Morneau rejects Tory insinuation
• Finance Minister Bill Morneau is threatening to sue the Conservatives for suggesting he used his inside knowledge of a pending tax change announcement in 2015 to sell off stocks before their value dropped.
On Tuesday, a day after sidestepping more than a dozen questions on the issue, Morneau called the insinuations by Tory finance critic Pierre Poilievre “absurd.”
“If the Opposition want to continue with these absurd allegations, which have no basis in any sort of fact, they take them outside of the House and I will give them a sense of exactly how our legal system works,” said Morneau.
Anything said in the House of Commons is subject to parliamentary privilege, which gives MPs legal protection from libel and defamation laws. Poilievre first raised the allegations Monday during question period.
He claimed Morneau’s December, 2015, announcement that he would raise income taxes on the highest earners caused the stock market to drop, including the value of Morneau Shepell shares — 680,000 of which were sold off roughly a week earlier.
Poilievre alleged the early sale of the shares saved the owner half-a-million dollars.
He r e peatedly a s ked Morneau if it was a coincidence t hat t he 680,000 shares were sold off a week before the tax announcement. And he asked Morneau repeatedly to confirm he was the “someone” responsible for selling off those shares in the company founded by the minister’s father.
While Morneau dodged those allegations of insider trading Monday, he had more to say Tuesday.
“What we’re hearing now is in my mind ( an) absolutely crazy idea that something that we campaigned on, that we talked to 36 million Canadians about which was a rise in taxes in the top one per cent was somehow knowledge that was only my knowledge,” he said.
Poilievre maintained he hasn’t “actually accused him of anything” and has only asked Morneau whether he was the one who sold the shares a week before the tax announcement. “I am absolutely confident that everything I’ve said out there and in here is true,” Poilievre said in the Commons, challenging Morneau to meet him outside the chamber to answer the question.
Morneau was not present during question period Tuesday because he said he had a speech to deliver in Toronto. But under continued Conservative attacks over the stock sale, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau asserted that the finance minister “continues to focus on the things that matter to Canadians and he has our full confidence.”
On Dec. 7, 2015, the day of Morneau’s tax-change announcement, the Toronto stock index fell 2.4 per cent, BMO chief economist Doug Porter said. Porter said oil prices dropped “heavily” that day — by five per cent. He said that alone may have been responsible for much of the weakness in the market.
Nevertheless, the New Democrats also applied pressure Tuesday on Morneau over the 2015 stock sale. The NDP has asked the ethics commissioner to look into Poilievre’s allegations.