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Set out below is an op-ed by Democracy Watch Board Member Duff Conacher which was published in Edmonton Sun on October 4, 2012 and the Globe and Mail on October 5, 2012

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While all Canadian politicians should have more resources and do more to hold the government and Cabinet ministers accountable, especially on spending issues, their power to make rulings and penalize ministers and others should be taken away because they almost always make  decisions based on politics and party lines, instead of principles and facts.

Ontario Liberal Cabinet minister Chris Bentley is facing the likelihood of being found in contempt by the provincial legislature because opposition parties have a majority of seats — there is no way he would have faced such a ruling if the Liberals had a majority.

The power of the Speaker of the legislature to make such rulings should also be taken away because the Speaker is also a partisan politician.

The best way to ensure honesty, transparency and respect by all politicians is to pass an honesty-in-politics law, close loopholes in open government laws, increase the standards of behaviour required in the legislature, and have all complaints referred to the independent agencies that watch over integrity and open government.

The commissioners who head these agencies do need to be made more independent by requiring approval of appointments from all party leaders, and in some cases more accountable by ensuring all their rulings can be appealed to the courts if the make a factual or legal error, but other than that they have much more fair investigation and ruling processes than politicians do.

Making these changes would result in more democratic good government across Canada.

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For more details, go to Democracy Watch’s Government Ethics Campaign

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Set out below is an op-ed by Democracy Watch Board Member Duff Conacher which was published in Rabble.ca on October 2, 2012 and the Hill Times on October 8, 2012

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Bruce Carson, former senior advisor to Prime Minister Harper, is in court charged with the crime of taking payment from a client while promising he could win a decision from the federal government (known as influence peddling).

So why did prosecutors decide not to prosecute Carson for failing to register and disclose his lobbying activities under the federal Lobbying Act?  Likely because Carson, and his client, have both claimed that he was not paid to lobby, only for advice.  Only people who are paid to lobby are required to register under the Act.

Treasury Board minister Tony Clement recently announced the changes the federal Conservatives plan to make to the Lobbying Act, and both he and all MPs on the House of Commons committee that recommended changes to the Act ignored the loophole exploited by Carson (the same loophole Rahim Jaffer exploited).

As long as unpaid lobbyists are not required to register, no lobbyist will ever be prosecuted for violating the Lobbying Act because all they have to do when caught lobbying without registering is claim, as Carson and Jaffer did, that they were not paid for the lobbying they did.

Also as long as this loophole is left open, there will be no five-year ban on federal Cabinet ministers, the Leader of the Opposition, their senior staff and senior government officials lobbying the federal government after they leave their position.

All of them will continue to be allowed to lobby the government the day after they leave, in secret without registering, as long as they are not paid to do the lobbying and are careful whom they lobby. And because they are not required to register this lobbying, they are also not required to follow the ethics rules in the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct.

As well, both the House Committee and Minister Clement ignored the loopholes that allow for secret lobbying if a lobbyist is lobbying about the enforcement, interpretation or application of laws and regulations (which is a huge area of lobbying, especially for big businesses), and that allow for secret emails, texts, phone calls and even meetings between lobbyists and Cabinet ministers and senior government officials as long as the minister or official initiates the communication or meeting (which they do whenever they want to have secret, unethical relations with a lobbyist — only oral, pre-arranged communications initiated by the lobbyist are currently required to be disclosed).

In other words, even if the Conservatives make the changes proposed by the House Committee and Tony Clement, secret, unethical lobbying by the most powerful former politicians, staff and government officials, and by many other lobbyists, will still be legal.

The Conservatives promised during the 2006 election to end secret lobbying of the federal government.  They continue to break that promise.

As well, the seven provinces that have a lobbying disclosure law have the same loopholes in their laws that allow for secret, unethical lobbying, and the three provinces and two territories that do not have a lobbying law obviously also allow secret, unethical lobbying.

Only the City of Toronto’s by-law requires unpaid lobbyists to register and disclose their lobbying activities (although the by-law has other loopholes such as not requiring non-profit organizations to register).

Given that secrecy in government is a recipe for corruption, waste and abuse of the public, Canadians deserve better from all their governments.  All lobbying must be disclosed, no matter who is lobbying, for how long, on whatever issue, and whether or not they are paid.

If this is not required across the country, all Canadians should continue to expect to see more cases like Bruce Carson and Rahim Jaffer, as government decision-making processes continue to be corrupted by secret, unethical lobbying.

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For more details, go to Democracy Watch’s Government Ethics Campaign

Set out below is a letter-to-the-editor by Democracy Watch board member Duff Conacher published in the Hill Times on October 1, 2012

Gerry Nicholls claims that the current federal donation limit is $1,200, and that this limit must be eliminated or increased before the Liberals and NDP could hope to raise as much money as the Conservatives (Tory Party spending is not the problem – Hill Times, Sept. 24).

He also claims that restricting spending in between elections by parties, and non-political parties (so-called “third parties) is a bad idea.

In fact, individuals are limited to donating $1,200 annually to each party, but are also allowed to donate another $1,200 combined total to the riding associations of each party (and, during an election period, another $1,200 combined total to the election candidates of each party).

And anyone or organization can also still loan an unlimited amount to an election candidate (a loophole that must be closed immediately by limiting loans to individuals, and to the same amount as donations are limited).

Given that the current average donation is in the low hundreds, and given the average annual income of Canadians is only about $40,000, the democratic move is to decrease the donation limit, not increase it.

If the Liberals and NDP want to raise more money, the democratic solution is simple, do more for more people so that more people will donate.

And if and when an actual fixed-election-date law is passed by Parliament, as part of that law it will be democratic to restrict spending by parties and third parties for a few months leading up to the fixed election date (to the extent that is possible, as an unexpected election could still occur if a vote of non-confidence happens).

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For more details, go to Democracy Watch’s Money in Politics Campaign

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Set out below is a letter-to-the-editor by Democracy Watch Board Member Duff Conacher which was published in the Hill Times on September 24, 2012

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Re: “Money talks … about Grit leadership race,” (The Hill Times, Sept. 17, p. 10, by Gerry Nicholls). As he has in the past, Gerry Nicholls claims that, “The real problem is Canada’s overly-restrictive campaign finance laws which make it nearly impossible to raise the resources needed to run for high political office.”

Of course, he doesn’t cite any evidence to back this claim, because there is no evidence.

Canada’s campaign finance law only makes it nearly impossible for people who are not supported by many people to raise the resources needed to run for office.

Which is exactly how it should be in any country that calls itself a democracy.

I say nearly impossible because Canada’s campaign finance law still has a huge loophole in it that federal politicians have continued to fail to close for the past three years—a loophole that allows for unlimited loans to candidates and allows candidates to have the resources to run a successful leadership campaign with the support of only a couple of people.

No one knows for sure how much funding is needed to have a chance of success running for the leadership of a national party, especially today with the internet as a very, very low-cost way of reaching many people (and robocalls as another very low cost way). But let’s assume $1-million is needed (which I think is a reasonable estimate).

Only donations from individuals are allowed, and the federal donation limit is $1,200 to all the candidates in any federal party’s leadership race. Some people may choose to donate to two candidates, so they would only be allowed to donate $600 to each candidate (or some other combination of donations that adds up to $1,200). It is key to remember that donors get about 50 per cent of their donation back as a tax credit.

Assuming $1-million is needed for a campaign that has a chance of success, a candidate who hopes to be successful has to convince only 833 people out of the 26.4 million Canadians who are older than 19 (i.e. 0.0032 per cent of all those people) to give the maximum $1,200 to him/her, or 1,666 people (0.0064 per cent) to give $600 each (or 3,312 people (0.013 per cent) to give $300 each etc.).

So here’s a simple question for anyone thinking of running for leadership of the Liberals or any other national party to ask themselves. Do I have the strong support of at least 0.0032 per cent to 0.013 per cent of adult Canadians, strong enough for them to donate to me?

If not, better think hard about whether you should run (because you likely won’t, and should not, win), and if you do run better severely restrict your spending so you don’t end up in with a debt you can’t pay off.

Several candidates from the 2006 Liberal leadership race have such debts because they simply failed to ask themselves this question.

While the donation limit was decreased during that race, they still should have known that they were spending way more than they would ever be able to raise. And, as a result, Elections Canada should, and hopefully will, soon prosecute them for failing to pay off their debts in the past six years.

And also hopefully the federal political finance system will be made even more democratic very soon by prohibiting loans to candidates from anyone but individuals, limiting loans to the same level of donations, and closing the loopholes that currently allow for secret, unlimited donations to nomination race and party leadership candidates who are not MPs.

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For more details, go to Democracy Watch’s Money in Politics Campaign

Friday, September 21, 2012

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch launched a national letter-writing and petition drive on Change.org calling for politicians across Canada to pass effective laws to stop election fraud robocalls, and to strengthen enforcement of election laws.

“Canadians have heard lots of talk from politicians saying they are concerned about false election robocalls and enforcement of election laws, but it is clear politicians need to be pushed and so we are making it easy for people across the country to add their voice to the call for politicians across Canada to make the changes needed to clean up and ensure our elections are fair,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator for Democracy Watch.

False robocalls were received by tens of thousands of voters in more than 230 ridings during the spring 2011 federal election, and were also used to mislead voters in some recent provincial elections.

Last March, federal politicians unanimously supported Democracy Watch’s proposal to pass a law quickly to stop false election robocalls, and the NDP’s motion to do this set a deadline for this fall for the federal Conservative government to introduce the changes.

Measures to make false robocalls illegal and essentially impossible will help, but there are also enforcement problems.

Elections Canada has failed to disclose the rulings it has made on more than 3,000 complaints it has received since 1997, and has recently made some very questionable rulings.  Elections Canada must be required to disclose every ruling it makes to ensure that it proves it is enforcing the law fairly and properly (and election agencies across Canada must also be required to disclose all their rulings).

Democracy Watch is calling on Canadians to send a letter and to sign the petition that both call not only on federal politicians to introduce and pass a law to stop false election robocalls and strengthen enforcement, but also for politicians in every province and territory to pass similar laws that apply to their provincial, territorial and municipal elections.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch

Tel: 613-241-5179

Email: [email protected]

Internet: http://democracywatch.ca

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