Link to Toronto Star article

 

Link to Edmonton Journal article

---

The following letter-to-the-editor by Democracy Watch Co-founder Duff Conacher was published on March 19, 2015 in the Globe and Mail

---

The article about the extension of Governor General David Johnston’s term to 2017 ignores some basic good governance principles (Harper extends Governor-General David Johnston’s term until 2017 – Mar 17).  No matter how qualified, nice or dedicated Mr. Johnston is, he was given his job by Prime Minister Harper who can take away his job at any time for any reason, and as a result he lacks independence.

The Governor General’s legal duties include the very important decisions about: which party or parties form the government after an election; whether a vote of non-confidence in the government has happened; whether a change in government or an election will happen, and; when Parliament can be shut down.  In other words, he is one of Canada’s key democracy watchdogs.

According to international best-practice standards, the Prime Minister should not select any government watchdogs alone.  Approval by opposition party leaders should be required or all leaders should together appoint a multi-member committee that conducts a public, merit-based search, and then submits a shortlist from which the Prime Minister (or all leaders together) must choose the watchdog.  Also, watchdogs should serve a fixed term during which they can only be fired for cause.

Also, all watchdogs should enforce clear, written rules.  The rules the Governor General currently enforces are unwritten, and therefore very unclear.

Recent surveys show that a majority of Canadians want the Governor General and provincial lieutenant governors chosen in a more democratic way, with clear, written rules to enforce (as the governors general in Australia, New Zealand, and the Queen in Britain, have).  Until these changes are made, we will unfortunately very likely see the Governor General continue to do whatever the Prime Minister wants no matter how questionable — as happened in 2008 and in other situations in the past several decades.

---

Democracy Watch’s Democratic Head Campaign

Link to CBC.ca article

CBC.ca Online record unavailable

Even more important to close this gap if powers are extended by Bill C-51 – Minister Tony Clement must initiate illegally overdue review of whistleblower protection law and strengthen it

NEWS RELEASE
Tuesday, March 17, 2015

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch released the letter it has sent to Prime Minister Harper and the federal Cabinet calling for key changes to ensure people who work within Canada’s spy agencies and military are required to be ethical and honest, and are protected if they blow the whistle on wrongdoing.

Currently, the federal whistleblower protection law exempts the Canadian Security Intelligence Service (CSIS), Canadian Security Establishment (CSE) and the Canadian Forces from the requirement to have an employee code of conduct, and does not protect people who work at these institutions if they blow the whistle on wrongdoing. In contrast, Security Intelligence Review Committee (SIRC) is required to have a code of conduct and people who work there are covered by the whistleblower protection law.

“Conduct codes and independent, effective whistleblower protection are essential to prevent abuses of power and it is extremely dangerous that Canada’s spy agencies and military are not required to have these key accountability measures,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch and Visiting Professor at the University of Ottawa. “Even if the federal government’s unconstitutional proposed Bill C-51 doesn’t become law, these measures are essential to increase the ethics and accountability of Canada’s spy agencies and military.”

Democracy Watch’s position is, as most experts have concluded, that proposed Bill C-51 is unconstitutional in its current form because it increases the police powers of CSIS in overly vague ways that include actions that violate Charter rights.  However, even if the federal government’s Bill C-51 does not become law, the code of conduct and whistleblower protection measures are essential to help ensure the ethics and accountability of Canada’s spy agencies and military.

The exemptions are buried in the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act (PSDPA), as follows:

• section 6 seems to require the chief executive of every federal “public sector” government institution to establish a code of conduct that at least matches the requirements in the Treasury Board’s Values and Ethics Code for the Public Sector;
• but the section 2 definition of “public sector” explicitly says CSIS, CSE and the Canadian Forces are not included in the public sector;
• then section 52 and 53 say CSIS, CSE and the Canadian Forces must have internal disclosure of wrongdoing processes, but people who use those processes can’t appeal to the independent Public Sector Integrity Commissioner because they are not covered by the PSDPA.

In addition, Democracy Watch called on the Cabinet to, finally, undertake the illegally overdue review of the Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, and to strengthen the PSDPA. Under section 54 of the PSDPA, Treasury Board minister Tony Clement was supposed to have an independent review of the PSDPA completed by now.

Democracy Watch calls on all federal political parties to make the following changes to the federal whistleblower protection system to make it effective:

1. all whistleblowers must be effectively protected from retaliation, including politicians, political staff, Cabinet appointees, all public servants, government suppliers and contractors, and members of the public;
2. whistleblowers must be allowed, in all cases, to file their complaint directly with the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner;
3. everyone who witnesses or receives evidence of wrongdoing by anyone in politics or government must be required to report it to the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner (with the Commissioner strictly and strongly required to keep their identity secret, and people allowed to submit evidence anonymously);
4. the identity of anyone in government or politics found guilty of wrongdoing must be made public in all cases;
5. the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner must be clearly designated as the trainer (including by issuing interpretation bulletins), investigator and enforcer of all Treasury Board manual or equivalent policies (other than the policies enforced by the Auditor General) and must be required to conduct training sessions, conduct regular random audits of compliance and to investigate complaints about violations of these policies;
6. when the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner refers a whistleblower complaint about the violation of another law, regulation or policy for which a designated investigative and enforcement agency exists, the Commissioner must be required to ensure that the agency investigates the complaint within 90 days, and if an investigation does not begin within this time period the Commissioner must be required to investigate the complaint;
7. the law must require employers to prove that no retaliation against a whistleblower has taken place (as opposed to requiring the whistleblower to prove that retaliation has occurred);
8. the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner must be given the power to order chief executives/heads of departments to take corrective action, and chief executives/heads must be required to report to the Commissioner on corrective actions taken;
9. the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner must be given the power to penalize any chief executive/head with a fine, suspension or firing if the chief executive does not comply with the commissioner’s order, or if anyone retaliates against a whistleblower or does not maintain a system that complies with the law;
10. the minimum fine for taking a reprisal against a whistleblower must be increased to $50,000, with a maximum range of fines from $100,000 to $200,000;
11. whistleblowers must receive adequate funding for legal advice;
12. whistleblowers must receive compensation from the government general revenue fund adequate to seek another job (at least 6 months salary) if they want to (for example, if the whistleblowing process leaves them completely alienated from all their co-workers) and/or priority in switching jobs in the federal public service;
13. any person nominated and chosen to be the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner must be required to have legal experience enforcing ethics rules or laws to ensure proper enforcement of whistleblower protection measures, and must not be eligible for a renewal of their fixed term in office (to ensure that the Commissioner does not act as a lapdog to Cabinet to try to get re-appointed for a second term), and;
14. at least every 3 years, it must be required that an independent audit (by the Auditor General or other independent body) of the entire whistleblower protection system be conducted.

– 30 –

FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: 613-241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443

---

Democracy Watch’s Open Government Campaign

---

The following letter by Democracy Watch Co-founder Duff Conacher was published in the March 9, 2015 edition of the Hill Times

---

Unfortunately Joseph Heath proves his own thesis that irrationality dominates politics these days with his claims that Canada’s parliamentary institutions “have been entirely evacuated of all of their democratic content. No one’s listening at committees, no one’s paying attention in the House of Commons, no genuine debate is occurring” and that these institutions “seem so hopelessly degraded that it’s difficult to see how they could possibly be improved” (Politicians ‘breaking democracy,’ need a new enlightenment to save politics, says author Heath – Hill Times, March 2, 2015).

In the same issue the recent passage of the Reform Act by the House of Commons is highlighted — a bill that makes one improvement by somewhat removing one power party leaders have over MPs in their party (and, depending on what MPs do now, will lead to more improvements that free and empower MPs in key ways).  The Reform Act was amended both after genuine House debates, and by a House committee — one of many bills to be debated genuinely and amended in the past year alone (along with changes to several government programs).

So there is hope, and that is why Democracy Watch will keep pushing for improvements to political institutions it has advocated for more than a decade, improvements that surveys over the past 20 years show again and again most Canadians want: an honesty-in-politics law covering everyone involved in politics with high penalties for misleaders; a law requiring meaningful public consultation by government institutions before any significant decision is made; stronger ethics laws to reduce favour-trading that corrupts decision-making processes; stronger laws reducing the powers of the Prime Minister and premiers and all party leaders so that MPs can more freely speak truth to power; stronger open government and whistleblower protection laws so everyone can know the evidence behind government decisions and can also speak truth to power, and; changes to voting systems across Canada to ensure voters are represented more accurately in legislatures (which will also open up political decision-making to more voices).

These proposals are, in part, based on international best-practice standards set out in documents such as the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, the research of psychologist Robert Cialdini set out in his 1984 book Influence: The Psychology of Persuasion, and on Dan Gardner’s 2007 book Risk: The Politics of Fear.

As Democracy Watch has pointed out for more than a decade, we have government institutions already in Canada that use more rational, deliberative, transparent and ethical government decision-making processes — they’re called courts.  The more we can change the rules of political decision-making to require processes that match the courts’ requirements for honesty, ethics and openness, the more we will have rational policy-making.

Of course, given that politicians are elected, unlike judges they have to take into account how representative their decisions are and what voters want (even in cases when what voters want is not based on facts or fully rational assessments).  However, if the measures proposed above were implemented, at least policy-making discussions and debates would be effectively required to be much more rational than they currently are.

---

Democracy Watch’s Campaigns

Link to National Post article

Link to Hill Times article

Link to CBC.ca article