Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 22nd, 2025

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Good afternoon, and welcome to meeting number 10 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Pursuant to Standing Order 108(3)(h) and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, the committee is resuming its review of the Conflict of Interest Act.

I'd like to welcome our witness today. Mr. Jason Ward is principal analyst at the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research. Mr. Ward is online.

Mr. Ward, I did speak in French. I wanted to understand whether the interpretation was working for you, sir, as there will be some questions asked of you in French. Make sure you're on the preferred language that you need to use.

I now invite you to address the committee for up to five minutes. Go ahead, please, sir.

[Jason Ward, Principal Analyst, Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research]

Thank you.

My name is Jason Ward. I'm the principal analyst of CICTAR, the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research. Thank you very much for inviting me to testify.

I come to you from unceded lands of the Darug people, more commonly referred to as the Blue Mountains outside of Sydney, Australia.

I'll begin with some brief opening remarks.

I am not an expert in Canada’s Conflict of interest Act, but I do have significant expertise in the abuse of tax havens and trusts.

CICTAR has done some relevant work in relation to tax avoidance by Brookfield, which mostly occurred during the period when Prime Minister Mark Carney was chair of Brookfield.

In the lead-up to the federal election in Canada, and following the election, our research on Brookfield has received renewed interest in Canada and globally. In addition to Brookfield, we've also done numerous reports and some unpublished research related to tax avoidance and the use of tax havens by several of Canada’s largest public pension funds.

I'll review some of the relevant research very quickly and then conclude with some simple recommendations for greater transparency in Canada.

Our first research was done in January 2021, and we published a report entitled “Tax Dodging by a Canadian Crown Corporation: Revera Living Making a Killing”. It looked at the Public Sector Pension Investment Board's 100% ownership of Revera. Due to the incomplete reporting and lack of available public information, we examined Revera's ownership of care homes in the United Kingdom and found significant use of tax havens and tax avoidance on the ownership of those assets.

We published a similar report in February 2021, which was facing the U.K. rather than facing Canada. That report was called “Darkness at Sunrise: UK Care Homes Shifting Profits Offshore?”.

In February 2022, we published a report in both English and French on Orpea. It's now renamed Emeis after a major scandal and collapse. Orpea was the largest care home company in Europe, and the Canada Public Pension Investment Board was the largest shareholder for over a decade. The English version of that report was entitled “Caring for People or Profit? The Financial Engineering & Real Estate Investment of Groupe Orpea”.

Then, on the same topic but for a Canadian audience and focused on CPPIB’s failure of governance and loss of $500 million in workers’ retirement savings, in October 2024, we published another report in both English and French. The English version was entitled “CPPIB’s Orpea Debacle”. Orpea was using undisclosed Luxemburg subsidiaries to shift profits away from shareholders, including CPPIB, into the pockets of management, who actually served some jail time in France. The company was eventually bailed out by the French government.

Our first report on Brookfield, published in June 2023, is called “Brookfield’s Bermuda Base: Is Canada’s Largest Alternative Asset Manager Dodging Global Taxes?” It looked at previous research on Brookfield from Canada and four international case studies to identify the use of tax havens and tax avoidance by Brookfield in multiple countries.

In February 2024, we published a report in Norway entitled “Kindergarten Landlord: Should Norwegian Taxpayers Finance Profits for One of the World’s Largest Asset Managers?” That report examined Brookfield’s investment in Norwegian kindergarten real estate and the impacts of public funding on that.

In May 2024, we published a report in Colombia, called “Brookfield’s Isagen: A Case Study on the Need for Change in the Global Tax System”. This report examined Brookfield’s profit shifting via Bermuda from its investment in Colombia’s largest hydropower electricity generator, which had been privatized previously.

Most recently, in September 2025, we published a report on Brookfield’s tax avoidance on privatized water and sanitation services in Brazil. The English version of the report was called “Water down investment, top up returns: The pitfalls of financing Basic Sanitation in Brazil”. That primarily looked at the abuse of public subsidies that Brookfield has taken advantage of to avoid tax payments in Brazil.

We've also made a detailed submission, recently made public, to the Parliament of New South Wales' inquiry on Brookfield's failed ownership of Healthscope, the second-largest private hospital company in Australia. The company is now in administration, and its troubled hospital in New South Wales has just been returned to public ownership.

It's also worth noting that Caisse de dépôt Quebec, CDPQ, was also a significant investor in this hospital company.

Our submission examines Brookfield's extensive tax dodging and use of tax havens on the Healthscope investment and a range of other investments—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Ward, I'm sorry. We're over time by quite a bit.

I'm going to have you wrap up right there. There may be some questions that come your way so you can circle back to what you were going to say.

I'm going to start those lines of questions with Mr. Barrett from the Conservative Party of Canada for six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Your report details how Brookfield uses subsidiaries in low-tax jurisdictions like Bermuda and related-party debt arrangements to reduce taxable profits.

Could similar opaque corporate mechanisms be used by public office holders or their associates to shield ownership or economic benefit in ways that undermine the spirit of Canada's Conflict of Interest Act?

[Jason Ward]

Absolutely. The use of subsidiaries in tax havens and the use of trust structures can shield public office holders from having their income taxed as it was intended to be in Canada.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

You wrote that Brookfield provides only the “bare minimum” of disclosure despite its ESG branding.

Given that the former Brookfield chair, Prime Minister Mark Carney, has built a public reputation around transparency and responsible capitalism, what minimum disclosure standards should apply to public office holders to prevent hidden offshore holdings?

[Jason Ward]

I think that the use of blind trusts is not an appropriate method for dealing with that issue. I think that investments in assets should be fully disclosed for any public office holder to make sure that they are living up to the spirit of the law and paying tax along with other ordinary Canadian citizens whose income in general, I assume, is taxed from their payroll deductions and for whom there's less ability to use offshore bank accounts and advice from high-powered accountants and tax lawyers in order to avoid their obligations to fund domestic services in Canada.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

It's interesting that you've effectively said that blind trusts don't work in this case for the purposes of the Conflict of Interest Act. Given that, what specifically would you suggest replace them?

For example, we've had witnesses who have supported the notion of a divestment. Currently in the act, divestment is either placing controlled assets in a blind trust or liquidating them to allow for assets to be sold, and then for the proceeds to be placed into trusts and managed by a portfolio manager.

Would that type of solution satisfy the lack of transparency or the ability to hide the details that you've suggested it might?

[Jason Ward]

Yes, I do think that approach deals with the issue.

If you're liquidating the assets and then putting the proceeds into a blind trust, I think that sufficiently covers the problem there.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

The report highlights cases like Canary Wharf in the United Kingdom, where Brookfield generated significant revenue but paid very little local tax.

What lessons are there for Canada in terms of tracking the true location of economic activity and profits?

[Jason Ward]

Firstly, on the Canary Wharf investment, the U.K. tax authority has since investigated further and required that investment to pay money. I think the set-up of that investment was largely to avoid future payments of capital gains on the investment, rather than the ongoing rental income from the Canary Wharf property.

In terms of what Canada should do, I think it's very much overdue for Canada to adopt a public country-by-country reporting regime. Australia has just done this; that is coming into effect this coming year. The European Union has also done this; that is coming into effect next year as well.

Australia's version is significantly stronger. In the case of Australia, any multinational that operates there with over $10 million in revenue is required to disclose all of its basic financial details—profits, losses, revenue, related-party revenue and number of workers—in a list of 40 jurisdictions that are widely regarded as tax havens. This would include places like Bermuda, Singapore, Cayman Islands, along with Switzerland, Hong Kong and many other jurisdictions that are commonly abused as tax havens.

It's hard to fix a problem if you can't see it. I think transparency is ultimately the first step. We would strongly encourage Canada to follow both Australia and the European Union in requiring disclosure for all multinationals.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have five seconds.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Just very quickly, would banning the use of tax havens by public office holders allow for more transparency for Canadians?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Give a quick response, please.

[Jason Ward]

Yes, I think that would be an interesting idea to pursue.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

Next up is Ms. Lapointe.

Mr. Ward, I believe Ms. Lapointe will ask her question in French.

Is the interpretation working fine?

Yes. Okay.

Go ahead, Ms. Lapointe. You have six minutes.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Good morning, Mr. Ward. It's nice to have you with us via video conference from Sydney, Australia. Welcome to the House of Commons in Ottawa.

My first question is about something you touched on with Mr. Barrett.

You've often advocated for public country-by-country reporting. In your opinion, how would such a measure improve tax fairness in terms of public confidence in the Canadian tax system?

[Jason Ward]

That is a fantastic question.

I think faith in the Canadian tax system is undermined when it becomes clear to the general public that some of the richest individuals and largest corporations are not paying their fair share and are avoiding taxes. I think that having the information out in the public and requiring multinationals, which are clearly dodging hundreds of millions of dollars in Canadian taxes, to disclose where they're shifting their profits to allows Parliament and legislators to actually see what's going on and address the problem.

This information is currently available only to OECD tax authorities. The Canada Revenue Agency gets this information, but it can't be used by people like yourselves in order to understand what is going on and what loopholes need to be closed in order to stop companies like Brookfield from shifting profits to Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Luxembourg and other such jurisdictions.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

To follow up on that, can you point to any countries in the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development or the European Union where this type of disclosure has led to better compliance or tax revenue outcomes?

[Jason Ward]

In the European Union, there has been public country-by-country reporting on financial institutions for a decade now. Studies have shown that the European banks have reduced their usage of subsidiaries in tax havens and have, in fact, increased the amount of tax paid by, I think, an estimated 10% from what was there prior to that disclosure requirement.

There are about 150 companies around the world that do voluntary public country-by-country reporting now, following the global reporting initiative, GRI, tax standard. The Australian legislation is based on that. It is the first widely recognized standard for public country-by-country reporting. It builds upon what the OECD does already in terms of confidential country-by-country reporting.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

You talked about Australia and Europe in general. Are you referring to all the countries in the European Union?

[Jason Ward]

Yes. The public country-by-country reporting was a European Union directive that has now been introduced into national law across all EU jurisdictions. Romania was the first country that implemented it ahead of the pack, so there is disclosure already available in Romania and disclosure from other European Union countries will be coming in.

The problem with the European Union set-up is that it only requires disclosure on EU member states—so the taxes paid, income, related-party transactions within the European Union—and does not cover tax havens outside the European Union.

Of course, there are tax havens inside the European Union, like Ireland, Luxembourg and the Netherlands, but it's limited in its geographical scope to the European Union, whereas in Australia, it's a broader geographic scope and covers what are widely recognized as the most abused tax havens.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

Based on your research, what sectors or types of corporate structures in Canada do you find are most likely to engage in tax avoidance?

[Jason Ward]

It's a good question.

The large IT firms make up one of the top two sectors in terms of aggressive tax avoidance. I'll give you one example. Microsoft is facing the largest tax bill in global history. The U.S. Internal Revenue Service, IRS, is pursuing Microsoft for close to $30 billion and that may be just the tip of the iceberg, because the case they're pursuing in the courts is for a limited period of time but would cover a larger period.

The other sector that is very highly tax aggressive is big pharma. It's incredibly easy for both IT and pharma to shift their intellectual property into countries or into structures where it's easy to avoid tax because of royalty payments on intellectual property going into structures that provide tax shelters.

Even countries that are not necessarily full-fledged tax havens have created structures that allow discounted tax rates; these are called patent box regimes.

The six largest U.S. pharma companies have actually paid negative tax in the United States over the last two years and it's very clear that the vast majority of their income and profits are generated in the United States, but they're reporting that income in offshore jurisdictions and actually have received refunds collectively over the last two years.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Ward.

Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.

I also forgot to tell you, Mr. Ward, that Ms. Lapointe is from the Liberal Party of Canada.

Mr. Thériault from the Bloc Québécois, you have the floor for six minutes.