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根據加拿大渥太華公民報 The Ottawa Citizen 20130110:
現任加拿大總理的妻子羅倫·哈珀在2012年尾賣出了全部她与丈夫聯名的股份,報導記者結論:
" ...... It is unclear whether Laureen Harper simply saw last year’s rise in stock prices as a good time to cash in her portfolio or if the move was made in response to the Citizen story pointing out the apparent loophole in the ethics rules."
不過,做市民的不可因總理妻子拋售股票,就蕭規曹隨,有樣學樣。因為除了股市上昇32%和利益衝突政策之外,可能亦有其它私人理由。
攝影图片: 拿大總理史提芬·約瑟夫·哈珀与伉儷羅倫·哈珀
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Prime minister’s wife sells off entire stock portfolio
According to an ethics disclosure filed in December, Stephen Harper’s wife, Laureen, has liquidated her stock market investments.
OTTAWA — An ethics disclosure filed by Prime Minister Stephen Harper shows that his wife Laureen liquidated her entire portfolio of stock market investments late last year. The prime minister last month amended a disclosure of assets and liabilities he had filed with Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson and removed its reference to his wife’s investments. Previous versions of Harper’s MP disclosure said his wife held an “investment account with Raymond James Ltd. partly composed of publicly traded securities.” That line item was not found in an updated December 8 version of the document, which lists no other declarable assets.
“Mrs. Harper’s updated disclosure reflects the fact this account was liquidated,” explained Andrew MacDougall, Harper’s director of communications. MacDougall did not respond to a follow-up email asking why she had suddenly sold off her portfolio at a time when the economy is still recovering from a deep recession.
Unlike his apparently bearish wife, the prime minister has been an enthusiastic booster of Canadian equity markets, and once advised investors to increase their stake in public securities during the darkest days of the global economic downturn. “I think there are some great buying opportunities out there,” Harper said during a 2008 interview with the CBC. Since then, the TSX index has climbed by about 32 per cent.
Harper’s disclosure did not itemize the individual stocks his wife owned. The prime minister declared no stock investments of his own, suggesting that those made in his wife’s name may effectively be joint assets. The disclosure notes that the Harpers share a joint line of credit from the Bank of Nova Scotia. In October, the Prime Minister’s Office declined a Citizen request to provide a list of equities in Laureen Harper’s portfolio. The PMO also refused to say whether any of her stocks were among the resource sector companies that would be affected by her husband’s decision on foreign investments by China’s CNOOC and Malayasia’s Petronas.
Under federal ethics rules, cabinet ministers are required to either sell their shares in publicly-traded companies or place them in blind trusts while in office. But, as the Citizen reported, there is no such requirement for equities held in their spouses’ names. The specific contents of their stock portfolios are not revealed in the disclosures they sign as cabinet ministers or as MPs, and it is unclear if even the ethics commissioner knows which equities the spouses hold.
...... It is unclear whether Laureen Harper simply saw last year’s rise in stock prices as a good time to cash in her portfolio or if the move was made in response to the Citizen story pointing out the apparent loophole in the ethics rules. Under an agreement with ethics commissioner, Harper is required to step aside from any decision involving Talisman Energy, where his brother Grant works as an accountant.
1 comment:
I am more concern about who told her to purchase these shares stocks！ Did or didn't she get the insider information that 32% rise，I think Mr. Harper should clarity this urgently before it has become a nationwide scandal！
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