Danielle Smith tells Sherwood Park town hall that Hungarian far-right leader Viktor Orbán has an ‘interesting’ idea to reduce immigration

Because racism/nationalism

You mentioned precedent before.

What precedent would it set if someone could work for a company, be handed millions in stock options, and then run for office with the secret but explicit understanding that the stock options were arranged as a way to incentivize certain policy positions?

I wouldn’t be totally opposed to what you’re suggesting, but as you say, there’s no mechanism for doing it.

So, too bad for Carney, he should have thought of this before he agreed to be paid in stock options and then run for PM. This is his own mess!

And frankly I’m kind of shocked that anyone is defending a multimillionaire who’s doing something so brazenly counter to the spirit of our ethics rules.

Well, I’d expect it from Trump or Poilievre supporters, sure.

Lol I figured you’d say that.

Why is it “crazy” to want to ensure the leader of a country doesn’t have multi-million dollar conflicts of interest?

Sorry, but I don’t think we should be casual about this stuff. He’s making decisions that affect 40 million people.

If Carney doesn’t want to be PM then he can step down. If he does, then he has to accept limitations on what counts as a “blind” trust.

I don’t think this is unreasonable in the slightest.

He should waive his right to exercise those stock options. Or step down if he values the money more.

This is why a PM gets a good salary and pension: they’re giving up things to be in a position of immense power. That’s the trade.

I mean, he didn’t have to run for the Liberal leadership on the first place. I heard one commentator describe it as the ‘opportunity cost’ of running for PM.

Am I surprised that someone who sets up funds in the Caymans is trying to use the letter of the rules as a get out of jail free card? No.

But he must have known it would look terrible. If all this was a surprise to Carney, then we should be very worried about his ability to govern this country.

If this were simply a ploy to manufacture outrage, then Carney’s best move would be to neutralize that ploy, or ‘distraction’, by calling people’s bluff and actually being transparent.

Instead, he got angry at reporters for asking him about it, and denied that there could be any possible conflict.

Meanwhile he continues to pitch projects in sectors that Brookfield has tens of billions invested in.

You’re defending the promise being broken by saying it’s no big deal/could be worse.

This is a 15% cut to the CBC. Do you think that what normally happens is that Mark Carney goes in and starts randomly firing people? Of course not. The budget gets cut and the CBC has to figure out what to do next.

The only reason this is being said ahead of time, IMO: the Liberals don’t want to unveil all their devastating cuts in a single budget bill, because the outrage would be incandescent, so they’re dropping a new bombshell every week to keep Canadians on their back foot.

None of these cuts are necessary!

We don’t have a clear legal mechanism, but we to have the power of public outrage.

The whole point of conflict of interest legislation is that politicians should not have, nor be seen to have, opportunity for personal gain.

Carney could easily clear this up to satisfy critics like myself. Choosing not to only makes it look worse, frankly.

People mad about Poilievre not having a security clearance should also be mad about this.

If you’ve grown numb to it, then why are you in these comments actively defending it?

Personally I’ve not heard of a PM having millions in unvested stock options before this one, so, not sure how standard it is.

If Poilievre was doing the same, would you have the same response?

I’m confused. Are you saying that Carney doesn’t have to keep any of his campaign promises, so long as he doesn’t do things that are quite as bad as the hypothetical actions of the party we were told was an existential threat to Canada?

Apologies if that sounds rude, but I’m getting incredibly frustrated with folks who seem to want to give this government a pass on just about anything, even breaking their explicit campaign promises. Is this really how low the bar is now? If so, we’re absolutely doomed.

I seem to recall an election promise to increase the CBC’s funding by $150m, so clearly Liberal voters weren’t voting for a nearly $200m reduction.

So why doesn’t Carney disclose this? Do you agree he should?

Hmm, maybe we should increase the capital gains inclusion rate or something

And when will that be? Will that happen while he is PM? Carney knows, and we don’t. And that’s the problem!

Not sure what you think I meant.

I know what a vesting schedule is. Do you?

And Carney has not disclosed what the vesting schedule for his Brookfield stock options is.

And that’s exactly my point. So go on, answer the question please?

On Bluesky, Robert Jago posted about how he even emailed to confirm that he was actually on the invite list, was told he was, and then he paid for his flight and hotel.

The day before he was set to travel, he got an email telling him he wasn’t on the list.

https://bsky.app/profile/rjjago.bsky.social/post/3ltvioqofhc25

The problem is, his stock options may not have vested, and Carney would be aware of the vesting schedule. It could be years before he (or whoever is managing the trust) could exercise those options and/or sell those shares.

In other words, the trust may not be ‘blind’ in practice.

This was the original criticism from reporters such as Rosie Barton, and many of Carney’s supporters never bothered to try to understand the issue.

Carney could, for instance, sign away any future claim to them.

At the very least, Canadians deserve to know what the vesting schedule is. But he’s a rich man already. If he was really in politics for the greater good (doubtful!), and if he cared about not having conflicts of interest or even appearing not to (also doubtful!), then he’d have zero qualms about giving up these Brookfield options.

Instead, he gets mad at anyone who questions the arrangement, and continues to push projects in sectors that Brookfield is heavily invested in.