Watchdog: Carney’s Ethics Silence Risks Foreign Influence at Highest Levels of Government

Democracy Watch says without re-enacting Prime Minister’s Code, Canada’s flimsy ethics regime will remain vulnerable as questions mount over Carney’s holdings, and RBC bank info breach.

OTTAWA — A Canadian democracy watchdog, preparing for testimony on actions needed to shore up Ottawa’s flimsy ethics code, has raised concerns that Prime Minister Mark Carney risks making the regulations guarding against corruption from himself and his ministers even weaker — while leaving judges, police, and regulators tied to the prime minister’s power. In doing so, critics warn, Carney risks opening the door wider to hostile state interference.

Next Wednesday, Democracy Watch co-founder Duff Conacher will testify before the House Ethics Committee as it begins its first review of federal ethics law since 2012. The group is calling on Carney to re-enact publicly the Prime Minister’s Code for ministers and their staff. The Code, which covers accountability, fundraising, ethics, and relationships with lobbyists, has historically supplemented Canada’s Conflict of Interest Act by spelling out detailed rules against self-dealing, dishonesty, and conflicts of interest. But Carney has yet to issue the Code in his own name, and the version still posted on the Prime Minister’s website is from November 2015, with a “Message to Ministers” signed by former PM Justin Trudeau, according to Democracy Watch.

That omission, the watchdog argues, is dangerous, given questions already swirling about Carney’s global business holdings. “If Prime Minister Carney doesn’t re-enact the code for ministers in his own name, or weakens or cancels it, it will gut Canada’s already weak, loophole-filled government ethics law,” Conacher said.

The Bureau has previously reported on Carney’s extensive global holdings, including options and investments linked to Brookfield, the financial conglomerate where he once served as vice-chair, as well as shares in more than 655 companies through his portfolio, according to Conacher. Loopholes in Canada’s conflict-of-interest law mean the prime minister’s so-called “blind trust” is not blind, and his ethics screen is what Conacher calls a “loophole-filled, unethical smokescreen” that allows Carney to secretly participate in almost all decisions that affect his financial interests.

Former Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson created this loophole, according to Conacher, by allowing Parliamentarians to “set up a screen, claim that they are recusing themselves from all decisions — and then hide the fact that they are not actually recusing themselves from decisions that affect their financial or other interests.”

Concerns about Carney’s vulnerability to nefarious interests seeking to leverage his financial networks were heightened this week. As first reported by La Presse, a 23-year-old RBC bank employee suspected of working for an organized crime entity was arrested after accessing the personal banking profile of Prime Minister Carney at a downtown Ottawa branch near Parliament. The employee, allegedly involved in fraudulent lending schemes to benefit corrupt actors, also reportedly accessed an account registered under the name “Justin Trudeau,” which RCMP later confirmed did not belong to the former prime minister, according to CBC. The case has raised fresh alarm about how easily criminal organizations can penetrate institutions in Canada, raising questions about whether such groups may seek to compromise government staff at the highest levels.

Conacher’s concerns that Carney could backslide on ethics come against an already weak record in Ottawa. Former prime minister Justin Trudeau faced intense scrutiny during the WE Charity scandal, while ministers such as Mary Ng were criticized for conflicts tied to government contracts. Yet few consequences followed. In one case, Randy Boissonnault, Trudeau’s employment minister from Alberta, was forced to resign from Cabinet in November 2024 after revelations that a business he co-owned had pursued federal contracts while falsely presenting itself as Indigenous-owned.

More recently, Public Safety Minister Gary Anandasangaree was caught on tape telling his rental building tenant that Ottawa’s $740-million gun buyback program would not work, while offering to pay the difference between the federal government’s compensation and what the man had paid for his now-banned firearms.

Exclusive reporting by Global News further revealed that Anandasangaree has acknowledged he must recuse himself from certain Public Safety files. The outlet also uncovered RCMP records showing his phone number in a document seized during a 2006 counter-terrorism investigation into a suspected Tamil Tigers fundraising office in Toronto. The search targeted the World Tamil Movement, which Canadian authorities alleged was raising millions for the Tamil Tigers, a designated terrorist group.

RCMP records show investigators found Anandasangaree’s number in a file marked “Contact list of area coordinators.” Global News matched the number to one used by Anandasangare at the time, also appearing on his campaign website. While no wrongdoing was alleged, the discovery revealed his proximity to sensitive national security files involving diaspora networks long before he entered politics. Now, as Canada’s Minister of Public Safety, he oversees the same counter-terrorism agencies — the RCMP, CSIS, and CBSA — that once investigated the group linked to the contact list.

As Conservative MPs call for Anandasangaree’s resignation, Carney has insisted he retains confidence in the public safety minister, who represents a Toronto-area riding.

For Canadians commenting across social media spheres, these episodes reinforce the belief that the accountability system is broken. Asked by The Bureau to comment on these incidents — and whether concerns about ethics in Ottawa deserve as much attention as crime, foreign interference, and public safety — Conacher answered bluntly.

“Huge loopholes in Canada’s political ethics, political finance, lobbying and election laws, and similar loopholes in provincial, territorial and municipal laws across Canada, combined with negligently weak and ineffective enforcement and penalties, all work together to allow private interests, including agents and proxies serving foreign governments and businesses, to have secret, unethical, undemocratic and undue influence over politicians, their staff and government officials,” he said.

Unless those loopholes are closed and enforcement bodies, including police and judicial officials, are made fully independent and resourced, Conacher warned, Canada will continue to be harmed by corruption, foreign interference, and waste. “That leads to bad policy decisions that protect private interests, allow politicians and public officials to profit from their decisions, and harm Canadians, communities, the environment and our economy in significant ways,” he said.