Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 8th, 2025

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

Are you saying that, rather than amending the act or introducing the appearance of a conflict of interest in the act, the solution is to introduce the concept elsewhere, along with controls? Do you see the appearance of a conflict of interest as an important concept in ethical governance?

Currently, you seem to be taking an entirely legalistic view and ruling out the concept of the appearance of a conflict of interest. In that sense, the unprecedented situation we are in right now is very problematic. I'd like to hear your thoughts on that, but please be brief, because I have another question.

[W. Scott Thurlow]

I think you've just proven that there's always a tension between what we can write down in law and what the driving ethic behind laws might be. To put it into the law means that at some step in the future, you'll have to be able to prove it. If you're going to use that aspect of the law, you'll have to be able to adduce evidence to suggest that something has happened.

However, I agree with you that when you talk about these things in fora particularly like this one, you are participating in the conversation that will shape and drive that discussion. History is replete with examples where society has changed its mind because of discussions just like this one, had in a full, frank and fair manner.

Today, I think creating a test on the appearance of a conflict is going to create more problems than it solves. That might not be the case in 20 years.

[Luc Thériault, Bloc, Montcalm, QC]

The goal is to ensure public trust in democratic institutions.

Do you think that those who hold the highest office must be beyond reproach?

You seem to be saying yes. What, then, do you make of the unprecedented situation we are in right now? We have a prime minister with ties to a far-reaching trillion-dollar investment fund that controls 900 companies. Doesn't that open him up to the appearance of a conflict of interest?

Since you like things to be clear, I'm going to give you a very clear example. The Prime Minister announced a number of projects that are going to be fast-tracked through a process set out in a bill passed under a gag order. One of those projects involves building small modular reactors in Ontario. It marks the first time ever that the technology will be deployed for civilian use. It opens up a completely new market for the three companies in the world that provide such products. One of those companies belongs to Brookfield, which the Prime Minister must not give an advantage to.

Under the Conflict of Interest Act, the Prime Minister's so-called conflict of interest screen should clearly preclude him from being involved in the selection of one of those three companies. He wasn't asked to recuse himself, however, because the decision benefited the sector as a whole, despite having few players. Since the matter is of general application, it's not considered a conflict of interest. Strictly from the appearance of a conflict of interest standpoint, it's very clear that the Prime Minister should have to answer questions about the matter, but the screen does not allow for that type of oversight. He is not a mere minister; he is the prime minister, the person who decides on the economic direction of the country.

What do we do if it's not amending the act? How do we put in place mechanisms that reflect the ethical standards you claim to share with me?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have 45 seconds to answer.

[W. Scott Thurlow]

I'll say two things super quickly.

That's a two-way street. There are government decisions whereby, based on the portfolio the Prime Minister had, the investments he had would be disadvantaged. There's the government's work on the electric vehicle mandate, for example. Suspending that mandate would not help his shares in Tesla.

The second thing I would say is that you are, yourself, doing the exact work we need to do to advance that. As a parliamentarian, you're pointing it out, and you're putting it into the public domain. You're allowing for individual Canadians to examine the arguments you're putting forward and to make their decision on them. They will have the opportunity to make a choice in the next election.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Thurlow.

Thank you, Monsieur Thériault.

That completes our first round. We're going to our second round now.

Mr. Cooper, you have five minutes.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Would you support amending the Conflict of Interest Act to provide for an enforceable, general anti-avoidance measure so that anyone who circumvents the act by exploiting a technical loophole or who concocts a scheme to get around the act in its application entirely could be held accountable?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

GAARs are in place in many other statutes in Canada, starting with the most important one, which is the Income Tax Act of Canada. Those types of rules have been used effectively to do exactly what you are looking to do, which is avoid the ability for individuals to design legal mechanisms to avoid taxation.

Now, avoiding taxation and delaying taxation are two very different things. In this particular case, if someone is creating a construct that would allow them to advance a private interest, I think this goes back to the question from Mr. Thériault. It's an ethical question, not a legal one. It would be interesting to see what that rule looked like. I would certainly be happy to comment on a rule once it's been designed, but a general anti-avoidance rule in this area undermines the whole purpose of the act. Anyone who's willing to design that kind of tool to avoid the application of the act is going to find another way around it.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

I would cite one example. It's one we faced last fall, when Mark Carney, before he became Canada's most conflicted Prime Minister, was appointed as, for all intents and purposes, Justin Trudeau's economic adviser.

As the former prime minister's adviser, Mr. Carney should have been subject to the Conflict of Interest Act. However, Mr. Carney and Mr. Trudeau effectively cooked up a scheme whereby Mark Carney was not technically in the PMO, but was instead supposedly housed in the Liberal Party as the so-called chair of the Liberal Party's task force on economic growth, which turned out to be nothing more than a one-man task force. Mr. Carney could therefore avoid accountability, skirt the law by getting around the Conflict of Interest Act and hide his multitude of conflicts of interest from Canadians.

It was a complete and utter sham. Everyone knew that Mr. Carney was advising Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau even bragged about the fact that his economic adviser was none other than Mark Carney, yet Mr. Carney was circumventing the Conflict of Interest Act.

Do you not see a problem with that scenario?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

The Conflict of Interest Act applies to people who are actually in office. If that was an actual office paid for by the Crown, we'd be talking about something very different.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

I'm sorry to interrupt. It would apply to an aide to the Prime Minister. It would apply to a ministerial aide. It would apply to a ministerial adviser.

[W. Scott Thurlow]

They're employees.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Mark Carney was effectively in that role, yet he was able to avoid the Conflict of Interest Act, hence the need for some sort of mechanism to address it, in my view.

[W. Scott Thurlow]

Okay. The act applies to public office holders, and the various codes apply to the individuals who are governed by the code.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

The whole point is to address those who are taking advantage of a loophole. Here you have the CEO of a $1-trillion investment firm advising the former prime minister, someone who has all sorts of conflicts of interest and was able to get around the act. Had he been in the PMO doing exactly the same thing he was doing outside of the PMO, he would have been subject to the act.

[W. Scott Thurlow]

I'll say two things in reply.

The first thing I'll say is you're quite right to make these concerns known if you think they are important to you and your constituents. I think the things that happened in September 2024 had a pretty good litmus test subsequently. You say this was common knowledge and everybody knew it. If it was common knowledge and everybody knew it, I guess that factored into some decisions that people made at a later date.

The second thing I would say is there's a difference between going around something and having it not apply to you at all. It would not be a good idea to have an act apply to people who are not in the public service. You may call it a circumvention, but the threshold is whether or not they are in the public service.

I am not privileged to any information that may have been shared between the two individuals you mentioned, but certainly there are other people in that office—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have 10 seconds, Mr. Thurlow.

[W. Scott Thurlow]

—who understood what those arrangements were. I'll go back to the comment made by Mr. Thériault. It's about what the moral compass for those individuals is.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

Ms. Church, you have five minutes. Please go ahead.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Thurlow, thank you for appearing today, and thank you for your advice to not place a great weight on apparent conflicts of interest. It's so important in the world we're in right now that we are able to see that for what it is and cut through baseless allegations and cut through the weaponization of misinformation and the peddling or even creation of conspiracy theories for an ill purpose. I think we have to be very careful of that as parliamentarians.

Let me just pull you back to the topic of this review and the act, and maybe back to where my colleagues left off on post-employment limitations. She was questioning you about whether the rules are well understood. I would ask you to pick up there. Also, you mentioned that you thought the rules applying to designated public office holders are currently unconstitutional. Can you tell me more about that?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

I'll start with that one. I'm not sure if it was advertent, but it happened. By way of an order in council, the Crown made all parliamentarians—senators and members of Parliament—designated public office holders. In so doing, they limited the rights of parliamentarians post-employment.

That's not the way this is supposed to work. Parliament limits the Crown, not the other way around. The application of the law to the Crown comes from a rule called the Magna Carta. I wasn't around when it was started, but that was the first document advanced to say that the commons—Parliament—is supreme.

Can Parliament fix this? Absolutely, Parliament can fix this. If you make the amendment, as parliamentarians, to bind parliamentarians, that's perfectly fine. A future Parliament could review that change, but having it done by the Crown didn't sit right with me.

Are the rules well understood? I learn on a regular basis how little the rules are understood. It's not because they're not conspicuous. They are very conspicuous. The lobbying commissioner does a great job, actually, of educating designated public office holders about what their obligations are. They're very good at that, but again, there are rules for reporting public office holders and there are rules for other public.... There are so many different rules for post-employment.

The other thing I would point out is that the designated public office holder class is extremely broad, and it includes someone who works in a minister's office and puts them at the same level as the Prime Minister. That's ridiculous. There's absolutely no good reason that we have that scale. We have many different sliding scales that we should apply. This punishes young people more than it punishes ministers and prime ministers. This should be re-examined, and we should take a closer look at it.

That's another act, but my position would be that all of the post-employment rules should be in one place and not scattered among various officers of Parliament.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

We've heard some witnesses say that they find violations of the act get a mere slap on the wrist. What do you think about that view?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

Until they get to the door, and they're knocking on the door.... I have seen many an ad, and some in my social media feed, that point out who has violated the conflict of interest rules and who has not. You can't have it both ways. It can't be a slap on the wrist and simultaneously be something used to the political advantage of someone going after the office.

I've heard that this is something people aren't taking seriously; they don't really worry about it. I don't think that's true. The parliamentarians I talk to are very vigilant about how they make their submissions to the conflict of interest officer. You can see, very conspicuously, on the website who has done it, who has not and who has been given an AMP. I don't think that's a slap on the wrist. I think that's an invitation to their opponents in the next election to point to it.

[Leslie Church, Liberal, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

You bring a wealth of experience to this, having advised parliamentarians and having worked with the ethics commissioner and lobbying commissioner. What do you think of the view that these offices should be brought under a single office?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

I'm very selfish, and I would not want that, because they do very different things.

One of them gets very much into the nitty-gritty of the individual backgrounds of all of the people in senior public offices. They offer advice about very specific things.

The lobbying commissioner is responsible for a registry of the people communicating with the government, when they are communicating with the government and how they are communicating with the government. They're not regulators. They're not designed to be regulators. They were never designed to be regulators. They are there to encourage public disclosure and allow for people to know who's talking to whom.

I think they're very different jobs.