» Mark Carney has big investments in private health care

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Mark Carney told a crowd in Charlottetown, P.E.I. the other day that health care is big business in the United States. He should have said health care is big business for him given how deeply invested Carney is in private health care through his holdings and options in Brookfield Asset Management.

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Like most Liberals, Carney wants to portray himself as a champion of Canada’s public health system, but like so many champions, he’s also a hypocrite.

“In the U.S., health care is a big business, in Canada it is a right. It is right that my government will fight for and invest in it,” Carney said.

Investing in health care is something that Carney is very familiar with, just not in the way he was describing in Charlottetown. During his time at Brookfield, Carney oversaw a company that owns private hospitals, a health insurance and pharmaceutical benefits company, a collection of fat-loss clinics, an orthopedic care firm and a chain of pharmacies.

The Liberal leader has said that he has put all his assets in a blind trust and owns nothing but his home, his cottage and any cash on hand. The full details of Carney’s trust have not been made public but to put it bluntly, Carney still stands to profit from Brookfield in more ways than one.

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According to filings with Security and Exchange Commission in Washington, D.C., Carney has 209,300 unexercised stock options that he can purchase at a price of $35.13 US and another 200,000 that he can purchase at a price of $40.07 US. Those shares are currently trading on the NASDAQ at $50.57 US, meaning if Carney bought them now and sold at this price, he would stand to take in $5.3 million US in pure profit.

The hospitals that Brookfield owns are currently the source of controversy.

Healthscope owns 38 private hospitals throughout Australia. Last fall, the company began charging patients a $50 additional fee for day visits and a $100 charge for an overnight stay.

Australia has a public health insurance system similar to Canada’s but allows private hospitals to operate.

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Just last week, a scathing audit of Healthscope-operated Northern Beaches Hospital in New South Wales raised concerns about the company’s ability to offer safe and reliable care. The audit came after the death of a 22-month-old boy last September that the parents blame on negligence by the hospital.

Is this the model Carney wants for Canada? It’s already padding his bank account, so he is profiting from the kind of system that he portrays as wrong, evil, American.

In addition to Healthscope, Brookfield under Carney invested in Neighbourly Pharmacy, Everise — a health services firm, Sonobello — liposuction and body contouring, and Orthopedic Care Partners — a firm providing services to doctors.

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The other controversial firm that Brookfield took over was Rockwood Casualty Insurance. This company has been accused of denying health coverage to coal miners dealing with black lung.

Not very green, not very progressive, but all very lucrative for Carney and Brookfield, a company that will continue to pay Carney into the future through stock options or carried interest payments.

There is a reason that Carney should have been open about his assets, his investments and his holdings. Given his work over the past several years, Carney is open to claims of conflicts of interest at every turn.

Now the question will be, is Carney looking out for the interests of Canadians on health care, or the interests of his big health-care businesses.

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