Dear Canadian politician,
Please sign the Democratic Good Government Pledge (See it at: https://democracywatch.ca/good-government-pledge) and please also pass a Democratic Good Government Act that makes many key democratic reform, good government and government accountability changes.
Government decision-making, spending and accountability systems across Canada are the real scandal because for more than 145 years they have allowed politicians, government appointees, political staff, government employees and lobbyists to act dishonestly, unethically, secretively, non-representatively, wastefully.
Loopholes and flaws in laws allow Cabinet ministers and senior government officials to make decisions even if they have a financial interest in the outcome, and allow for secret, unethical donations and lobbying, excessive secrecy, election fraud robocalls, unrepresentative legislatures, patronage and cronyism in Cabinet appointments, sole-source contracts and general waste of taxpayers’ money.
In total, there are 100 gaping loopholes and flaws in the most governments’ democratic good government systems that must be closed and corrected. You can see the list of the 100 loopholes at: https://democracywatch.ca/summary-of-the-100-undemocratic-and-accountability-loopholes
Incredibly, the laws against illegal parking in Canada are enforced more strongly and effectively than key democratic good government laws, and in some cases the penalties for parking illegally are higher than for wrongdoing in the federal government!
The problem is undeniable, as dozens of scandals have occurred and, in the recent years, Canada’s federal government has dropped from 5th to 14th in the Global Corruption Rankings of governments, and left Canada in 19th position as a “moderate level” country among 100 countries whose federal government has been graded on key democratic and good government factors.
If the democratic good government and accountability systems are not strengthened in many key ways, corruption will continue to infect governments, and governments will continue to fail to solve Canada’s problems and continue to fail to address Canadians’ concerns in many areas.
Overall, democratic good government systems must be strengthened by adding a new honesty-in-politics law, and to enact and/or close loopholes in ethics, lobbying, money in politics, open government, whistleblower protection and waste prevention laws and enforcement systems.
To ensure wrongdoing is cleaned up and wrongdoers identified and penalized, key democratic good government watchdog agencies must be required to do regular audits and inspections (including of politicians’ expenses), to disclose details about their rulings on every complaint, and to impose penalties on wrongdoers. As well, a majority of party leaders in any legislature must be given the power to launch a public inquiry.
In addition, the powers of the Prime Minister and premiers must be restricted so that they cannot control politicians in their parties, appoint whomever they want to law enforcement agencies, call snap elections and shut down the legislature whenever they want.
As well, everyone in government must be required to consult with Canadians’ in meaningful ways before they make decisions or policy changes.
Last but certainly not least, the government must help citizens band together to counter the power of corporate lobby groups by facilitating the creation of citizen watchdog groups using a method that has worked very well in the U.S. (See details at: https://democracywatch.ca/campaigns/citizen-association-campaign)
Please let me know by reply letter that you will sign the Democratic Good Government Pledge, and support these changes to key laws and enforcement systems.
I will be deciding which political party I will vote for in the next election based on the responses I receive from representatives in each party. I look forward to hearing from you.
