Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 29th, 2025

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

I'm going to stop you there, Ms. Christians. I'm asking for your opinion, not your opinion from a legal standpoint. We are here to conduct a study on ethics. We want to ensure that ethics have been respected. Rules are rules, we're in agreement on that.

What is your opinion? Is it right for companies that make billions of dollars in a country to avoid paying taxes there? In the specific case I'm talking about, Brookfield, the company our Prime Minister used to head, avoided paying $6.5 billion in taxes over five years.

In your opinion, is that ethically acceptable? That's my question.

[Allison Christians]

The only way I can answer this is to say that every person in this room who has an RRSP is avoiding tax. Every person who has a registered education savings plan is avoiding tax. Those are things that Parliament has provided.

If you're asking a question about ethics, that is not an area that I'm able to testify on. What I can tell you is that the law expresses our shared expectations, and we have shared expectations that people will follow the law. If there's not tax evasion, then there's not tax evasion unless and until Parliament says that there is.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you very much.

Essentially, you're saying that as long as the rules are followed, the ethics behind them don't matter.

I will now address Mr. Knobel.

Brookfield has been named Canada's number one tax evader for the past five years. That's $6.5 billion, or $6,500 million, that Canadian taxpayers have been deprived of.

In your opinion, is it legitimate for citizens to question our government's ability to defend tax fairness?

Do you think the public is right to ask the Prime Minister to show his entire portfolio so that they can understand the situation?

[Andres Knobel]

Is that question for me?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I believe it is, sir, yes.

[Andres Knobel]

I would completely agree that, again, all public officials should be transparent, especially if there is a risk or at least a perception that they might not be applying the law the way everyone else who is not going to a tax haven is. I think it's also up to countries and up to Parliament to close loopholes and prevent anyone from undermining the laws that would apply to everyone else who is not able to hire lawyers and have offshore operations.

Again, the law should hopefully make it fair for everyone.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Knobel.

If I understand your answer, which I think is very good, the Prime Minister, who is the first among ministers in Canada, that is, the country's highest-ranking official, should lead by example.

In this case, we're talking about someone who was at the head of a company that was a champion of tax evasion. If he doesn't change the laws or conduct himself in an extremely transparent manner, he is encouraging other companies to do the same. He is setting a bad example.

Is that right?

[Andres Knobel]

I understand that any public officer—not just a prime minister but, I think, any minister, any public official—has that responsibility, but I feel also that every other citizen.... The expectation is that no one within a country will be using offshore jurisdictions or tax havens to undermine and be able to escape the laws that do apply to everyone else, especially those who are less sophisticated or cannot hire lawyers or anyone.

Transparency, I think, is a very good starting point for citizens to know what is happening. Then, if there is a need, you can change the laws and prevent those unfair situations from happening. Even if they are legal, they might be unfair, so I think it's up to Parliament to change that.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Knobel.

Thank you, Mr. Hardy.

Mr. Saini, you have five minutes, sir.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

This question is for Professor Christians.

You have said that every country is a tax haven, including Canada, because we make legislation to attract investment from other countries. Especially in light of what is happening with the United States, isn't it the duty of our government to make sure we have investment coming into our country?

[Allison Christians]

You're asking me a question about what the government's role is in the state, which goes beyond the Income Tax Act, of course. I will say that I do understand your question. I think that you're asking me if there are reasons that governments would have tax advantages.

Every country has reasons to have tax advantages. We can look around us and every government of Canada ever in the history of Canada has provided tax advantages to various industries that are important to Canada. Every other country has done the same thing.

I hope that's an answer to your question.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Knobel, what kind of difficulty can you foresee in planning to legislate the suggestion my colleagues have made regarding the tax haven within the blind trust?

[Andres Knobel]

If I understand correctly, you're asking how to improve legislation about blind trust and tax havens.

I would say the first thing is to make sure of what you're classifying as a tax haven. I don't know if Canada has a national list. At least having one or classifying that—and hopefully that will be based on objective criteria—would be the first step.

The second one is that I would not trust a blind trust in itself to be of any safety. Even if a prime minister or any official is holding assets through a blind trust, a discretionary trust, a company, a foundation, any other vehicle or even under their own name, we need transparency so that citizens, Parliament or any authority that will hold them to account can see and even assess by themselves, instead of simply trusting or relying on someone else just because it's in this supposedly safer vehicle.

I feel that transparency is the best way to make sure on our own whether there is a conflict of interest or not.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

My colleagues on the other side keep bringing up the trust.

We just had an election six months ago. Canadians elected Prime Minister Carney to be the Prime Minister, knowing full well that he came from the private sector and knowing full well that he was head of the company whose name they keep bringing up.

Do you see anything wrong with Canadians putting their trust in a man they believe is the best person to lead the country?

[Andres Knobel]

I cannot say anything about Canadians or anything about the country.

I would say that any person, I understand, as long as they comply with the law and within the law, should be able to be in politics. The only expectation for every person is that they will be transparent, so that society and authorities can hold them to account and make sure that they are respecting the rules and also being fair.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

In your view, are blind trusts and screens an acceptable thing in the western democracies? When we talk about England, Germany or France, is this an acceptable practice that happens in all of those countries? Are Canadian laws any worse than any of them or are we the leaders in transparency and in blind trusts?

[Andres Knobel]

I do not know enough about every country. I would say that all countries need to improve. For sure, Canada does. Again, we have our index. Canada is not the most transparent one in that index. I can also share exactly what the loopholes are that we have found, to make sure Canada is better.

The fact that many western countries are using a blind trust I do not think is enough to make them safe or fair. Again, many multinationals are avoiding taxes. I don't think that's fair, even if many or all of them are doing that.

I would say that within common law countries, the use of trust is quite widespread, even for very unfair situations. That still puzzles me, but it is in a way allowed, even by courts.

I think it's very welcoming for a parliament to be discussing this and hopefully Canada's Parliament will discuss and maybe question whether the blind trust is the best way. The blind trust is this understanding that because the official would not know what's happening and someone else, maybe an independent, would be managing those assets, then no conflict of interest will take place.

I think that requires a lot of blind reliance from the public. It's much better to simply give full transparency for everyone to know what is exactly in that blind trust and then let them judge and let them question things, instead of simply having to blindly rely on others. Even if it's a wide practice, I think it could be improved.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

That concludes our testimony for today.

Mr. Knobel and Ms. Christians, I want to thank you both for taking the time to appear before the committee. Your input has been valuable to the committee. On behalf of the committee and on behalf of Canadians, I want to thank you for appearing today.

Members, I have a couple of things.

You've all been given a motion that was accepted at PROC. There's a requirement that we accept it here at committee. It is to provide the associate members of the committee access to our digital binder. It's a relatively routine motion.

Do I have unanimous consent to approve that motion?

Mr. Sari, do you have a technical question?

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

Yes. Is this just for this committee or for other committees?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

There are other committees that have associate members, so when PROC dealt with this, it was for all committees.

[Abdelhaq Sari, Liberal, Bourassa, QC]

It was for all committees.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Madam Lapointe.

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

Can we have a vote?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I thought we had unanimous consent. That's my mistake.

We will have a recorded vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 8; nays 0)

Thank you, Madam Clerk.

The second thing is regarding information that I want to provide committee members.

You'll recall that we asked for additional information from the Clerk of the Privy Council as well as the Prime Minister's chief of staff. Today is the deadline to receive that. We've not received it up to this point. We didn't put a time on it, like five o'clock, so I expect that we are going to get something, hopefully, by midnight.

The clerk indicated to me during the meeting that she is expecting to receive the documents today, and I just wanted to make the committee aware of that.

I have no other business.

Thank you, again, for your attention today. Thank you to our analysts, our clerk and our technicians.

Go, Jays, go!

The meeting is adjourned.