50
submitted 5 days ago by Sunshine@lemmy.ca to c/canada@lemmy.ca
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
[-] NSAbot@lemmy.ca 1 points 3 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

His reaction isn’t great and agreed he should find a way to placate people who see it as a problem but IMO his reaction is separate from whether unvested stocks are an issue or not. When he took the job, taking a loss on his unvested stocks wasn’t part of the ethics screen, so presumably he’s annoyed at the goalposts having moved after he took the job.

The only equitable solution I can see is if the taxpayers wanted to pay Carney his unvested stocks at current market value (or as they were valued the day he took office), and then sign ownership of the stocks themselves over to the public. I can’t see that going over well with anyone so it just looks like a lose-lose situation.

If there are other solutions that don’t end up in such a quagmire I would like to understand them, but so far all the solutions sound worse to me than the problem

[-] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

I mean, he didn't have to run for the Liberal leadership on the first place. I heard one commentator describe it as the 'opportunity cost' of running for PM.

Am I surprised that someone who sets up funds in the Caymans is trying to use the letter of the rules as a get out of jail free card? No.

But he must have known it would look terrible. If all this was a surprise to Carney, then we should be very worried about his ability to govern this country.

[-] NSAbot@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

What solution would you suggest?

[-] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

He should waive his right to exercise those stock options. Or step down if he values the money more.

This is why a PM gets a good salary and pension: they're giving up things to be in a position of immense power. That's the trade.

[-] NSAbot@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago

Dude that’s crazy. As I said I didn’t vote for the guy but be realistic here. Asking someone to pay money to become PM is not a good precedent. Especially when we are talking about one of the world’s most prominent economists, taking a position like you have just makes you seem like you hate the person and nothing will make you happy.

[-] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

Lol I figured you'd say that.

Why is it "crazy" to want to ensure the leader of a country doesn't have multi-million dollar conflicts of interest?

Sorry, but I don't think we should be casual about this stuff. He's making decisions that affect 40 million people.

If Carney doesn't want to be PM then he can step down. If he does, then he has to accept limitations on what counts as a "blind" trust.

I don't think this is unreasonable in the slightest.

[-] NSAbot@lemmy.ca 1 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

We are going in circles now, but keep in mind that we are talking about unvested stocks. In my opinion the only way to have an equitable solution is to find a way of transferring the current market value of the unvested stocks into Carney’s blind trust. I can’t think of how to do this in a way that I would be happy as a taxpayer and he would be happy as a (former) shareholder, but that doesn’t mean there isn’t a solution.

The complexity of the problem is one of the reasons why I don’t feel it is worth solving immediately.

[-] patatas@sh.itjust.works 1 points 2 days ago

You mentioned precedent before.

What precedent would it set if someone could work for a company, be handed millions in stock options, and then run for office with the secret but explicit understanding that the stock options were arranged as a way to incentivize certain policy positions?

I wouldn't be totally opposed to what you're suggesting, but as you say, there's no mechanism for doing it.

So, too bad for Carney, he should have thought of this before he agreed to be paid in stock options and then run for PM. This is his own mess!

And frankly I'm kind of shocked that anyone is defending a multimillionaire who's doing something so brazenly counter to the spirit of our ethics rules.

Well, I'd expect it from Trump or Poilievre supporters, sure.

this post was submitted on 14 Jul 2025
50 points (91.7% liked)

Canada

10142 readers
571 users here now

What's going on Canada?



Related Communities


🍁 Meta


🗺️ Provinces / Territories


🏙️ Cities / Local Communities

Sorted alphabetically by city name.


🏒 SportsHockey

Football (NFL): incomplete

Football (CFL): incomplete

Baseball

Basketball

Soccer


💻 Schools / Universities

Sorted by province, then by total full-time enrolment.


💵 Finance, Shopping, Sales


🗣️ Politics


🍁 Social / Culture


Rules

  1. Keep the original title when submitting an article. You can put your own commentary in the body of the post or in the comment section.

  2. Misinformation is not welcome here.

Reminder that the rules for lemmy.ca also apply here. See the sidebar on the homepage: lemmy.ca


founded 4 years ago
MODERATORS