Let me finish. I am not going to suggest that is so unusual. I would enjoy having fun with that, but it would be unwise to suggest anything about the ethics of any member of the House that is anything less than outstanding.
The commission of inquiry headed by Justice Parker examined the allegations of conflict of interest concerning Sinclair Stevens, a minister in the previous government.
Mr. Stevens owned a family business that had been converted to a blind trust, the only mechanism used at the time.
In his report, Justice Parker indicated that blind trusts were not realistic for family firms owned by a minister. This led to the creation of instruments that exist to this day, namely blind management agreements.
Blind trusts no longer cover anything other than such assets as publicly listed securities, shares in particular. The trustee can do what he deems best with his assets, in compliance with the obligation to look after the interests of a holder of public office. He may purchase, negotiate or sell individual assets. The incumbent of a public office is provided with enough general information to file his income tax return, but knows no details of his assets.
However, blind administration agreements are now used for totally different situations, generally when a private company doing business with the federal government is involved.
Blind management agreements do not pretend that the ownership does not exist, but they do ensure the public office holder is not involved in the business decisions of that company. That is the key. There has been specific interest in how this process worked in the case of the hon. member for LaSalle—Émard when he was finance minister. That information is on the public record, so it provides a good example.
First, a blind management agreement was set up so that the minister would no longer be involved in his company's decisions and operations.
Second, those assets were publicly disclosed and the information was posted on the ethics counsellor's website. As Mr. Justice Parker said, “public disclosure should be the cornerstone of a modern conflict of interest code”. The key is the disclosure.
Third, the hon. member made sure that he was not to be involved in any discussion on policy issues that would have any impact on those assets. He did so by telling his staff not to involve him or inform him on any dealings that his companies might have with the government.