Carney set up a blind trust, screens to avoid conflicts of interest. Is that enough?

When Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre accused Mark Carney this week of being beholden to China, it was the latest in a series of barbs he's thrown at the Liberal leader's past corporate stints and personal financial holdings.

But it also raised questions as to whether the former board chair of Brookfield Asset Management, who may currently hold millions of dollars worth of stock in the company, has done enough to avoid potential conflicts.

"The solution to Poilievre's criticisms is that Carney needs to sit down with the ethics commissioner and talk about … the idea that his his [stock] options aren't going anywhere, likely," said Ian Stedman, a lawyer and associate professor who specializes in government ethics at York University's School of Public Policy and Administration.

"If there is something that can directly benefit the bottom line of Brookfield, and he knows it can, he shouldn't be involved with the decision-making."

Brookfield Asset Management is one of Canada's largest publicly traded companies. On its website, it bills itself as a leading global investment firm with over $1 trillion of assets under management.

And according to Brookfield's latest financial filings, Carney held stock options worth $6.8 million at the end of December. Stock options allow the holder to buy and sell shares in a company at an agreed-upon price.

Carney has faced repeated questions about whether his assets, now in a blind trust, could put him in a conflict of interest as prime minister, where he may be in a position to make decisions that would benefit his holdings.

Indeed, this week, Poilievre said Carney, while on the board of Brookfield Asset Management, helped secure a more than $250-million loan for the company from the Bank of China last November.

"How do we know [Carney's] not going to act against our interests in favour of his financial interest?" Poilievre asked.

Asked about Poilievre's allegations, Carney rejected that he is indebted to China and he repeated that, aside from cash and real estate, all his assets are in a blind trust.

Under the current government ethics rules meant to guard against conflicts of interest, Carney had 60 days to disclose his assets to the ethics commissioner upon being sworn in as prime minister and another 60 days before that information goes public.

Carney has so far declined to say what exactly those investments include.

"I have no control over [them] anymore," Carney told reporters in Gander, N.L., earlier this week. "I cannot divest anything from it. I can't change that. The trustee manages it accordingly."

Still, Stedman said a blind trust is not "a perfect conflict of interest avoider … it's the best possible tool that we've been able to come up with so far."