfield when they are investing or had investments with Brookfield companies.
“They can’t really have genuine issues with how this organization practises business because if they did, they wouldn’t invest in it,” said Turnbull. “It’s a bit of an egg-on-their-face moment for the Conservatives.”
But Turnbull said while this issue has helped the Conservatives drive a narrative against Carney as being a rich elite who potentially practises business in a way to save money for his company or avoid taxes, there’s a risk of them continuing with that argument.
“Now there’s a risk associated with them keeping this narrative about Brookfield because they’ll look hypocritical doing it,” she said.
Turnbull also doesn’t think this is an issue that is going to decide this election “by any stretch.”
Carney says Brookfield pension funds in Bermuda ‘abide by the rules’
A spokesperson for the Conservative Party, Sam Lilly, says after U.S. President Donald Trump’s tariff threats, Poilievre sold off all his investments in foreign economies to invest in major index funds (ETFs) in “nearly 50 companies across the Canadian economy.”
Lilly said Poilievre doesn’t control the activities of these ETFs and discloses them to the ethics commissioner.
“Unlike Mark Carney, Conservative MPs have disclosed their financial interests which are public for all to see,” Lilly said. “And unlike Mark Carney, Conservative MPs were not running Brookfield and were not intimately involved in Brookfield’s decision-making practices. Mark Carney must answer for Mark Carney’s decisions.”
Lilly also said Opposition MPs are not in a position to directly make decisions to benefit Brookfield and pointed the finger at Carney.
“Mark Carney should immediately publish his assets and the details of his conflict of interest plan and screens so voters can judge well before election day,” Lilly wrote in a statement.
The Conservative Party did not say if their MPs still hold their assets related to Brookfield.
CBC News has not received a response from Lantsman and other MPs it reached out to for comment.
