Liberal leader Mark Carney is perhaps best known for his time as Governor of the Bank of Canada during the 2008 financial crisis and as Governor of the Bank of England during Brexit. But one of the federal election frontrunner’s most prominent roles was at Brookfield, the giant Canadian global investment firm that’s come under fire in recent years for avoiding taxes and profiting off deforestation while “seeking to evict Indigenous Peoples from the heart of the Amazon to make way for cattle and mining opportunities.”

Carney’s connection to Brookfield has received close scrutiny since the election campaign began in March. Yet questions remain about whether he has a lingering financial stake in the company.

The Brookfield Corporation manages more than $1 trillion USD of assets worldwide, including sustainable energy infrastructure and real estate that’s worth hundreds of billions of dollars. It owns single detached homes and apartment buildings across the U.S. and Canada, as well as notable properties around the world such as Canary Wharf in London, England; Bank of America Plaza in Los Angeles, California; and Bankers Hall in Calgary. 

Brookfield is also no stranger to controversy. The Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research (CICTAR) said in a 2023 report that it may be the number one tax avoider in Canada. When the company came up at the April 17 leader’s debate, Carney defended it as a “Canadian success story,” saying it was “the largest infrastructure investor and developer in the world” and one of the world’s largest developers of renewable power. 

Carney joined Brookfield Asset Management as the firm’s vice-chair and head of environmental, social, and governance (ESG) and impact fund investing in October 2020, which was right around the time Brookfield received the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS) but still paid money out to its shareholders. 

Brookfield Asset Management is a subsidiary of Brookfield Corporation. ESG is an investment strategy that aims to help investors and firms make money while benefiting society. Carney focussed on creating financial products intended to benefit the environment, such as those that would help firms reduce carbon emissions.

It is one of the largest residential property owners in Canada and the U.S. According to Brookfield Residential Properties’ 2024 annual report, the company owns 73,337 single-family lots and 220 multi-family, industrial, and commercial parcels in both countries. Of these, 31,211 are located within Canada. For comparison, one of the largest apartment owners in the country, Canadian Apartment Properties Real Estate Investment Trust, owns 45,154 residential apartment suites.

Amid a housing crisis in Canada and the U.S., giant private equity firms like Brookfield have been buying up apartment buildings and affordable rentals en masse to squeeze tenants out to raise rents for more profit.

“Brookfield Investments, your company, is one of the biggest tax dodgers in Canada,” NDP leader Jagmeet Singh said at the leader’s debate. “As chair, you approved decisions where Brookfield bought up affordable homes, kicked out the tenants, and jacked up the rents.”

Brookfield Corporation is based in Toronto, but in 2024, Brookfield Asset Management relocated its headquarters from Toronto to New York City. Carney was the Brookfield Asset Management board chair at the time and recommended that the board approve the move. This relocation has been a central point of attack for the Conservatives.

Carney went straight from the Brookfield board to the Liberal leadership race. He is believed to own stock in Brookfield, though he has not disclosed any of his investments. Several Conservative MPs also own Brookfield stock, as do numerous Canadian investors, including pension funds.

Ricochet reached out to Carney, Brookfield, and the Liberal Party for comment but received no responses. 

Tax avoidance

Key questions this election have surrounded Brookfield’s reliance on tax havens to avoid paying corporate taxes in Canada and many other countries where the firm owns property. In 2022, the independent organization Canadians for Tax Fairness found that Brookfield had the largest corporate tax gap from 2017 to 2021, with the company avoiding more than $6 billion in taxes.

The findings echoed a 2017 Toronto Star investigation that showed Brookfield paid an average tax rate of 6.1 per cent on $26.5 billion in profits from 2011-2016, despite the average corporate tax rate at the time being around 26.6 per cent. The Star calculated that the company paid just $1.6 billion in taxes during this time, leaving a tax gap of $5.3 billion in Canada alone.

The 2023 CICTAR report detailed strategies Brookfield has used to avoid paying taxes in Canada and abroad. 

“Brookfield’s track record of alleged tax dodging has received some attention in Australia and Canada, where it may claim the title of Canada’s top tax dodger,” the report states. “And there is an apparent pattern of aggressive tax avoidance consistent across its global operations.”

According to the report, the company owns “dozens” of subsidiaries in Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, Malta, and other known offshore tax havens, which allow corporations and individuals to stash billions of dollars outside the reach of tax authorities like the Canada Revenue Agency.

“This is not a question of tax evasion, this is tax avoidance,” said Silas Xuereb, Canadians for Tax Fairness researcher and policy analyst. “There’s all these structures in the tax code that companies can take advantage of. Some of those loopholes are there for good reason, some definitely not. And one of those ways that they can [reduce their tax rate] is through the use of tax havens.”

The CICTAR report includes four case studies that show how Brookfield avoids paying taxes around the world. Its Canary Wharf property in London is valued at over £8 billion and generated almost £420 million in revenue in 2021. But complex ownership structures, according to the report, “and related party transactions may have dramatically reduced the taxable income,” resulting in the Canary Wharf Group paying just £11.5 million in taxes that year. 

Canary Wharf Group is jointly owned by Brookfield and the Qatar Investment Authority (QIA), with each controlling 50 per cent of the group. The QIA, one of the largest sovereign wealth funds in the world, also owns a nine per cent stake in Brookfield Property Partners, the company’s real-estate arm, which it purchased for $1.8 billion USD in 2014, making it the property arm’s second-largest investor. Brookfield and the QIA are involved in many properties together.

The CICTAR report also details how the Brookfield-owned Healthscope, the second-largest private hospital operator in Australia, managed to pay no taxes on the $2.3-billion AUD revenue it generated in 2020-2021. Instead, it claimed almost $50 million in tax benefits. Brookfield owns Healthscope through a subsidiary in the Cayman Islands, and the 2019 sale of the company to Brookfield caused major controversy in Australia.

Xuereb says that while many tax provisions can have legitimate benefits for the public, tax havens only benefit the companies using them. He says the challenge with tax havens is that there are myriad bilateral tax treaties that allow companies to pick and choose their preferred tax scheme. He says closing the loopholes through policy measures would be relatively simple; the tough part is pushing the government to do so.

“There’s quite little public policy argument for them,” says Xuereb. “It’s something that has been highlighted as a problem for decades at this point, and I think it is really just a matter of having the political will to actually do everything we can to close these loopholes.

This tax avoidance strategy has suddenly received special attention due to the revelation that Carney used tax havens at Brookfield Asset Management. In March, Radio-Canada reported that Carney co-chaired two investment funds worth $25 billion that were registered in Bermuda and meant to support the transition to a net-zero carbon emission economy. Another investment fund he ran, worth $5 billion, was based in the Cayman Islands. Carney defended the strategy on the basis that the tax structures are more efficient and would benefit the Canadian pension funds that invested with Brookfield, like the Ontario Teachers’ Pension Plan.

“When those funds are paid out, some tax will be paid by those who receive the funds, but in total, if you look at the overall tax rate on that income, it’ll end up being far, far lower than if the funds had been set up in Canada,” says Xuereb.

Both the Conservative Party and NDP have attacked Carney for his use of offshore tax havens. For his part, Carney has said that Brookfield followed all the rules, including tax rules, in its operations.

During the English leaders’ debate, Carney said, “I think that what we need to do is undertake a comprehensive review of our corporate tax system, and do that on the basis of the right principles.” The Liberal Party platform that was subsequently released mentions an “expert review” of the corporate tax system. Yet the plan includes almost no details on how it would be conducted, its goals, or its timeline. The platform also mentions working with international partners to create a set of international tax rules and promises to “better identify and prosecute instances of tax evasion, fix loopholes, and strengthen enforcement.” However, this part of the plan does not mention whether these measures will be aimed at corporations or individuals.

While Brookfield is the largest tax avoider with around 40 subsidiaries in tax havens, the company’s practices are by no means unique.

“Certainly, all sorts of large corporations are setting up subsidiaries in tax havens,” says Xuereb. “Brookfield just happens to be one of the biggest and best at it.”

Involvement with the Trump family

During the first Trump presidency, in August 2018, Brookfield paid $1.3 billion USD for a 99-year lease on a 41-storey office tower in New York owned by the Kushner family. Jared Kushner, President Trump’s son-in-law, held numerous unofficial or semi-official roles in the administration, including as a lead negotiator during the development of the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement. 

Kushner Companies had acquired the building, located at 666 Fifth Avenue, in 2007 for $1.8 billion. At the time, it was the most expensive deal for a single building in American history.

As a result of the building’s exorbitant price, the Kushners faced endless challenges financing it. While the company found limited interest from some investors, mostly other real-estate companies, none was willing to sign a deal large enough to rescue the Kushners from serious financial trouble. Beyond not wanting to join the Kushners in their precarious financial position, many companies were concerned about working with the family patriarch, Charles Kushner, who pleaded guilty to 2005 to witness tampering, making illegal campaign donations, and tax evasion. He was pardoned for these crimes by President Trump in December 2020.

The issue was further compounded by the Kushner family’s ties to the Trump administration after the 2016 election, as potential investors sought to avoid the appearance of corrupt dealings. Most notably, the Chinese Anbang Insurance Group pulled out of a massive deal that would have included a $400 million investment after a group of Democratic politicians, including Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren, sent a letter to Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin demanding an investigation.

The Kushners finally found relief in the Brookfield deal. Brookfield even made an unusual offer to pay the entire investment upfront, which allowed Kushner Companies to fully pay off the mortgage and retain the land. However, the deal also immediately attracted scrutiny due to Qatar being a major investor with Brookfield Property Partners.

Jared Kushner had met with Qatari officials several times while negotiating the Abraham Accords and other deals, and Charles Kushner had met with a QIA representative in April 2017 specifically to seek financing for 666 Fifth Ave. The QIA representative, Qatari Finance Minister Ali Shareef Al Emadi, had politely rebuffed the Kushners’ request for close to a billion dollars. 

A month later, Qatar found itself in a diplomatic crisis. Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, and Egypt severed diplomatic relations with Qatar in June 2017 and imposed an air and sea blockade over the country, ostensibly due in part to Qatar’s relations with Iran. Kushner sided with the Saudis and their allies and was able to get the Trump administration to support the blockade, despite Qatar being a U.S. ally that hosts an American air base. He also took steps to undercut efforts by U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson to alleviate the conflict.

When the Brookfield deal came through in 2018, there was significant reporting suggesting that the company had essentially facilitated a payoff for the Kushners on behalf of Qatar in exchange for better treatment from the Trump administration and help resisting Saudi Arabia. Qatar and Brookfield both claimed they’d had no idea the investment would bail out a Trump administration insider. Brookfield stated at the time that its Qatari investors were unaware of the 666 Fifth Avenue deal.

“There was no quid pro quo,” Brookfield Properties chair Ric Clark said at the time, dismissing the payoff allegations as a conspiracy theory.

A congressional investigation into the deal began in 2020 under the Biden administration. The future of the investigation under the Trump administration remains unclear.

Brookfield’s investment in the Middle East is growing. The company is now one of the largest foreign investors in the region, with a portfolio that amounts to $8 billion USD. With business being pushed to the region by the U.S. tariff regime, Brookfield’s early entrance into the region appears to be paying large dividends.

Deforestation in Brazil

Brookfield started as a merger between Canadian investment firm Edper Ltd. and its Brazilian subsidiary, Brascan Ltd, originally under the name EdperBrascan. It has always had major interests and involvement in the Brazilian economy, and there has been no shortage of controversies associated with its work there. Brookfield owned around 267,000 hectares of agricultural land in the country at the end of 2020.

While Prime Minister Carney was the ESG lead at Brookfield, he pushed “green funds” and “socially driven investing” in an attempt to improve the company’s environmental standing. Under his watch, Brookfield Asset Management joined the Net Zero Asset Managers (NZAM) initiative in March 2021, committing to becoming net zero by 2050. A month later Carney launched the Glasgow Financial Alliance for Net Zero (GFANZ), a group whose stated goal is to help the financial sector transition to net-zero carbon emissions. 

However, Brookfield itself has been responsible for major environmental issues in Brazil, including while Carney was a member of the board. In particular, the non-governmental organization Global Witness detailed how the company has caused major devastation of the Cerrado, an “upside down forest” that comprises around a fifth of Brazil and hosts thousands of plant and animal species. The Cerrado also stored an estimated 13.7-billion tonnes of carbon dioxide in 2017, almost as much as China and India combined emitted in 2022.

Brookfield is responsible for the deforestation of over 9,000 hectares of the Cerrado across eight farms to make way for soybean production, according to Global Witness. This likely released around 600,000 tonnes of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. The deforestation was legally dubious at best, as Global Witness’s freedom of information requests turned up a permit for only one of the eight farms. The deforestation also displaced Indigenous Peoples and other locals in the area.

According to Global Witness, a Brazilian court also ruled in 2014 that two of Brookfield-controlled entities held workers on one of the farms in “slave-like” conditions and fined them the equivalent of around $397,000 CAD. Brookfield denied that they employed the workers, placing the blame on “a contractor” and stating it took “decisive action” to correct the issue.

When discussing climate issues, Carney — who was appointed the UN’s Special Envoy for Climate Action and Finance in 2019 — has stated multiple times that firms have to take responsibility for environmental issues they cause, rather than just selling and walking away when their business is concluded.

“You have to have ownership of the problem. Don’t divest your way out of the problem,” Carney said on a forest and climate leadership panel at COP27. He made similar comments to the House of Commons Environmental Audit Committee in the UK.

Brookfield sold off the farms in 2021, which was overseen by Carney as vice-chair of Brookfield Asset Management. There is no evidence that Brookfield attempted any reforestation of the land.

Disclosure of assets

The fundamental challenge Carney faces with Brookfield is his refusal to disclose whether he owns any stock in the company. 

Carney claims that he owns only cash and personal real estate, and that all his other assets are in a blind trust. At the end of 2024, while still chair of the Brookfield Asset Management board, Carney held 409,300 stock options in Brookfield worth up to $6.8 million USD (then worth $9,758,680 CAD).

Carney is required to disclose his assets to the ethics commissioner within 60 days of being sworn in as prime minister, which occurred on March 14. The information is then made public after a further 60 days. This means Carney has until May 13 to disclose his assets to the ethics commissioner, so voters will have no idea what assets Carney holds before the April 28 election.

Carney has faced reporters’ questions on this issue multiple times. He says he is following all the rules around disclosure laid out for parliamentarians. However, his responses have been described as “prickly” and “snippy,” such as when he criticized CBC reporter Rosemary Barton for pressing him about potential conflicts of interest.

“Look inside yourself, Rosemary,” Carney said. “You start from a prior of conflict and ill will.” Moments earlier, he asked Globe and Mail reporter Stephanie Levitz “what possible conflict would you have” due to his investment assets.

The Conservatives and NDP have relentlessly attacked Carney over his lack of disclosure and handling of media questions, with Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre suggesting the prime minister could use his position to make personal financial gains. Poilievre is also saying he will close the “sneaky Carney loophole” by amending the Conflict of Interest Act to make disclosures happen more quickly.

“It would be great if Carney would provide the disclosure of his assets, and if there’s any rules that can be changed to ensure that someone who’s already the sitting prime minister does have a responsibility to disclose his assets already, I think that should be done,” says Xuereb. “The public has a right to know what kind of deals and what kind of policies [exist] that Carney himself might personally benefit from while he’s in office.”