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Should spouses of the PM and Cabinet Ministers be expected to move their finances into blind trusts in order to prevent conflict-of-interest with their elected spouses?

http://www.ottawacitizen.com/busines...354/story.html

A Citizen review of asset statements filed by MPs shows that Harper’s wife, Laureen, as well as the spouses of Finance Minister Jim Flaherty, Labour Minister Lisa Raitt and five other cabinet ministers currently hold investment accounts unencumbered by blind trusts.

Flaherty’s wife, for example, holds shares in a chartered bank that is currently awaiting her husband’s approval to acquire another bank.

In most cases, the names of the stocks owned by cabinet spouses are not known publicly.

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According to the prime minister’s disclosure statement, Laureen Harper’s portfolio with the investment firm Raymond James Ltd. is “partly comprised” of publicly-traded companies.

Harper himself lists no stock holdings, suggesting that the couple’s financial investments are made in her name.

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Harper, then-opposition leader, was particularly critical of [former PM Paul] Martin’s arrangement, saying, “A blind trust should be a deaf trust as well,” and vowing in the 2005-06 election campaign to end the practice.