Canada Elections Act must be changed to prohibit any organization from making a loan, and to prohibit anyone from loaning more than the current donation limit, and to require disclosure of all donations, and to make leadership races democratic in other key ways

Monday, March 11, 2013

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch filed a complaint with the Commissioner of Canada Elections at Elections Canada about the several federal Liberal leadership race candidates who made “loans” to themselves to enter the race in amounts that exceed the legal contributions set out in the Canada Elections Act.

“When you loan money to yourself as a political candidate you are actually giving money to yourself which is illegal if it is more than $1,200, and Elections Canada must end this charade and properly enforce the federal elections law by declaring these excessive loans illegal and requiring the Liberal candidates to repay them immediately or drop out of the race if they don’t have enough money to repay,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch and Chairperson of the nation-wide Money in Politics Coalition (made up of 50 citizen groups with a total membership of more than 3.5 million Canadians).  “While the Liberals set an undemocratically high entry fee of $75,000, all the candidates should have done a reality and ego check and realized if they couldn’t raise those funds through donations from many people they shouldn’t be running to be leader of a national political party.”

Democracy Watch also called on federal parties to finally pass Bill C-21 that sets limits on loans made by third parties or individuals to candidates, but to change the bill before it is passed to only allow loans from individuals of no more than the contribution limit (the limit is currently $1,200, and it increases annually by the rate of inflation), and also to close the loophole that currently allows secret donations and gifts of money, property or services (including volunteer labour) to leadership race candidates that do not have be disclosed if the candidate does not use them directly for their campaign.

“Federal parties must work together to finally pass Bill C-21 to close the undemocratic loopholes that allow corporations, unions and other organizations and wealthy individuals to use loans and secret donations and gifts to buy influence over political candidates, but the bill must be changed to ensure only individuals are allowed to make loans to candidates of no more than the current donation limit, and to require disclosure by all candidates of every donation or gift given to them,” said Sommers.

The following Liberal Party of Canada leadership contestants all “loaned” themselves more than the current donation limit of $1,200 to pay the cost of entering the race: David Bertschi ($75,000), Deborah Coyne ($25,000), Martha Hall Findlay ($25,000) and Karen McCrimmon ($32,000).

The practice of leadership candidates loaning themselves money is not new or limited to the Liberal Party, as federal NDP leadership candidate Martin Singh ($35,000) and Bloc Quebecois leadership candidate Maria Mourani ($10,000) also loaned themselves money in recent leadership elections.

Several Liberal Party leadership candidates in 2006 also loaned themselves huge amounts of money to enter that race, and some have failed to repay the loans — this ridiculous situation continues to drag on and would never have happened if Elections Canada had simply enforced the law properly in the first place.

In addition to restricting loans, and requiring disclosure of all donations and gifts (even if the donation or gift is not used for a campaign), the Canada Elections Act should also be changed to make all riding nomination and party leadership races finally democratic (as the Conservatives promised to do in their 2006 federal election platform):

1. the entry barriers to becoming a party leadership race candidate should be a relatively low fee (ie. $10,000) plus signatures of a significant number of voters from across the country (ie. 5,000 voters from at least 5 provinces), and;
2. Elections Canada should be given the power and mandate to oversee the entire process for both party leadership and riding nomination races — especially for nomination races which are known to usually involve dirty tricks.

Democracy Watch will continue pushing for all of these changes to ensure, finally, that federal elections are honest, ethical, fair and democratic.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch

Email: [email protected]

Tel: 613-241-5179

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Democracy Watch’s Money in Political Campaign

An open-government watchdog is calling the Newfoundland and Labrador government’s stance when it comes to official cabinet orders “dangerously undemocratic.”

OTTAWA – A Canadian border guard had known ties to organized crime, protected his underworld associates and used his own position to evade the law, an investigation by the federal public sector watchdog has found.

Comprehensive audits, and new Financial Consumer Organization needed to ensure profits are not excessive, and for accountability and financial literacy

Send a letter calling for audits of profits, and bank accountability measures by clicking here

For more information contact:
Duff Conacher, Board member of Democracy Watch
Chairperson of the CCRC
Tel: (613) 789-5753

Tuesday, March 5, 2012

OTTAWA – Today, in response to Canada’s big six banks reporting their new record profits for the past three months of $7.7 billion, the Canadian Community Reinvestment Coalition (CCRC – Canada’s largest and leading bank accountability coalition) broadened its national letter writing drive that has already helped Canadians send more than 23,000 messages to key politicians calling on them to implement accountability measures to ensure bank profits are not based on gouging customers and arbitrarily cutting credit, loans and services, and to ensure the banks support Canadian economic development and job growth.

The big six banks’ profits for the 2011-2012 fiscal year were as follows:

BMO – $4.19 billion (up 35% from 2011′s total of $3.3 billion)
CIBC – $3.3 billion (up slightly from 2011′s total of $3.1 billion)
National Bank – $1.6 billion (up 26% from 2011′s total of $1.2 billion)
Royal – $7.5 billion (up 17% from 2011′s total of $6.7 billion)
Scotia – $6.2 billion (up 17.6 from 2011′s total of $5.27 billion)
TD Canada Trust – $6.5 billion (up 10% from 2011′s total of $5.89 billion)

As the CCRC predicted in December 2008, the failure of the federal Conservatives and opposition parties to regulate Canada’s big banks in the public interest has allowed the banks to gouge out of Canadians the more than $16 billion dollars in losses and writedowns they suffered in 2008 – losses which were due mainly to their own irresponsibly risky investments.

Canada’s wage gap is growing and the highest in 30 years, and Canada’s big six banks are taking $10.3 billion dollars of Canadians’ money to give as bonuses to their executives and staff (7.5% more than in 2011).

Beyond the record-high gap between the prime rate and credit card interest rates that the banks have maintained for the past decade, and the regular gouging practice of continuing to charge interest on the full amount of a credit card debt even if most of the debt has been paid off, other examples of bank gouging and excessive profits include the following:

• CBC TV’s Marketplace piece about bank gouging of seniors (April 6, 2012 — NOTE: Piece starts at 21 minute mark and runs for 5 minutes);
• CBC TV story about credit-card gouging of another type, and;
• CBC.ca article about gouging of retail companies by credit card companies.

Every survey done in the past decade has shown 90 percent of Canadians believe access to banking services and credit is essential for functioning in society – so given that the consumer is always right the federal government should regulate banks as they do other essential services like heat and electricity.

These regulations are also needed to increase bank accountability in return for the almost $200 billion in support the federal government gave the banks in 2008-2009.

“Past government actions and the Conservatives’ recent credit card and debit card codes and regulations are too little, too late to ensure Canada’s big banks are not making excessive profits from gouging customers and cutting services and failing to lend to job-creating Canadian businesses,” said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch and Chairperson of the CCRC.

“To help the Canadian economy overall, and to ensure the big banks serve everyone fairly at fair prices, the federal government must facilitate the creation of a national financial consumer-directed watchdog group, and require independent audits to determine if the banks are reaping excessive profits through gouging interest rates and fees, and the arbitrary cutting of credit and services for some customers and communities,” said Conacher.

“Every dollar of excessive profit for the banks, and every person and business the banks unjustifiably cut off from credit, costs the Canadian economy because it means that the banks are overcharging for their essential services and loans, and choking off spending and job creation,” said Conacher.

In February 2011, the federal Conservatives’ Task Force recommended extensive measures to increase financial literacy in Canada, but ignored the lowest-cost, most effective and broadly supported solution to this problem which is to use the innovative “pamphlet method” to create a membership-based Financial Consumer Organization as recommended by the federal MacKay Task Force and House and Senate committees in 1998, and an Individual Investor Organization as proposed by an Ontario legislature committee in 2006.

Financial service industry customers and investors are currently gouged with extra charges that companies in the industry use to pay their more than $400 million annual costs for industry advocacy efforts (advertising, lobbying, political donations and gifts).  The most effective way for the federal government to balance the marketplace is to implement the pamphlet method to give customers and investors an easy way to fund their own advocacy watchdog groups.

“No corporation has a right to gouge or unjustifiably cut services, especially when providing an essential service such as banking or trying to recoup self-inflicted losses like the banks are suffering from, but the Conservative government is continuing the negligence of past federal governments by subsidizing the big banks and other financial institutions with hundreds of billions of taxpayer dollars while failing to effectively require them to maintain loans to creditworthy customers and serve everyone fairly and well at fair prices,” said Conacher.

“The best thing the federal government can do to help the Canadian economy overall is to ensure effective, ongoing financial services industry accountability by requiring banks to prove their loan and investment interest rates and charges are fair, by auditing bank lending and competition levels in communities across Canada and, as recommended by the 1998 MacKay Task Force and House and Senate committees, by requiring financial and investment companies to distribute a pamphlet in their mailings to customers and investors that invites them to join a citizen watchdog group to watch over the financial industry and federal government,” said Conacher.  “At little or no cost to the federal government or the financial services industry, consumers and investors across Canada can be given a very easy way to band together to help and protect themselves through forming and funding their own watchdog groups.”

In addition to the creation of the two watchdog groups using the pamphlet method, the Canadian Community Reinvestment Coalition (CCRC), established in 1997 and made up of 100 citizen groups from across Canada with a collective membership of more than three million citizens, called on federal Finance Minister Jim Flaherty to work with opposition parties for effective bank and financial institution accountability by (See details about these proposals below):

• requiring banks to prove through an independent audit (that goes back at least 10 years) that their credit card and other consumer and small- and medium-sized business loan interest rates and fees do not amount to gouging, with a public report on the extent of gouging issued by the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) – To see details about this proposal, click here;
• empowering the Competition Bureau to, as has been done in the U.S. for 20 years, evaluate and publicly report on the number of business loans applied for, approved, rejected and called for specific categories of business borrowers, and the level of competition in basic banking services, across the country – To see details about how the U.S. has required for more than 20 years, click here, and;
• Require federally regulated banks and other financial institutions to use the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (the Conservatives have allowed banks to set up their own complaint dispute resolution systems that are not as independent and effective as the Ombudsman).

Details of Canada’s big bank profits and failure of federal government to ensure they are fair
According to Fortune magazine’s 2012 Global 500 Report, based on FY 2011 annual revenues five of the 11 Canadian companies to make the list of the 500 largest companies in the world were financial institutions, including three of Canada’s big six banks (RBC (282nd with revenues of $37.23 billion, profits of $6.7 billion); TD Canada Trust (403rd with revenues of $27.59 billion, profits of $5.89 billion), and; Scotiabank (409th with revenues of $27.09 billion, profits of $5.27 billion), as well as Manulife Financial at 181st with revenues of $51.55 billion, and Sun Life Financial at 485th with revenues of $22.83 billion.

According to Fortune magazine’s 2010 Global 500 Report, based on FY 2009 annual revenues, three of Canada’s big six banks were among the 500 largest companies in the world (RBC (228th with revenues of $32.61 billion, profits of $3.298 billion); TD Canada Trust (401st with revenues of $21.733 billion, profits of $2.667 billion), Scotiabank (414th with revenues of $21.428 billion, profits of $3.032 billion)

In the 2009 Global 500 Report (based on 2008 annual financial reports), four of Canada’s big six banks were within the top 18 banks in the world in terms of profit as a percentage of revenues (TD – 6th; Royal – 11th; Scotiabank – 13th; BMO – 17th), and four were within the top 30 banks in the world in terms of overall profits (Royal Bank – 13th; TD – 18th; Scotiabank – 21st; BMO – 29th), and four were within the top 21 banks in terms of profits as a percentage of assets (TD – 15th; Scotiabank and Royal – tied for 19th; Bank of Montreal – 21st).

Finance Minister Jim Flaherty has implemented only a voluntary, loophole-filled code of conduct in August 2010 covering business relations between retail companies and credit card and debit card companies.

And three of the eight credit-card regulations implemented in January and September 2010 by the Conservatives change only credit-card-disclosure requirements, another proposal only addresses consumer consent for increasing a credit limit, and another only limits debt collection practices in one way.

None of these five proposed regulations do anything to prevent gouging, nor does the Conservatives’ Task Force on Financial Literacy (which is redundant given the existence of the 8-year-old Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) and other federal and provincial financial education agencies).

And while the other three credit-card regulations (a 21-day interest-free period (which came into effect until September 2010), a restriction on one fee, and payment allocation requirements) will protect a few customers from a few charges, none of the proposals will decrease already excessive credit card interest rates (which are especially galling given the Bank of Canada’s prime lending rate has dropped to its lowest level ever), nor the extra interest rate and fee hikes the banks and other companies have unilaterally imposed in the past couple of years, nor their overcharging for various credit card and other banking services.

And none of the Conservatives’ proposals prevent the banks from cutting off credit for people and businesses that have made their payments consistently for years and are very creditworthy.

The Conservatives’ so-called ”Economic Action Plan” offered huge, public-funded subsidies to the big banks of more than $200 billion, but the Conservatives (just as past Liberal governments did) continue to fail to require the banks to charge fair prices and treat all customers fairly.

To their credit, both the federal NDP and the federal Liberals proposed in fall 2009 more effective gouging-protection measures, but unfortunately they have not worked together and with other MPs to pass a bill imposing these measures on the big banks and other credit card issuers, nor have they proposed an industry-wide audit which is needed to determine whether banks are treating all customers fairly and what are actual fair prices for all banking services, nor have they proposed any effective financial consumer empowerment initiatives such as creating the watchdog groups using the low-cost method proposed by the CCRC.

Details about the CCRC’s proposals
In addition to having the Financial Consumer Agency of Canada (FCAC) examine profit levels for credit cards and service charges for the past decade and annually in the future (To see details about this proposal, click here), and the Competition Bureau examine lending records and competition levels across Canada for the past decade and annually in the future (To see details about the U.S. requires this under the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), click here – To see details about the $4.5 trillion in reinvestments that have resulted from the CRA since 1977 (in a PDF-format document), click here – To see the CCRC’s position paper describing how this bank accountability system should work, click here), the federal government should finally actually regulate Canada’s banks and investment companies through the following actions:

• If the FCAC study shows gouging in the past decade, require banks to refund customers;
• If the Competition Bureau shows lack of competition in any community, require banks to open branches or subsidize credit unions opening branches;
• Require banks to provide detailed information on loans, investments and services to customers, require corrective action and deny mergers and takeovers if banks are not meeting customer needs, as in the U.S.
• Every government in Canada contracts money-handling and credit card business to the banks, and should award contracts based on which bank serves the most people well;
• Facilitate the creation of a Financial Consumer Organization (FCO)  and an Individual Investor Organization (IIO) to help consumers by requiring banks and other financial institutions to enclose an FCO or IIO pamphlet in their mailings to customers, inviting people to join the watchdog groups (To see the CCRC’s position paper describing the FCO proposal in detail, click here and for other details click here) — NOTE: Creating such an organization using the pamphlet method was recommended by the Task Force on the Future of the Canadian Financial Services Sector in its September 1998 Report (See Recommendation #56(b) on page 208 of the Report), and the House of Commons and Senate committees that reviewed the report endorsed the recommendation);
• Require federally regulated banks and other financial institutions to use the Ombudsman for Banking Services and Investments (two banks have set up their own complaint dispute resolution systems that are not as independent and effective as the Ombudsman);
• Require banks to give customers access to their money as soon as a cheque clears (as 98 percent of cheques in Canada clear in one day), and;
• Increase the maximum penalty for violating the Bank Act to $50 million (currently, the maximum penalty is $200,000, much too low to encourage compliance, and the government’s recent increase to $500,000 is still much too low), and;
• Require the FCAC to disclose the name of violators in every case (currently, the FCAC is only allowed to disclose the identity of a financial institution that violates a consumer protection measure if the FCAC prosecutes, which it rarely does).

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For more information contact:
Duff Conacher, Board member of Democracy Watch
Chairperson of the CCRC
Tel: (613) 789-5753

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Democracy Watch’s Bank Accountability Campaign

Link to NOW magazine article

Scandals with F-35 purchase, government program cuts, government advertising, and MP and senator expenses show clear need for changes to the spending watchdog system

Send a letter to key politicians calling for fully independent and empowered AGs and PBOs by clicking here

Thursday, February 28, 2013

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch called for key changes to give the Auditor Generals (AGs) across Canada, and the federal Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO), the independence, mandate and powers needed to ensure honesty in government and politician spending.  As well, Democracy Watch called on provincial and territorial governments to establish PBOs that also cover municipal governments in each jurisdiction.

The key problems that the AGs across Canada, and the federal PBO, cannot currently prevent because of lack of independence, weak mandates, or lack of resources or powers, are as follows:

• government spending can violate rules for years before an AG finds out;
• spending by most politicians on their office budgets can break every rule because such spending is not fully audited by an AG or anyone else (except in Nova Scotia, and in Newfoundland and Labrador, where AG audits led to criminal charges against some politicians);
• government advertising can often be propaganda for the ruling party (as it has been federally since 2008 as it has increased at an alarming rate – although Ontario at least gives the AG the power to reject government ads leading up to an election);
• the federal government can easily thwart attempts by the PBO to produce an accurate report on the actual cost of any government initiative, simply by refusing to provide, or delaying release of, key information;

“To ensure honest federal government and politician spending that follows all the rules, the Auditor General and Parliamentary Budget Officer must be chosen by a majority of all party leaders not by Cabinet, with their budgets determined based on need not Cabinet whim, and they must be given the power and be required to pre-approve significant spending initiatives including advertising, to conduct much more frequent audits of all spending, to force corrective actions and to penalize violations with high penalties,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.  “If these changes are not made, spending by the federal government and politicians will continue to be a web of lies and abuse that wastes Canadians’ hard-earned money.”

Democracy Watch will soon launch a national letter-writing campaign pushing the federal government, and all governments across Canada, to make these key changes.

The need for effective enforcement by AGs of government spending rules has been shown by every AG report ever issued, and the need in the politician spending area has been shown through the recent Senate spending scandal that includes up to 22 Senators who have refused to answer questions about where they live and whether they are illegally collecting tens of thousands of dollars a year in residence allowances.  As well, ample evidence is provided by the spending scandals involving politicians from various parties and levels of government including federal Conservative Cabinet ministers Bev Oda and Jason Kenney, former Bloc Québécois leader Gilles Duceppe, Conservative Senator Patrick Brazeau, Liberal MPs Judy Sgro, Wayne Easter, John Cannis and Andrew Telegdi, and former Liberal Cabinet minister Joe Fontana.

As the only organization that has defended the federal PBO and called for key changes to make the PBO more effective since the office was created in 2007, including during 2009 when all federal parties were attacking the PBO, Democracy Watch has documented again and again how the PBO’s lack of independence and effective powers has allowed the federal government to escape accountability for dishonest budgetting.  With the current Parliamentary Budget Officer’s term coming to an end in mid-March, key changes must be made to the PBO’s office immediately to ensure it is an effective watchdog.

To ensure the ongoing proper use of taxpayer dollars, and to ensure that government advertisements don’t further partisan interests more than informing Canadians, the following changes need to be made to all Auditor Generals (AGs) across Canada, and the federal Parliamentary Budget Officer (PBO – and all other jurisdictions need to establish a PBO):

• the PBO must be made a fully independent officer of Parliament, with a fixed term of office and control over his staff;
• the AG and PBO must be appointed with the approval of a majority of federal political party leaders (currently opposition leaders are only “consulted” on the nominees);
• the annual budgets of the AG and PBO must be determined through a needs-based evaluation process that ensures all significant spending initiatives will be fully scrutinized, and all government institutions will be audited at least every three years;
• the AG and PBO must be given the power, and required, to pre-approve all significant spending initiatives to ensure honest disclosure of costs, and compliance with all spending rules;
• the PBO and AG must be required to disclose the number of complaints/requests they receive each year, and what they do/are doing with each request;
• the AG must fully audit politicians’ office spending every three years (the AG has the clear power to do this, but has failed to do such an audit for 20 years);
• the PBO must be given the power to order the release of information (as the information commissioners have in British Columbia, Ontario, and Quebec);
• the AG must be given the power to review and reject proposed government advertising if it promotes the ruling party’s agenda more than it inform voters;
• the PBO and AG must be given the power to fine violators who break spending rules or fail to provide them with the information they request within specific timelines.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch

Tel: 613-241-5179

Democracy Watch’s Voter Rights Campaign

At least 50 federal Cabinet ministers have been let off the hook in the past 20 years, along with dozens of MPs, senators, political staff, Cabinet appointees and government officials – and more than 80 secret rulings since 2007 by the federal Ethics Commissioner are likely hiding other serious violations

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

OTTAWA – Today, to end the dangerously unethical fiasco that has played out across Canada for more than 145 years, including more than 200 recent cases across the country, Democracy Watch and the Government Ethics Coalition called on all governments to finally pass strong, clear, transparent ethics rules for all politicians, political staff, Cabinet appointees and government officials, along with strengthening enforcement, and establishing mandatory high penalties for violations.  Federal ethics rules are being reviewed right now by House of Commons committees, and an Alberta legislative committee will also soon reviewing its rules – will they and other politicians across the country finally push to clean things up?

Democracy Watch’s and the Coalition’s submission to the federal House Ethics Committee, prepared by Duff Conacher, Founding Director of Democracy Watch and Adjunct Professor of ethics law at the University of Toronto, sets out 30 key changes to federal ethics rules, enforcement and penalties that are also needed for every government in Canada.

Not one Canadian politician has pushed for strong ethics rules, enforcement and penalties in the past 20 years.  Jean Chretien lied to get into power in 1993, and Stephen Harper lied to get into power in 2006, both by making false promises that they would strengthen federal ethics rules and penalties, and then both ignored ethics rules almost every time they or their Cabinet ministers violated them.  This is only slightly worse than all the other party leaders who never even made significant promises to clean up politics, as Democracy Watch’s 2011 Report Card on the federal parties’ election platform shows (and parties in Ontario and Quebec, for example, haven’t addressed ethics issues any better recently).

Federal Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson is so ineffective that the media, not her, have revealed all of the ethics violations the public has learned about in the past five years.  She has also let many politicians off the hook for breaking ethics rules and has rejected more than 80 cases since 2007 with secret rulings that hide the details and reasons for her decisions.

“Canadians are justifiably outraged that politicians across Canada for the past 145 years have failed to pass strong, clear, transparent ethics rules that are well-enforced with mandatory high penalties, and that this failure has allowed dozens of politicians and public officials to be let off the hook when they have clearly violated the rules or done something that most people find unethical, including at least 50 federal Cabinet ministers in the past 20 years, and many other politicians just in the past month,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. “The committees reviewing ethics rules for the federal and Alberta governments must, finally, take a much-needed step forward and set a new national standard with strong reports calling for changes to close loopholes, clear up rules, strengthen transparency and enforcement, and increase penalties.”

“Dishonesty, unethical fundraising and unethical decision-making in politics are all legal across Canada, and Canadians are more likely to get caught parking their car illegally than politicians are likely to get caught violating key ethics rules, and the penalties for illegal parking are often higher than for being an unethical politician or government official,” said Duff Conacher.  “This dangerously undemocratic fiasco must finally be stopped with clear, strong rules and enforcement and penalties.”

The following more than 200 current and recent cases reveal all the problems with ethics rules and enforcement across Canada, and the changes needed to have, finally, effective rules and enforcement:

• the rampant, daily dishonesty in politics across Canada, which is the top voter turnoff, shows clearly that an honesty-in-politics law is needed to penalize misleaders;
• all of the federal cases mentioned below, as well as the cases of Peter MacKay (case 1 and case 2), and of former Liberal Cabinet minister Joe Fontana, former Prime Minister advisor Bruce Carson, and former Conservative MPs Rahim Jaffer and Helena Guergis, show how negligent Mary Dawson has been since she became federal Ethics Commissioner in July 2007 because all the cases were revealed by the media, not by her as she has failed to conduct audits of the activities and disclosures of federal Cabinet ministers, ministerial staff and advisors, Cabinet appointees and MPs – she and every other democratic good government watchdog must be required to conduct regular, random audits;
• the many cases in Quebec show how negligent provincial and municipal election, ethics, lobbying and auditing watchdog agencies have been for decades there;
• the cases of Nigel Wright and Andrew Cash show clearly that the huge “general application” loophole that is in all government ethics rules across Canada (except the rules for federal government employees) must be closed because the loophole means the rules do not apply to 99% of the decisions and actions of politicians, political staff and appointees, and it explicitly allows them to be involved in decisions even when they or their family members or friends have an interest in the outcome of the decision – a new rule prohibiting even being in an appearance of a conflict of interest must be passed;
• the cases of Toronto Mayor Rob Ford, former Ontario Liberal MP Chris Bentley, federal Liberal MPs Judy Sgro,  Wayne Easter, John Cannis and Andrew Telegdi, former federal Bloc Quebecois leader Gilles Duceppe, senators Mike Duffy, Pamela Wallin, Patrick Brazeau and Mac Harb all show that committees of politicians cannot properly enforce ethics rules because they are kangaroo courts that make decisions for political, not legal, reasons, often enforcing secret rules in behind-closed-door meetings with no public ruling — the federal Board of Internal Economy for the House of Commons and Senate should be disbanded and all the rules they and other committees enforce should be enforced by independent Officers of Parliament or by the courts, and the same change should be made in every government in Canada;
• the 80 secret rulings federal Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson has issued since 2007, any of which could be covering up a dangerously unethical situation, show clearly that all ethics enforcement agencies must be required to issue public rulings in every case;
• the case of Justin Trudeau, and the cases of all federal MPs who have accepted the gift of sponsored travel from lobbyists, shows clearly that huge loopholes must be closed in federal ethics rules, and the job description and minimum hours for politicians must be set out in detailed rules to make it clear what work they must do, and that if they do other work during their politician work time their pay must be reduced for those hours, and an online, searchable public registry must be created and MPs and senators required to disclose what work they’re doing when they are in Parliament or outside Parliament, including details about whether they are making money through other means while they should be in the House of Commons or Senate;
• the case of Alison Redford shows clearly that politicians must be prohibited from being involved in decisions if the interests (financial or otherwise) of their friends could be affected (federal MPs do not have this prohibition), and the word “friend” must be clearly defined (which it isn’t in federal rules);
• the ethics and other good governance cases of Prime Minister Harper, and Conservative ministers Peter MacKay, Lisa Raitt, Tony Clement (who also violated federal spending rules in the G8-G20 fiasco), and Bev Oda, and former Conservative Cabinet Minister John Duncan, and Conservative Parliamentary Secretary Rick Dykstra, and 25 Cabinet ministers, ministers of state and parliamentarians who along with 35 Conservative MPs handed out government cheques with Conservative Party logos on them, show clearly how negligent federal Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson has been in enforcing ethics rules because she either failed to find these people guilty for very questionable reasons, or failed to even investigate them – anyone must have the right to take any democratic good government watchdog to court if they fail to do their job properly (currently the federal Ethics Commissioner cannot be challenged in court even if she ignores the facts and the law in a ruling), and;
• the ethics cases of federal Conservative Minister Jim Flaherty and Conservative parliamentary secretaries Eve Adams and Colin Carrie and Paul Calandra, and Conservative minister Christian Paradis, show clearly how there is no penalty even when you clearly violate federal ethics rules, and why mandatory high penalties are needed (and the case of former New Brunswick Premier Shawn Graham shows how provincial penalties are also too weak).

Democracy Watch and the Government Ethics Coalition will continue pushing all governments across Canada until all of these needed changes, and more, are made to ensure honest, ethical politics.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch

Tel: 613-241-5179

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Democracy Watch’s Government Ethics Campaign