Evidence of meeting #18 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was carney.
A video is available from Parliament.
Chief Operating Officer, Brookfield Corporation
I said that we would take that under advisement.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Cooper.
Ms. Lapointe, you have the floor for five minutes.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Thank you again for being with us, Mr. Beber.
We are reviewing the Conflict of Interest Act. I would therefore like to have your comments on the ethics and conflict of interest rules in the world of business.
What tools are used, mainly at Brookfield, to avoid these conflicts?
Chief Operating Officer, Brookfield Corporation
Yes, I'd be happy to. As I mentioned, we assess conflicts and conflict adjudication is premised on three key principles. One is ensuring that the conflict is identified, so we need transparency. Secondly, in the resolution of a conflict, it's that we're able to reduce the conflict, terminate it or seek informed, appropriate consent or approvals.
We have a strong compliance regime in place that ensures that everyone across Brookfield is attuned to the transparency and is able to identify those conflicts. When they're identified, we have systems in place to then address them. Those systems include ensuring that they are reviewed by a committee of some of the most senior people within Brookfield to ensure that the conflict is being addressed in an appropriate manner. We are subject to very stringent rules relating to conflicts of interest, as an SEC-registered investment adviser.
We either have procedures through which the conflict is vetted and determined to be consistent with the procedures and rules we have in place, or we are required to go and seek the informed consent of unconflicted decision-makers.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
The intent of the next question I had for you was to improve my understanding, but your answer clearly explained things.
Have you personally participated in implementing or managing the tools or systems you talked about?
Chief Operating Officer, Brookfield Corporation
I'm the chair of our conflicts committee, and I'm very much a part of the systematization of our conflicts protocols.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
In your experience, did the systems you talked about effectively reduce the risk of conflicts of interest?
Chief Operating Officer, Brookfield Corporation
We believe that they are. We've been undertaking these procedures for decades, as we've operated our business.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
What ethics rules do you have in place at Brookfield?
Chief Operating Officer, Brookfield Corporation
Our ethics, our culture and the rules that we operate by are really fundamentally ingrained in everything we do.
We invest on behalf of institutions, individuals, pensioners and sovereign wealth funds. We do that with a keen eye on ensuring that we do it with transparency. We undertake everything we do in compliance with all laws and we do it with the best interests.... Our sole focus is ensuring that we are operating the business in the best interests of those investors.
Liberal
Linda Lapointe Liberal Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC
In government, we use blind trusts. Sometimes, we also set up screens, as is the case for the Prime Minister.
Does this type of system exist in the private sector?
Chief Operating Officer, Brookfield Corporation
Yes, on occasion, screens are used in order to separate people with different types of information. We call them information barriers. Sometimes those are permanent and sometimes, less frequently, they are episodic, to address very specific circumstances.
Liberal
Chief Operating Officer, Brookfield Corporation
Generally, it would be the governance and compliance groups who will articulate very specific procedures that are expected to be implemented in order to ensure that all activity during the period is respected. In the case of permanent...it's even more segregated, and the rules would ensure that any interaction across the wall is supervised and authorized before any “wall crossing”, which is the terminology we use.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you.
Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.
Mr. Beber, I want to thank you, on behalf of the committee, for your testimony today.
As I mentioned earlier, the clerk has made note of some of the requests that have come from committee members for the production of information. Typically, what I like to do is put a date on it in terms of a response. When the clerk sends you or a representative of Brookfield the information that has been requested, I am going to put on a deadline for the receipt of that information, just so that you're aware.
Thank you again for your testimony today. I'm going to dismiss you, Mr. Beber, because I do have some committee business to deal with.
It should go very quickly. All members of the committee have received the study budget for the upcoming AI study. I don't expect that there are any problems with that. Can I see a nodding of heads that I have committee's approval for the amount of $27,500 for the upcoming study?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
That's been approved.
I have no other business before us, so I am going to adjourn the meeting. Thank you, everyone.