Who does blind trust protect?
By Tony Carroll
Eastern Graphic
Tuesday October 14th, 11:21 PM
In order for there to be fairness, there needs to be a full disclosure of facts. This is why organizational behaviourists have begun to focus new attention on informational justice – how organizations control and disclose information to its stakeholders. It has been shown that when there is a lack of perceived informational justice, people perceive organizations with lower trust. Consequently, one can assume that if an organization or its leader has information pertaining to others – a full disclosure of facts would increase others’ sense of trust in them.
…his election motto – “putting Islanders first for a change.” He only forgot to tell us which Islanders.
Trust in politics also vital – especially when the political party is the governing one. Think about it for one moment – governments hold all pertinent information about its citizens – our social insurance numbers, health care numbers, number and type of health procedures, etc. So one can easily see why trust is vital in government. Yet despite the importance of trust in government, the Ghiz government has failed to provide Islanders will ALL the facts pertaining to the Government Immigrant Investment scandal (GIS).
For example, information pertaining to the scandal has come out that indicates that under the previous Conservative government, one of the rules of the PNP program was that a business had to be established for three years or more to be qualified for this program.
This stipulation makes sense as most researchers in business know that if a business is to fail – it will do so within the first three years of existence. Yet, under Robert Ghiz this rule was changed. Why was this, Mr Ghiz? Due to removing this criterion, you have made Island taxpayers liable for the number of failed businesses that will not be able to pay back the investment funds that immigrants invested in these companies.
Furthermore, under the prior government, immigrants visited the company to which they supposedly invested in – yet this was not the case when the Liberals were running this program. Why did this policy change?
Mr Ghiz claims to be innocent in this PNP program because as he stated in his CBC interview, “I do not own any businesses but if I did they would be in blind trust and I would not know about it anyway but since I do not own any businesses …”
Does anyone else not see the contradiction in Ghiz’s statement?
Firstly, he says he does not own any businesses but if he did they would be in blind trust and he would not know anything about them?
Hmmm – so if he does know anything about them, how can he say definitively that he does not own any businesses?
Secondly, if it is a blind trust how can Mr Ghiz definitively say “he has no businesses”?
Honestly, can Mr Ghiz claim he has no input on any of his financial affairs and his judiciary can do whatever he/she desires with his/her moneys? What Islanders would like to know is exactly what is the role of a judiciary of these blind trust accounts.
While these answers may suffice a person with little knowledge of blind trusts – a close examination of blind trusts show that blind trusts are held by a judiciary who handles the business affairs for the politicians while they are in office.
This is meant to give the public the “perception” of propriety but the judiciary is in no way “independent” from the politician.
Knowing this, it would help Islanders gain faith in their government, if Mr Ghiz could tell Islanders just who the judiciaries are for his and other MLAs’ affairs so we can see if any of the numbered companies which were registered during the last few months of the PNP program were actually the premiers’ or MLAs’ judiciaries.
This raises the spectre of just how “blind” these blind trust actually are. Recently in the news there have been numerous examples of politicians selling off and/or buying stock in their ‘blind’ trusts just before a major political announcement was made.
Some of these investigations indicated that the politicians called the judiciary of their so-called ‘blind’ trust just before the announcement was made. So I question whether this issue of blind trust is to protect the politician or to protect the taxpayer. Or, whether it is, as with most things in politics, to give the ‘impression’ of fairness.
I am also one who questions whether or not an accountant whose former accounting firm which probably benefitted from this PNP program is best suited to perform an audit on the program.
Many Islanders have indicated that an auditor from outside the province with no affiliated ties with those involved be best to perform the audit.
In the end, Islanders deserve answers to these questions. Only by addressing these issues will Ghiz live up to his election motto – “putting Islanders first for a change.” He only forgot to tell us which Islanders.
Tony Carroll Kingston, Ontario
