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Mind you, he did not seem so bewildered at the time. On Nov. 4, 2015, he told the CBC he “expected” all his assets would go into a blind trust. That they in fact did so was what the company itself was given to understand, and that was what was generally believed and commonly said — certainly the minister did nothing to discourage it — until this week, when it was reported that in fact he had done no such thing. In subsequent days it emerged that the ethics commissioner had not, in fact, advised him against putting his holdings in a blind trust, but had merely advised him that he did not have to.

And why was that? Because he had taken the trouble to stuff them inside a numbered company, itself held by another numbered company. Since the shares were not held “directly” by him, but only “indirectly” by a company he controlled, that apparently let him off the hook: the commissioner instead suggested that he set up a “conflict of interest screen,” requiring him to abstain from any involvement in matters related to Morneau Shepell. Had the issue not come to light, that is presumably where they would still be: it was only in response to the current controversy that the minister reluctantly agreed to divest himself of his remaining holdings in the company, and to place the rest of his assets in a blind trust.

Photo by THE CANADIAN PRESS/Adrian Wyld

So the minister was not such a naif as he makes out. The complex network of numbered companies in which his wealth is secreted is evidence enough of that. That the ethics commissioner was content to let him do the minimum necessary to remain in technical compliance with the law does not lessen his own responsibility for making that choice.