I voted for one my heros: Mark Carney.

Yesterday, my wife and I voted. I voted for Mark Carney. My vote was not influenced by the debates nor by the campaigning leading up to the election. I voted for Mark Carney because he has been one of my personal heroes for years. I am so excited by the prospect of having Carney leading country. Having Carney at the helm gives me hope. (Oh, how I pray the Liberals win and with a clear majority.)

Writing a glowing take on Mark Carney is difficult because he has accomplished so much. Where does one start? I'm going to pick his time at Brookfield Asset Management (BAM),one of world's great asset management companies and a Canadian one. Canadians can be proud.

I like to think of myself as green and I look for green concerns in others. Carney is green as is his wife, Diana Fox Carney. While heading Brookfield Asset Management, Carney gained fame and respect for his strong preference for ESG investing, environmental, social, and governance (ESG) investing.

Under Carney's leadership BAM favoured companies that took a measured approach to how they interacted with the natural world. Carbon emissions, energy use, waste management, pollution control and resource conservation and more were all considered when making investments.

I have an axe-the-tax relative who, thanks to the simplistic blather of Pierre Poilievre, believes one must be prepared to sacrifice the environment, to a certain extent, in order to have a successful economy. She does not want to see companies saddled with green costs that might cause them to curtail investment or something worse, like leaving Canada.

Carney had shown that being green and successful are not mutually exclusive. Addressing social concerns and believing in empathetic governance are also possible. Companies should care about workplace conditions such as employee health and safety and much more. When it comes to governance, executive compensation, board diversity and independence, transparency, shareholder rights, anti-corruption policies, and ethical conduct, all are important.

And what did Pierre Poilievre say about BAM? In three word, nothing of value. He attacked BAM. He took delight in pointing out that BAM took advantage of its Bermuda connection to escape paying Canadian taxes. What he was really pointing out was that he, Poilievre, seems to be completely ignorant of how business works.

Let me repeat what I discovered using Perplexity: "Carney said that the funds are set up so that the income generated by the investments is not taxed first at the fund level in multiple countries and then again when distributed to Canadian investors.  

Instead, the income "flows through" the Bermuda-registered funds to Canadian entities, which then pay the appropriate taxes in Canada. This structure is intended to ensure that taxes are paid once, in the proper jurisdiction, rather than multiple times at different points in the investment chain.

"The beneficiaries of the funds—such as Canadian teachers, retirees, and municipal employees whose pensions are invested—do pay taxes on their pension income in Canada. Therefore, the use of Bermuda is not about evading taxes but about optimizing the tax process so that Canadian investors are not taxed repeatedly on the same income." 

As a long-time Brookfield investor, I can assure you that Carney speaks the truth. The Bermuda connection was not news to me. If Brookfield did not take advantage of the Bermuda tax loophole, Canada might collect more corporate tax but shareholders and pension funds would receive smaller dividends and would see a capital gains reduction due to diminished after-tax profitability of the company.

Let's summarize what remains to be said about Mark Carney and it will be a long summary.

• 1965: Born in Fort Smith, Northwest Territories and grew up in Edmonton, Alberta
•  1988: earned a Bachelor of Economics from Harvard University
•  1993 and 1995: earned a Master’s and a PhD in Economics from Oxford University
• Moved on to Goldman Sachs, working in major financial centres including London, Tokyo, New York, and Toronto, eventually becoming managing director of investment banking.
•  2003: appointed Deputy Governor of the Bank of Canada and briefly was Senior Associate Deputy Minister of Finance
•  2008: Governor of the Bank of Canada (At this time, he and the Hon. Jim Flaherty, worked together to successfully guide Canada through the global financial crisis.)
• 2013: Governor of the Bank of England

Carney can add to his resume the time spent as chairman of the Financial Stability Board, chairman of the Committee on the Global Financial System at the Bank for International Settlements, head of Brookfield Asset Management and even more.

I would like to add one more plus to Mark Carney's resume: Diana Fox, now Carney. What a remarkable lady to have in one's corner. 

• She holds degrees from Oxford and the University of Pennsylvania.
• She met her future husband, Mark Carney, at Oxford University, where she played on the women's hockey team and Mark Carney was backup goalie for the men's team.
• She has held senior roles at think tanks in Canada and the UK, focusing on energy and climate policy.
• She has worked as an agricultural researcher in Africa and for the charity IPPR.
• She served as executive director of Pi Capital in the UK.
• She has held leadership roles including vice president of research at Canada 2020 think tank and director of strategy and engagement at the Institute for Public Policy Research in London.
• Since 2021, she has been a senior advisor at Eurasia Group and to climate-focused funds such as BeyondNetZero and Helios Climate.
• She has served on the boards of several not-for-profit organizations, including Save the Children, Friends of the Royal Academy, Ashden, ClientEarth, the Shell Foundation, and BeyondNetZero. (I personally like Save the Children. I have supported two children for years,)
• She was described as an "eco-warrior" by The Daily Telegraph in 2012 due to her environmental activism and criticism of global financial institutions.

And what has Pierre Poilievre done? Other than attack-dog politics, not a lot. His biggest claim to fame, in my estimation, is his talent for oversimplifying complex issues with simplistic chants like axe-the-tax, spike-the-hike, Canada first, jail-not-bail plus many more. He also like name-calling, for example Sell-out-Singh. This school yard bully talk forms the base of  Pierre Poilievre's rhetoric. Canadians deserve better.