By Sumayya
OTTAWA – Prime Minister Mark Carney asked the federal ethics officer to set up a conflict-of-interest rule between himself and a close buddy who manages a business that does massive work with the national government.
The request was made inside a written message sent to Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein on Friday.
Carney has been good friends with Dan Goldberg, the president and chief executive officer of Telesat, for close to twenty years. The pair are so close that Goldberg was one of just a tiny group of people invited to last year’s official swearing-in events. Despite that friendship, no official ethics rule was set up to make sure Carney could not give his thoughts on government talks and choices tied to his buddy and Telesat, a Canadian satellite business.
News reports shared on November 3 revealed that the federal Conservatives had handed in an official request for a check-up to von Finckenstein. They asked for an official barrier to be set up and for the officer to look into starting a review of whether Carney had broken the Conflict of Interest Act.
At that moment, Carney stated he had already told the ethics officer about his friendship with Goldberg, and he stood by how he managed the connection.
Telesat got a 2.3-billion-dollar contract from the national government back in August. The prime minister has stated he was not part of any talks tied to the contract or the choice to hand it out. However, he has not made clear whether he similarly stepped away from other talks tied to Telesat, even though his office claimed in September that he had. After earlier brushing off these issues, Carney wrote a message to von Finckenstein on Friday asking for extra steps to be taken to guarantee he does not end up in a conflict of interest with his friend or his company.
“Out of an abundance of caution and to avoid any doubt in public perception considering the current public attention to Telesat, I have concluded that it would be prudent to establish additional screens,” Carney expressed inside the message obtained by reporters.
He requested that the barriers be set up covering Goldberg, Telesat, and its smaller branch companies.
In a public comment sent to reporters on Friday, Conservative MP Jamil Jivani, who sent the very first letter to the ethics officer, stated there are “many more questions for Carney to answer.”
“The Canadian people deserve to know why Carney made this decision AFTER Telesat got a massive government contract, and what the impact has been of the PM having no ethics screen on Dan Goldberg and Telesat for the last year and a half,” Jivani expressed.
Telesat is a Canadian satellite business that the prime minister and national government have openly supported as an option instead of Starlink and a way to strengthen Canadian independence.
Elon Musk’s SpaceX owns and runs Starlink, which Telesat will compete against once its low-Earth-orbit satellite network is sent into space. Telesat depends on SpaceX rockets to launch its satellites.
Carney has also spoken highly of Telesat at the NATO meeting in Turkiye and inside shared public statements with Norway.
In his message to the ethics officer, the prime minister shared that he hoped a rule could be built that stops conflicts, while still letting him “engage in essential international diplomacy where appropriate and without preferential treatment.” AI Minister Evan Solomon is also friends with Goldberg and already follows an ethics barrier covering both Goldberg and Telesat. Neither the prime minister nor the ethics officer has explained why a barrier was not also set up for Carney right from the time he started his job.
On Friday, the ethics officer’s office stated it could not share whether von Finckenstein has chosen to start an investigation into Carney’s Telesat ties, pointing to privacy rules. It also refused to comment on setting up the barriers.
Goldberg’s friendship with Carney goes back to the 2000s, when the two had kids playing in the same soccer league, according to the Ottawa Business Journal. Along with Solomon, they became jogging buddies and stayed close even when Carney became governor of the Bank of England, with Goldberg traveling to see him in London. Since Carney started his political path in 2025, Goldberg has regularly stood in his corner: showing up at a leadership campaign event and his swearing-in events in March and May of last year. This year, Goldberg was also picked for the federal government’s Strategic Exports Advisory Council and was invited to give a talk at the Canada Investment Summit.
In December 2025, Telesat was chosen as a strategic partner with the national government “to develop and bolster” the Canadian Armed Forces’ military satellite communication tools. Carney also frequently promotes the business, most recently during a talk with The New York Times.
Telesat earlier stated that Goldberg never asked Carney for government cash, government contracts “or for special treatment of any kind related to Telesat, either before or after he took office.”
