Minister of Finance Bill Morneau stands during question period in the House of Commons on Parliament Hill in Ottawa on Thursday, Nov. 2, 2017. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Sean Kilpatrick

Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre laid more pressure on an embattled finance minister Monday, demanding to know if Bill Morneau sold $10 million of shares in Morneau Shepell one week before tabling a fiscal measure that would cause the value of the company’s shares to decrease by five per cent.

Poilievre said that after Morneau introduced a motion in the Commons on December 7, 2015, to raise taxes effective January 1 of the following year, the stock market dropped — and so did Morneau Shepell by five per cent.

“But not before someone could sell $10 million in Morneau Shepell shares one week before that drop and that bill was introduced. Can the minister tell us who sold those shares?” said Poilievre during question period.

Speaker Geoff Regan interjected, several times, and said he’s not sure how a question about who sold shares in a company is the responsibility of the government, but acknowledged that Morneau was rising to answer the question.

“I actually see it as an opportunity to talk about why we did in fact raise taxes,” said Morneau, who went on to defend the Liberal government’s decision to raise taxes on the top 1 per cent of earners.

“At 10:25, on November 30, 2015,” Poilievre replied, “someone sold 680,000 Morneau Shepell shares. That someone would have saved a half a million dollars by avoiding the drop in the stock market that followed his introduction of tax measures in this House of Commons.

“Was it just a coincidence that those two transactions line up so carefully, or in fact did the minister jump the gun and sell his shares before he introduced his tax measures?”

Morneau said opposition members are “trying to create conspiracy theories out of thin air” in order to prevent Canadians from understanding that the policies the government has put in place “are making an enormous and positive difference for Canadian families.”

Poilievre, the Conservative finance critic, said that based on the Liberal platform, one would expect the tax increase would begin to take effect in the new fiscal year since that’s when the government projected its revenues — but instead, Morneau confirmed in the House of Commons that it would take effect at the beginning of the calendar year.

“Investors quickly sold their shares in the 2015 year so that they could realize their gains in a lower-taxed year. The markets dropped. Morneau Shepell dropped by 5 per cent, but not before someone who knew what was going on was able to sell his shares and save a half a million. Who was that somebody?”