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Watchdog Calls Out Carney’s Lack of Ethics Code

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The Opposition with Dan Knight

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Democracy Watch Demands PM Re-Enact Full Ministerial Code and End Conflicts by Selling Investments as House Committee Probes Loophole-Ridden Ethics Law

The House of Commons Ethics Committee is finally cracking open the federal Conflict of Interest Act. It’s the first real review in years. And it’s overdue. Today, Democracy Watch is calling on Prime Minister Mark Carney to do something simple and obvious: re-issue the Prime Minister’s code for ministers and staff—publicly, in full—and work with every party to shut the gaping loopholes that have turned Canada’s ethics rules into a suggestion box.

The only publicly posted rulebook is still the 2015 “Open and Accountable Government” guide. It wasn’t signed by Mark Carney. It was signed by Justin Trudeau. Before that, Stephen Harper had his own “Accountable Government” code in 2007, which he strengthened in 2011. Paul Martin re-issued the code in 2004 as “Responsible Government,” and Jean Chrétien was the first to bring it in back in 2002. Every Prime Minister for more than two decades has put their name to a code—except Carney.

That’s a problem. Canadians deserve crystal-clear, enforceable standards: honesty, no apparent conflicts, decisions based on merit, real guardrails on political activity, fundraising, and dealings with lobbyists—and ministerial staff held to the same line. Put the rules in the PM’s own name or admit you plan to weaken them.

“Failing to re-enact the code—or watering it down—would gut already weak rules and further trash public trust,” said Duff Conacher, PhD (Law), Co-founder of Democracy Watch. “Canadians want standards with teeth, not press releases dressed up as ethics.”

Here’s what’s driving the urgency. The Conflict of Interest Act still lets the Prime Minister park massive holdings behind instruments branded as “blind trusts” or “ethics screens.” In practice, those devices often conceal participation; they don’t prevent it. That’s not oversight. That’s camouflage. Democracy Watch’s position is blunt: if you want to end the conflicts, sell the assets. Full divestment, including buyouts of stock options by Brookfield and any other connected companies, as past inquiries recommended.

“Prime Minister Carney’s so-called blind trust is not blind, and his ethics screen is an opaque mechanism that invites doubt about who benefits when the government acts,” Conacher said. “The fix is obvious: sell the investments. Anything less keeps Canadians in the dark.”

Parliament now has a choice. Use this committee review to close loopholes around blind trusts and ethics screens. Spell out what “improperly furthering private interests” really means. Put real independence, transparency, and penalties into law. And stop the double standard: cabinet and staff should face rules at least as tough as those on public servants and senators.

Democracy Watch is also urging broader reforms: clean up lobbying secrecy, slash the federal donation limit to cut off cash-for-access politics, protect whistleblowers who tell the truth, fix the federal access-to-information black box, and take the appointment of watchdogs out of the hands of the very politicians they’re supposed to police—no re-appointments, no cozy incentives.

And let’s be clear: this isn’t just Democracy Watch griping. It has credible grounding in the history of Canadian ethics law. The 1984 Starr–Sharp Task Force laid out a blueprint for a comprehensive ministerial code. Justice Parker’s 1987 commission went further, flatly recommending an end to the shell game of so-called blind trusts and, in cases of serious conflicts, requiring divestment. Parliament’s own research notes confirm it: the idea that you can “screen” away conflicts was discredited almost forty years ago. The fix was spelled out back then.

And yet here we are, in 2025, with a Prime Minister sitting on massive investments, hiding behind loopholes, and ducking responsibility to even sign his own code of conduct. Canadians see it. They know the difference between rules with teeth and ethics theatre.

Enough posturing. Enough smoke and mirrors. Re-enact the full PM Code today. Tighten the Act tomorrow. And end the Prime Minister’s conflicts by selling the assets outright. That’s how you rebuild trust, by earning it, by setting an example, and by standing on principle.

But let’s be honest: he won’t do it. He won’t because these Liberals are swamp creatures to their core. They talk transparency while cashing in behind the curtain. They preach accountability while hiding their own dealings. Canadians know it, and they’re sick of it.

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Taxpayers: Stop wasting money and scrap the gun ban

Published on September 24, 2025

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By Gage Haubrich 

The Canadian Taxpayers Federation is calling on the federal government to scrap its failing gun ban and confiscation program after announcing a pilot project to confiscate firearms from individual Canadians.

“Law enforcement experts have stated the gun ban and confiscation won’t make Canadians safer,” said Gage Haubrich, CTF Prairie Director. “Confiscating guns from licenced gun owners won’t keep illegal guns out of the hands of criminals.

“Taxpayers can’t afford to spend another dollar on what is amounting to be an absurdly expensive piece of government performance art.”

The federal government announced that it will starting a pilot project to confiscate firearms from individuals in Cape Breton, Nova Scotia.

The federal government banned more than 2,500 models of firearms since 2020. Before they were banned, all those firearms were used for hunting or sports shooting by Canadians who passed safety tests and background checks.

The police and other experts have publicly stated this scheme won’t make Canadians safer.

“It won’t impact crime rates,” said Doug King, a professor of justice studies at Mount Royal University.

The National Police Federation, the union representing the RCMP, says Ottawa’s program “diverts extremely important personnel, resources, and funding away from addressing the more immediate and growing threat of criminal use of illegal firearms.”

“We know that the gun buyback program is going to have, essentially, zero impact on the crime in Toronto,” said Clayton Campbell, the president of the Toronto Police Association.

Since the guns were initially banned in 2020, meaning it’s illegal to use them, violent firearm crimes in Canada have increased.

The government said the confiscation would cost taxpayers $200 million in 2019. In reality, the cost of providing compensation for the confiscated guns could be up to $756 million, not including administration costs, according to the Parliamentary Budget Officer. Other experts have put the total cost at more than $6 billion.

The government has a history of ballooning costs for these programs. The government initially promised the long-gun registry would cost taxpayers only $2 million. The final tab was more than $2 billion.

“Cops, academics, licenced gun owners and everyday taxpayers know that this program won’t do anything to make Canadians safer,” said Franco Terrazzano, CTF Federal Director “The federal government needs to listen to the police and scrap this program before another penny of taxpayers’ money is wasted.”

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WEF has a plan to overhaul the global financial system by monetizing nature

Published on September 24, 2025

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From LifeSiteNews

By Tim Hinchliffe of The Sociable

The WEF is plowing full steam ahead with the globalist agenda to monitor and monetize everything in nature, including the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the very earth we walk upon.

With billionaires Larry Fink and Andre Hoffmann as the new co-chairs, the World Economic Forum (WEF) publishes a 50-page blueprint on how to monetize everything in nature.

The WEF’s latest insight report, “Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes,” provides “stakeholders” with dozens of financial solutions for monetizing everything in nature.

Nature pricing, biodiversity crediting schemes, natural asset companies, debt-for-nature swaps, and so much more are all packed into this agenda to overhaul the global financial system with nature-based activities:

The landscape of nature finance is rapidly evolving. From sovereign debt instruments and blended capital platforms to biodiversity credits and emerging asset classes, a growing range of mechanisms is being deployed to fund, finance and de-risk nature-positive action.

The WEF leadership page says that in their work on the board of trustees, “members do not represent any personal or professional interests.”

However, the target audiences for latest WEF insight report are “institutional investors, banks, asset managers, and development actors” – the very business interests that Hoffmann and Fink represent.

WEF interim co-chairs Larry Fink and Andre Hoffmann have everything to gain in their business dealings should the documentation, monetization, and tokenization of everything in nature ever come to full fruition.

And they are well on their way.

Hoffmann is also a key player in a whole host of so-called green financing initiatives, including biodiversity crediting schemes, through his various roles as founder, president, and chairman at several companies and NGOs such as: Innovate 4 Nature – the “accelerator for nature-positive solutions” and Systemiq – the “system change company” established specifically to advance U.N. Agenda 2030.

“The economy depends on natural resources. Their value derives not only from their use as direct inputs to production – such as timber for construction – but also for their benefits to society like living trees that help clean the air. Economists use the term “natural capital” to refer to the total value that natural resources provide to the economy and to people.” — BlackRock, Capital at risk: nature through an investment lens, August 2024

“Debt-for-nature swaps [DNS] are a financial mechanism that allow countries to restructure bilateral or multilateral debt in exchange for commitments to fund local conservation and restoration. They are also known as ‘debt-for-nature conversion.’” — WEF, Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes, September 2025

Is your country millions, billions, or trillions in debt? No problem!

With debt-for-nature swaps, you can restructure your nation’s debt just by letting somebody else come in and take control of your natural resources under the guise of conservation and restoration, but what they’ll really be doing is forcing you to “take out private insurance policies to ‘mitigate the financial impact of natural disasters‘ as well as ‘political risk,’” as investigative journalists Whitney Webb and Mark Goodwin report in Bitcoin Magazine.

Don’t have any money, but want to create value out of thin air, water, soil, or trees? You can set up natural asset companies that can “convert the full economic value of nature into financial flows via equity models.”

Want to help asset managers, bankers, and hedge fund execs get extremely rich while leaving you with only a tiny fraction? Go ahead and get involved in a Payment for Environmental Services (PES) scheme, where financial incentives are provided to individuals or communities in exchange for maintaining or restoring ecosystem services, like carbon sequestration or biodiversity conservation

And if you’re compliant with their rules, you can be rewarded by producing “positive nature and biodiversity outcomes (e.g. species, ecosystems and natural habitats) through the creation and sale of either land or ocean-based biodiversity units over a fixed period” with biodiversity credits, aka “environmental credits.”

Prefer to be left alone and live on the property that you worked hard for all your life? You better be compliant with all the environmental regulations that are coming in the name of preserving biodiversity, so that the $44 trillion of economic value generated by nature doesn’t diminish.

“Environmental credits are verified units of positive environmental outcomes, including biodiversity, water, carbon and nutrient credits. Though developed independently, projects increasingly blend credits via stacking, bundling or stapling.” — WEF, Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes, September 2025

“Nature is rapidly emerging as a strategic investment frontier and more institutional capital is flowing into new business models and projects.” — WEF, Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes, September 2025

In keeping with the own self-interests of the co-chairs and their business relations, the report highlights “10 priority financial solutions” for these stakeholders to implement:

  1. Sustainability-linked bonds (SLBs):
    • Commercial bonds tying coupon rates to nature-related targets for corporates or governments.
  2. Thematic (or use-of-proceeds) bonds:
    • Bonds with proceeds earmarked for nature projects. Scaling-up requires clearer guidance and aggregation to improve outcomes for issuers and investors.
  3. Sustainability-linked loans (SLLs):
    • Flexible debt, linking interest rates to nature-related targets. SLLs need simpler verification, standardized metrics and stronger triggers to drive nature-positive lending.
  4. Thematic (or use-of-proceeds) loans:
    • Loans for specific nature-related projects. Greater clarity on taxonomies and aggregation is needed to enhance capital flows.
  5. Impact funds:
    • Funds investing in nature-positive outcomes, often accepting higher risk or longer pathways to returns.
  6. Natural asset companies (NACs):
    • Publicly and privately listed companies that convert the full economic value of nature into financial flows via equity models. NACs hold significant potential but need more transactions for price discovery and replicable investment blueprints.
  7. Environmental credits:
    • Tradeable certificates for verified environmental benefits, used in compliance or voluntary markets.
  8. Debt-for-nature swaps (DNS):
    • Mechanisms to restructure sovereign debt in exchange for conservation or restoration commitments, with investable components including bonds and loans.
  9. Payments for ecosystem services (PES):
    • Contracts rewarding conservation for specific ecosystem services, driven by the public sector. Private sector schemes require longer contracts, aggregation and supply chain integration to scale up.
  10. Internal nature pricing (INP):
    • Unexplored, voluntary shadow pricing or fee-based tools to incentivize nature-positive performance in companies or across investment portfolios, similar to internal carbon pricing (ICP).

“While some components of nature – such as food, timber and ecotourism are priced and traded in global markets, the value of many critical ecosystem services remains undervalued….

Carbon sequestration, water filtration, flood protection and pollination are often treated as ‘free’ inputs, despite underpinning our economies and societies.” — WEF, Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes, September 2025

“The natural capital approach extends the economic concept of capital to the environment, conceptualizing stocks of natural resources as conventional goods worth restoring, maintaining and enhancing for their productive flows.

This approach includes both accounting – embedding nature in national and corporate balance sheets – and valuation – pricing nature’s contributions into cost-benefit and investment analysis.” — WEF, Finance Solutions for Nature: Pathways to Returns and Outcomes, September 2025

Putting prices on water, air, and soil is a hot topic among globalists at the U.N., the G20, the World Economic Forum (WEF), and the COP meetings.

At the WEF Annual Meeting in Davos this year, Singapore’s President Tharman Shanmugaratnam said that water credits and biodiversity credits should be “stapled” on to carbon credits.

The year prior, at the 2024 WEF Annual Meeting of the New Champions, aka “Summer Davos” meeting in communist China, University of Cambridge Institute for Sustainability Leadership CEO Lindsay Hooper told the panel on “Understanding Nature’s Ledger” that every part of the economy depends on nature, and that in order to protect natural systems, one solution would be to “bring nature onto the balance sheet.”

In addition to putting “nature on the balance sheet,” another proposal coming at the end of the panel discussion suggested putting a tax on natural systems like water in the same vein as carbon taxes.

With putting prices on nature comes tokenization and derivatives.

At least that’s what former Bank of England adviser Michael Sheren said at COP27 in November 2022.

“Carbon, we already figured out, and carbon is moving very quickly into a system where it’s going to be very close to a currency, basically being able to take a ton of absorbed or sequestered carbon and being able to create a forward-pricing curve, with financial service architecture, documentation,” said Sheren.

And with carbon being close to a currency, “There are going to be derivatives.”

Now, under the newfound leadership of Fink and Hoffmann, whose personal business dealings stand everything to gain, the WEF is plowing full steam ahead with the globalist agenda to monitor and monetize everything in nature, including the air we breathe, the water we drink, and the very earth that we walk upon.

Reprinted with permission from The Sociable.

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