ICYMI: April 21-27

Your weekly roundup and blogroll.

Jeremy Appel

Apr 28, 2025

The final episode of my weekly election update podcast will be up this afternoon.

The Poilievre Project

Jeremy Appel and Martin Lukacs

Apr 24

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Two paths for the NDP's future on display at Edmonton rally

Jeremy Appel

Apr 23

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The Progress Report podcast is back with not one, but two election-themed podcasts. The first focuses on the election you’re probably thinking of—the federal one. Jim interviews Dave Cournoyer of Daverberta about how the election is playing out in Alberta, and then we both interview NDP incumbent Blake Desjarlais of Edmonton Griesbach about his re-election campaign.

The second podcast relates to the Alberta Federation of Labour’s constitutional conference, in which president Gil McGowan was challenged by Edmonton and District Labour Council president Greg Mady. Our intention was to interview both candidates, but only Mady was willing to appear on the pod. McGowan won handily.

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Story of the Week

Mark Carney, Cutthroat Capitalist, Drew Nelles, The Walrus (April 21)

Early in the campaign, the Conservatives tried to make a meal out of Brookfield’s decision last year to shift the headquarters of its asset management arm from Toronto to New York; at the time, Carney was board chair. The move was a strategic play to access more American stock exchanges, standard for any asset manager tasked with growing capital for clients like endowments and sovereign wealth funds. In truth, it was the least of Brookfield’s sins and the least of Carney’s. No jobs were relocated or lost. But he didn’t do himself any favours by initially lying about his involvement.
A far more serious concern is the company’s long and well-documented history of tax avoidance. As the New Democratic Party has highlighted, between 2021 and 2024, when Carney was there, Brookfield made $23.3 billion (US). Since Canada’s corporate tax rate is around 26 percent, the company should have paid $6.1 billion (US) in taxes. But using a variety of loopholes, including offshore tax havens, the company paid only about $2 billion (US), meaning that Canada lost out on nearly $4.1 billion (US) in revenue. (Brookfield Asset Management, under Carney’s chairmanship, made $1 billion [US] in profit and paid nothing.)
Meanwhile, a 2023 report from the Centre for International Corporate Tax Accountability and Research described Brookfield as “Canada’s top tax dodger.” CICTAR documented a range of shady dealings from as far afield as Colombia (where Brookfield bought a state-owned electric company and massively increased costs to consumers) and Australia (where, contra Carney’s purported dedication to public health care, Brookfield owns one of the country’s largest and most troubled private hospital operators).
Brookfield manages all those subsidiaries—and dodges all those taxes—via a network of shell companies registered in a variety of havens, including Bermuda, the Cayman Islands, and Panama. The company’s structure is bafflingly opaque, with industry analysts raising repeated questions about its deceptive accounting practices, including its habit of buying and selling assets between its various divisions.
It’s true, of course, that most of Brookfield’s tax avoidance is probably lawful. But as the CICTAR report says, “Aggressive tax avoidance, whether legal or not, deprives governments of revenue desperately needed to fund essential public services—including health, education, and sanitation.” Not a great look for a supposed public servant like Carney.