The loophole has meant Finance Minister Bill Morneau can keep his Morneau Shepell shares in a private corporation, despite the fact he owns the corporation, and avoid the usual requirement that cabinet ministers divest shares by either placing them in a blind trust or selling them in an arm’s-length transaction. The opposition has pointed out numerous public statements — including from Morneau Shepell itself — showing that many people had assumed he did so. “The opposition, media, Canadians, even Liberals and the company Morneau Shepell all believed that the finance minister had placed his wealth in a blind trust,” said the NDP’s Nathan Cullen. On Tuesday, reporters had been pressing the ethics commissioner to explain how Morneau could be in compliance with the law if he hadn’t set up a blind trust. “All of the assets that people are worried about are held by a corporation, not by Mr. Morneau,” Dawson said in that interview Tuesday.

Source: National Post October 18, 2017 22:09 UTC