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A top Finance Canada official whose career is now on the line because of accusations he traded on inside information about Ottawa's income-trust plans reaped no more than $7,378 in profit from the transaction, the RCMP allege.

Serge Nadeau is suspended without pay and facing a criminal charge in the matter, which dates back to the fall of 2005 when the Liberal government made a market-shaking decision to spare income trusts from a new tax.

Mr. Nadeau, 50, was one of only eight people in the room with Liberal finance minister Ralph Goodale on the afternoon of Nov. 22, 2005, when a decision was made not to tax income trusts, according to the RCMP. Mr. Goodale announced the change at 6 p.m. the next day.

According to the RCMP, Mr. Nadeau bought 3,100 units of Yellow Pages Income Fund early in the morning of Nov. 23, 2005, through his TD Waterhouse Discount Brokerage account. That was more than eight hours before Mr. Goodale's announcement.

Police estimate that Mr. Nadeau's total profit from the transaction amounted to $7,378. The details come from affidavits filed in court by the RCMP to obtain a special warrant during their 14-month criminal probe into whether the former Liberal government's income-trust plans were leaked.

The information in the case against Mr. Nadeau emerged after a publication ban on RCMP affidavits expired early Wednesday following a successful court challenge by The Globe and Mail, CTV and Canadian Press.

Mr. Nadeau was charged in February with criminal breach of trust for allegedly using inside government information to buy securities for personal benefit. His next court date is in September. He has yet to enter a plea, according to his lawyer, Raphael Schachter. The allegations against Mr. Nadeau have not been proved in court.

"[He] was made aware of confidential federal government information prior to it becoming public, to wit: the Minister of Finance's decision to not impose a tax on income trusts," the RCMP allege.

Trading of income trusts and related stocks spiked in the hours before the announcement, raising suspicions of a leak.

While the announcement of the RCMP probe during the last election may have helped defeat the incumbent Liberals, the investigation yielded no charges against politicians or staffers in the former governing party.

Instead, the RCMP has said the evidence gathered was sufficient to yield only one charge: that Mr. Nadeau allegedly traded for personal gain after learning of the new Liberal policy on trusts.

"Knowing that the Minister of Finance was not going to impose a tax on income trusts and knowing that this information would have an upward effect on the price of income trust shares, [he] purchased units of Yellow Pages Income Fund," the RCMP allege.

This purchase, "with privileged, confidential information," gave Mr. Nadeau "a direct personal monetary benefit in that the value of Yellow Pages Income Fund units raised substantially after the public announcement was made by the Minister of Finance," the RCMP allege.

They estimate he ultimately earned a profit of $6,368 to $7,378 after selling the units in December, 2005.

Mr. Nadeau's involvement in the probe began in the spring of 2006 after his name was flagged in a spot check of trading in Yellow Page units by Quebec securities market regulators, the RCMP say.

The change to income-trust tax rules, which helped shape Canada's trust market for nearly one year after, meant that the Liberals would not tax the investment vehicle, as feared, but would enact a politically popular cut in corporate dividend taxes to reduce an advantage that trusts had in the market.

In October, 2006, however, the new Conservative government changed tack and slapped a hefty 31.5-per-cent tax on trusts, saying they were a threat to the treasury. This is expected largely to kill the trust market by 2011.