The News Rundown

Carney to recuse himself from dealings with over 100 companies in sprawling government conflict screen

Part of Prime Minister Mark Carney’s past as a high ranking financial executive with companies like Bloomberg LP, Stripe, and Brookfield Asset Management was touted by the mainstream media during the election campaign as an asset. The ability for a Prime Minister to understand the intricacies of the economy was taken like a lifeline in the wake of a grossly mismanaged economy by former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, and the economic rhetoric coming from returning US President Donald Trump.
Now that the dust has settled somewhat, it's important to look at what having a Prime Minister with all these former high ranking positions in large companies actually means for the country going forward, and how those positions can result in a huge conflict of interest for the new Prime Minister, who in trying to differentiate himself from Trudeau, will need to prove that he takes these things seriously.
According to the Ethics Commissioner, to successfully do that, Carney will have to recuse himself from any discussions directly involving Brookfield Asset Management, payment processing giant Stripe and dozens of companies owned or controlled by them as part of an extensive conflict-of-interest screen.
In a disclosure posted Friday afternoon on the Ethics Commissioner’s website, Carney said he had agreed with the watchdog’s office to set up a conflict-of-interest screen between himself and Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Corporation, Stripe Inc. and any of 100 other companies owned or controlled by them at the time he set up a blind trust to oversee his assets.
Before jumping into politics, Carney was chairman of Brookfield Asset Management, which has US$1 trillion in assets under management, and also helped lead efforts to raise capital for two major Brookfield clean energy funds. He was also on Stripe’s board of directors.
The screen means that Carney cannot be involved in “any official matters or decision-making processes” that would further either his or the interests of the 103 companies, many of which operate in the renewable energy and real estate sectors.
Carney's declaration says: “This screen will prevent me from giving preferential treatment to any of the Companies while I exercise my official powers, duties, and functions as a reporting public office holder.”
Ian Stedman, a government ethics specialist who previously worked for Ontario’s Integrity Commissioner said “That’s the largest scope I’ve ever heard of, I think that they’re going to have to get creative to make administration of this screen efficient.”
The screen will be administered by Carney’s chief of staff, Marc-André Blanchard, and clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Sabia, respectively. If he is made aware that a matter being discussed with him involves his ethics screen, he must remove himself from the room and make a public declaration of recusal.
In a statement, a spokesperson for the Prime Minister’s Office said Carney worked with the commissioner to “exceed” the ethics rules by creating the blind trust days before he was sworn in as prime minister in March. Emily Williams said: “All of his investments were placed in the blind trust and all investment decisions are taken independently from him.”
But the prime minister isn’t barred from all discussions that may impact those companies he was involved in. Carney’s screen contains a caveat where he can participate in discussions or decisions on matters that broadly affect any of the 103 companies if they are part of a larger group, “unless those interests are disproportionate to the other members of the class.” It's not clear what level of ‘disproportionate’ will actually be defined as.
The ethics screen risks posing significant implementation challenges, if only because of the sheer scope of the prime minister’s responsibilities combined with the large number of companies to be screened. Adding to the complexity is that Carney has repeatedly promised to transform Canada into a conventional and clean energy “superpower”, which would no doubt benefit some of the many companies involved in his ethics screen.
Carney’s potential conflicts were a key critique from the opponents after he was elected Liberal leader in early March. At first, he was dismissive of the notion he may have some conflicts of interest relating to his previous work at Brookfield before eventually admitting that he’d likely require an ethics screen.
One of the screens the prime minister will be subject to is with Westinghouse, one of the world’s largest nuclear companies, which Brookfield Asset Management acquired a majority ownership stake in while Carney was co-head of the investment fund. Carney notably name-dropped Westinghouse while praising nuclear energy during a leaders’ debate during the election, which raised some eyebrows.
Other noteworthy conflict of interest screens relate to some of Brookfield’s investments in India’s clean energy and renewables sector — Leap Green, Avaada Group and CleanMax — through the Brookfield Global Transition Fund which was co-managed by Carney.
The disclosure also contains an extensive list of companies — running across 16 full pages — of shares and share options Carney owns that are either divested in a blind trust or held in an investment account managed by a third party that he did not control or direct.
In his blind trust, Carney put shares of North of 60 Advisors, Stripe, Partners Value Investments L.P., Cultivo Land PBC, Watershed Technology, and options and deferred share units of the Brookfield Corporation and Brookfield Asset Management.
According to Brookfield’s annual report, Carney was entitled to 209,300 stock options at $35.13 each and 200,000 options at $40.07 each, for a market value of more than $6.8 million as of Dec. 31, 2024. The expiration date on these options is either 2033 or 2034.
The assets held by an investment account managed by a third party include shares from AirBnb, Amazon, American Express, Apple, Blackrock, Coca Cola, Costco, DoorDash, Lockheed Martin, Lululemon, Moderna, Netflix, Palantir Technologies, Pfizer and Uber.
Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre had sharp criticism for Carney, saying on X that “Prime Minister Carney should sell all of his holdings and hand the cash to a trustee to have it invested in a truly blind trust, so he doesn’t know what he holds. Otherwise, he will always know how political decisions can affect his personal wealth.”
The trend of the Laurentian Elite controlling lots of moneyed interest in the country continues, and with Carney at the helm, now more than ever have the elites got a stranglehold on the country's direction. An ethics screen is the bare minimum required, what will really win over Canadians is prudent financial direction, but ever increasing budget deficits may cause this to be a losing battle for Carney.
Supplementals:

The Calgary stampede began last week. For those who have never been the Calgary stampede is as much political networking as it is recreation.
And that’s precisely what has happened between Ontario Premier Doug Ford and Alberta Premier Danielle Smith.
The two Premiers signed two memorandums of understanding on energy, trade, and interprovincial cooperation.
The signing came as the Premiers traded belt buckles which is a sign of deep mutual respect.
Aside from lowering interprovincial trade barriers the goal is to build new pipelines, rails, and ports.
The plan is to build a new east-west pipeline that will connect to Ontario’s James Bay deep sea port.
Rail lines will be studied to and from Ontario’s raw earth rich Ring of Fire in the North to processing plants out west.
Eastern Canada is entirely dependent on the Americans for their gas.
The Enbridge Line 5 pipeline dips down into Michigan and then comes back into Canada. Michigan Governor Gretchen Whitmer in the past has threatened to shut down the pipeline for environmental reasons before political tensions increased with Canada.
Such a situation would have drastic economic effects such as shutting down Pearson airport and creating almost immediate fuel shortages in the east.
Ontario is presently trying to speed up the construction of an all season road to the Ring of Fire.
Ontario is hoping that these projects of their own will be on a list of speedy approvals for the new government in Ottawa.
Alberta is also looking to have a pipeline go directly south to the US.
When seeing Canada favourably US President Donald Trump has suggested that construction of the Keystone XL pipeline could be restarted.
Alberta is also pushing for a pipeline to northern BC, to Prince Rupert specifically. BC Premier David Eby has so far been lukewarm to the idea.
Doug Ford wants pipelines everywhere, he said west, earth, north and south. He expanded by saying, “We need to unleash the opportunities, no matter if it’s the great oil here in Alberta or the critical minerals of the energy that we have in Ontario, that’s what we need to do. The door is open. We need to go through that door and tell the world Canada is open for business.”
Danielle Smith has also been having private discussions with energy companies and feels that within weeks a private sector company will come forward with a proposal.
Carney himself in town for the Stampede also has said that it’s “highly likely” that a pipeline project will make the list.
Carney and energy minister Tim Hodgson have also said they’re having private conversations to unveil a pipeline project to the west coast.
Many consumers and creators of media are enthralled with Donald Trump and believe everything we do should be to defend ourselves against the United States.
But we also need to defend Canada from itself and the split of Alberta and other parts of western Canada.
Pipelines are a key step in this process.
The government also needs to show that they are no longer anti-development.
They also need to be relatively friendly to business.
But most importantly Alberta needs to be treated as a partner rather than a resource.
Those are the material aspects.
Aside from those, better representation and consistently factoring in the west to decisions needs to be done to stave off western independence movements.
These projects could end up saving Canada. Social license, environmental protection, and the future of fossil fuels have all been on the table before.
The conversation has changed. The media’s coverage has not.
Their discussion on the matter has focused on what we can do against the US and how it can help us. But it hasn’t too Canadians why that’s important.
Supplementals:

B.C. losing workers as youth can't find employment due to lack of private-sector jobs

Looking at the job numbers for BC over the past month you'd probably be confused as there seem to be multiple different reports out there all saying different things. A headline from the Vancouver Sun tells a story that BC is losing workers and youth are especially struggling to find work, as they step back from trying to find a job. Another headline from the Lake Cowichan Gazette says that BC's unemployment rate dropped 0.8%. Yet another one from Business in Vancouver says that BC added 5K jobs in June for a fourth straight month of gains.
These stories all seem to be contradictory, so what's the real story here? As usual, to find out what's actually happening, you have to look into all of the stories and piece together all the information to really get the full context as to whether or not BC's economy is going well or not.
From the Gazette, B.C.'s unemployment rate for June is down 0.8 percentage points compared to May, settling at 5.6 per cent. The employment rate increased 0.1 percentage points to 61.4 per cent. They posit that the "difference is likely due to demographic shifts in the job market, such as people retiring and leaving the workforce" making it seem like it's just older British Columbians retiring that's dropping the unemployment rate.
Diana Gibson, B.C. Jobs, Economic Development and Innovation minister, said the positive labour numbers are a testament to the resilience of the province's economy. But, despite this strong labour market, the NDP is keeping their elbows up stance, as Gibson said the tariffs and the threat of tariffs are slowing economic growth.
Gibson said: "When I first got into this position in November, in the fall, we were really poised for growth. Interest rates were coming down, inflation was coming down, and there was a really excited feeling in the business sector. And then tariffs hit, and that's put a real damper on that."
Business in Vancouver's headline looks positive on the face of it, saying BC added 5K jobs in June for the fourth straight month of gains.
When you actually look into the story though, it looks worse than that. The jump in employment numbers came from part-time employment (+21,300 jobs) as the province lost 16,300 full-time jobs. Most of the gains made were driven by the food/accommodation sector. When you consider that summer is tourist season, and that young people tend to find part time summer jobs, the numbers actually look bad.
It's clear that the quality of jobs added is not great, and we also know that that improvement in the unemployment numbers mainly reflects the number of people leaving the workforce, as opposed to job creation.
When you look at it this way, the Vancouver Sun posits that the province actually lost 21,600 workers last month as youth took a step back from the labour market because of a lack of available jobs, particularly in the private sector, according to Statistics Canada’s labour market survey for June.
One bad statistic that still stands out for both B.C. and Canada as a whole is the unemployment rate for young people aged 15 to 24. While core aged adults aged 25 to 54 made gains this month, the unemployment rate for youth remained stubbornly high. The unemployment rate for that age group decreased 3.6 percentage points from last month's high of 16.6 per cent, although this is due to less people looking for jobs.
Jairo Yunis, director of policy for the Business Council of B.C., said a recent analysis he did showed that while 18,000 youth between the ages of 18 and 24 joined the province’s workforce in May, even more left it in June, with 18,500 young people stopping their search for a job. He said this drop explains 86 per cent of the decline in B.C.’s eligible workers over the past month and is due, primarily, to weak private-sector job growth.
Yunis said: “All those people were coming into the labour force after graduating, but perhaps they struggled to find jobs, because we are seeing a softening and a weak private-sector economy. They tried looking for a job. They couldn’t find one, and they decided to not pursue it any more, because the unemployment rate captures only people who are actually actively looking for a job.”
As for the drop in youth employment, Jobs Minister Gibson argued it shouldn’t be seen as a long-term trend as the data is just from one month and that businesses, especially in the tourism sector, are optimistic that they will be able to hire more young workers over the summer as Canadians increasingly decide to spend their vacations at home instead of travelling to the U.S.
“They’re really optimistic about a bit of a boost this summer because of the increase in Buy Canadian momentum, and they’re seeing that bump. We’re hoping that youth unemployment will keep going down with an increase in jobs in those sectors as a result of that optimism.”
So while the NDP are trying to spin the province's job numbers as resilience and positivity in the face of US threats, the real numbers show that we're seeing fewer opportunities for young people to get ahead in this province, which when you combine it with the province's notoriously high cost of living, does not spell good news for the future.
Supplementals:

Firing Line

CBC host resigns, saying he could not continue at public broadcaster 'with integrity'

The CBC and its internal dynamics are on full display in a new public conflict between the CBC entity and now former host Travis Dhanraj.
Until recently Dhanraj was host of Canada Tonight: With Travis Dhanraj.
Canada Tonight was announced in late 2023, aired in 2024, and was cancelled within a year.
The show was one that was ordered by the CBC to break the mould but it went a little bit too far.
Dhanraj is a veteran journalist who has worked at all the big names in Canada including Global and CTV.
This week he announced he was stepping down.
The reason is because of the CBC, he said, “I am stepping down not by choice, but because the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has made it impossible for me to continue my work with integrity. After years of service — most recently as the host of Canada Tonight: With Travis Dhanraj — I have been systematically sidelined, retaliated against, and denied the editorial access and institutional support necessary to fulfill my public service role.”
He saw his mandate as one where he’d be a bold voice in journalism, elevate underrepresented stories, expand political balance, and uphold journalistic values.
Those ideals were nothing like what actually happened at the CBC as many who listen to Western Context will expect.
In his resignation letter he has accused the CBC of “performative diversity, tokenism, a system designed to elevate certain voices and diminish others.”
Dhanraj’s lawyer, Kathryn Marshall, said Monday that the CBC didn’t want him booking “Conservative voices” on his show.
Marshall said, “It turned out, to Travis’ surprise, there was a strong editorial direction that he was supposed to promote. CBC, when they hired him, thought that they were getting someone who would espouse a certain world view. I think they looked at him and they looked at the colour of his skin and they made some assumptions.”
Dhanraj also alleges that he was denied to key newsmakers by way of internal booking and editorial protocols.
This was pushed forward by a “small circle of senior Ottawa-based journalists” which likely means through the likes of Rosemary Barton and David Cochrane - both of which were huge Trudeau cheerleaders.
When Dhanraj started asking questions he was met with silence, resistance, and retaliation.
The retaliation was having his name removed from his show, having access curtailed, and having his medical leave whispered about in the newsroom amongst other employees.
When discussions about CBC President Catherine Tait emerged in the media, Dhanraj was presented with an NDA that designed to sign away his voice. The deal was by not speaking he would continue to have a job.
Dhanraj began medical leave in July 2024 and returned to full-time come December 2024.
He then said upon returning he was immediately retaliated against for not signing the NDA.
Because of that he was removed as the host of Canada Tonight, salary was slashed, and the only option going forward was to leave the CBC.
Dhanraj feels that rather than being performance based it was all about one thing: fall in line or be removed.
CBC says they are limited in what they can respond to due to “privacy and confidentiality considerations” in the case.
While this all might seem like a case of inside baseball, it explains a lot in terms of how CBC’s stories come to light.
It had been assumed that CBC’s bias was inherent but these new allegations tell us that it’s not only inherent to the organization but also deliberate and curated.
Following the public emergence of Dhanraj’s claims CBC now will no longer accept what has become a very public resignation.
The matter at this point will very likely go to court.
What that doesn’t change though is that a lot of the things we had assumed to be quirks of the CBC have turned out to be features of the CBC.
When it comes to things like DEI, tokenism, and bias towards a point of view, there are heavy hitters at the CBC who have effectively enshrined these policies at the organization.
Raw journalistic integrity should fall to the facts.
While it is possible to still find fact based articles from time to time at the CBC anyone who consumes CBC media and their articles should have an extra-critical eye after these revelations.
These revelations are something we’ve long assumed at Western Context and it looks like they are true.
Supplementals:

Quote of the Week

“We need to unleash the opportunities, no matter if it’s the great oil here in Alberta or the critical minerals of the energy that we have in Ontario, that’s what we need to do. The door is open. We need to go through that door and tell the world Canada is open for business.” - Ontario Premier Doug Ford on the importance of new energy infrastructure.

Word of the Week

Open - allowing access, passage, or view; not closed or blocked up.

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Show Data

Episode Title: The Open Door
Teaser: Carney’s ethics screen includes 103 companies, Premiers Ford and Smith show economic unity, and BC’s jobs numbers are not as rosy as presented by the media. Also, a CBC host’s resignation shows the organization’s struggle with bias.
Production Code: WC-426-2025-07-12
Recorded Date: July 12, 2025
Release Date: July 13, 2025
Duration: 59:39
Edit Notes: Carney screens

Podcast Summary Notes

Duration: XX:XX