Corrections Ledger

Original: The international comparison stated that Australian ministers "must divest conflicting interests or stand aside from the entire relevant policy domain," and that a minister with renewable energy exposure "would be required to either divest or recuse from the entire energy policy domain." It cited the Statement of Ministerial Standards (August 2022, §2.10–2.14). A column in the comparison table labelled the Australian and U.S. mechanisms as closing gaps that Canada's leaves open.

Corrected to: The Australian rule contains no domain-recusal alternative. It restricts what a minister may hold: direct company holdings must be divested on taking office, and diversified funds are permitted only where the minister has no influence and the fund is not significantly invested in a conflicting sector. The instrument cited was also superseded: the Statement of Ministerial Standards has been replaced by the Code of Conduct for Ministers, in which the shareholding provisions appear at §3.11–3.14. The section has been rewritten from the current Code, and now also records the Code's enterprise-level recusal provision at §3.10, which passes a decision affecting a single enterprise to another minister and is closer in kind to Canada's entity screen than to a domain-wide standard. The table's verdict column has been removed and that assessment moved into prose. The section now records that the Australian Code is non-statutory and administered by the Prime Minister, while Canada's Conflict of Interest Act is statutory with an independent Commissioner, and that we found no published determination applying the Australian divestment rule to a sitting minister.

Reason: The domain-recusal characterisation was our inference and is not in the instrument. We could not verify the claim against the primary text before publication, and the citation pointed to a document no longer in force. The corrected rule is more restrictive than what we published, not less: a sector-concentrated transition energy fund would not qualify as a permitted holding under the Australian Code. The original also presented an editorial verdict inside a table whose source line implied all three descriptions were document-derived, and omitted the enforcement difference that runs in Canada's favour. Category: unverified characterisation of a primary source; superseded citation; interpretation presented as sourced fact.

Original: The article stated that the Prime Minister's "political continuation is itself a variable in the fund's expected performance," that a prime minister whose deferred compensation rises under a transition-supportive policy environment "has a financial interest, however indirect, in maintaining that environment," and that "in a minority parliament, maintaining that environment is synonymous with maintaining power." A section headed "The swing risk" developed this framing, and the subtitle and summary carried it. One pre-registered falsifier tested whether the opposition would reverse its pledge to repeal carbon pricing.

Corrected to: The affected passages now document the structural gap without characterising the officeholder's interests or motivations. The section, retitled "Policy volatility and the compensation horizon," reports that the carbon pricing framework is contested and the government holds a minority, and identifies the finding as a timing mismatch: the fund is not expected to mature until roughly 2032–2034, so the compensation is settled on a horizon extending past any term in office, while Canada's conflict-of-interest framework governs decisions taken while in office. The falsifier now tests the framework rather than a party platform: whether the instrument is amended to reach entitlements that vest after an officeholder leaves office.

Reason: This publication documents what structures enable and does not attribute motive. Stating that an officeholder has a financial interest in maintaining power is a claim about motivation, and the disclaimers accompanying it did not cure the framing. The underlying facts — the policy levers, the maturity window, the minority parliament, the repeal pledge — were accurate and are unchanged. The error was in what we inferred from them about the officeholder rather than about the instrument. Category: editorial standard breach — intent attributed where capacity was documented.

Original: Crude oil U.S. export share stated as 95.7%, volume as 4.2 million barrels per day. Canada nominal GDP stated as approximately US$2.17 trillion.

Corrected to: Crude oil U.S. export share updated to 93%, volume updated to 4.3 million barrels per day. Canada nominal GDP updated to approximately US$2.24 trillion.

Reason: The 95.7% figure was sourced from a CER energy overview using a different methodology than the CER Annual Trade Summary, which is the primary source for this statistic and reports 93%. The 4.3 MMb/d volume is the corrected CER figure for 2024. The GDP figure was updated to align with the IMF World Economic Outlook (October 2024). Category: data precision error.