Many recent scandals show the current system is not preventing politicians from using taxpayer money to pay their personal or political party costs

November 30, 2012

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch launched a national letter-writing and petition drive calling on politicians across Canada to pass laws to strengthen politician spending rules and require Auditor Generals to audit all politicians for fraudulent spending to prevent politicians from using taxpayer money to pay their personal or political party costs.

“Recent spending scandals involving federal politicians have revealed loopholes and shown clearly that the current system is not preventing misspending, and past audits of politicians in some provinces have shown that audits catch wrongdoers,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. “The spending loopholes must be closed and auditor generals across Canada required to audit all politician spending regularly to prevent politicians from using taxpayers’ money to pay their personal or political party costs.”

Recent spending scandals involve 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.

These federal politicians were caught by chance. In contrast, many politicians from many political parties were caught misspending or stealing public funds through comprehensive audits by the auditor generals in England, Newfoundland and Labrador, and Nova Scotia leading to politicians being forced to resign, charged, and found guilty of abusing their access to taxpayers’ money.

The enforcement of spending rules is also far from transparent in some jurisdictions, such as federally where cases are examined in secret, behind closed doors, by the Board of Internal Economy which is made up of politicians from all parties who protect themselves and their party members instead of enforcing the rules and ensuring that taxpayer money is not spent inappropriately.

These scandals and weak enforcement systems clearly show that the laws and enforcement of politician spending must be strengthened to ensure all politicians follow the rules at all times.

Democracy Watch’s letter-writing and petition drive makes it easy for all Canadians to send a letter to key politicians across Canada calling for the following key changes to strengthen rules and auditing of politician spending across Canada to ensure they are not using taxpayers’ money to pay their personal or political party costs:

1. require all politicians, their offices and staff people to submit actual, detailed receipts and information showing the number and identity of people at any event, what exactly was purchased, by whom exactly, for what use, and at what price, for all expenses claimed;
2. require all politicians, their offices and staff people, before making significant purchases, to check early on with the federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General’s office to ensure that what is being bought, and the proposed spending process, comply with spending rules;
3. require the federal, provincial and territorial Auditor General to regularly audit spending by all politicians, their office, and their staff;
4. require that all investigations of politician spending be conducted by an federal, provincial or territorial Auditor General who is fully independent from Cabinet, and fully empowered and required to investigate all alleged violations of rules, and give all the Auditor Generals the power to penalize violators and to order a correction of any wrongdoing;
5. require the federal, provincial and territorial Auditor General to rule publicly on every complaint and situation in which there is reasonable evidence of wrongdoing, and;
6. require the federal, provincial and territorial Auditor General to release the findings of their investigations as soon as they are completed regardless of whether parliament is in session.

Democracy Watch will continue pushing, and helping Canadians push, until politicians across Canada make these key changes to prevent politician misspending and fraudulent spending of any kind.

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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

For more details, go to Democracy Watch’s Voter Rights Campaign page

Calls are growing for an investigation into Intergovernmental Affairs Minister Peter Penashue’s family and business ties to a multi-billion dollar project in his home riding of Labrador.

Federal Liberals and NDP have introduced anti- false robocall bills, as have Alberta Conservatives – Federal Conservatives continue to break promise to introduce government bill banning false robocalls, and other provincial government also fail to take action

Friday, November 23, 2012

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch called on the federal Conservatives to introduce the bill to ban false election robocalls and strengthen election law enforcement that they promised to introduce by the end of September under a resolution passed unanimously last March by federal politicians.

Democracy Watch’s national letter-writing and petition drive has resulted in more than 56,000 messages being sent to politicians across Canada calling on them to pass effective laws to stop election fraud robocalls, and to strengthen enforcement of election laws.

To their credit, the federal Liberals introduced private member Bill C-424 last May to increase fines for false robocalls and other fraudulent attempts to sway voters from $2,000-$5,000 up to $20,000 to $50,000. The Conservatives rejected Bill C-424 on Wednesday (Nov. 21).

Also to their credit, the federal NDP introduced private member Bill C-453 on October 17th, sponsored by Democratic Reform Critic MP Craig Scott, that would, if enacted, make changes to prohibit false robocalls during federal elections and strengthen enforcement in ways that match most of Democracy Watch’s recommended changes.

The Alberta Conservative government has also introduced Bill 7 which, among other changes, requires the sponsor of any robocall to clearly identify themselves and their contact phone number and political party affiliation in the call.

In contrast, the federal Conservatives continue to fail to introduce their promised bill.

“Canadians have heard the federal Conservatives talk the talk about concerns over false election robocalls and weak enforcement of election laws, but the Conservatives continue to fail to walk the walk and introduce a bill to ban false robocalls and strengthen enforcement,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator for Democracy Watch. “Clearly the Conservatives and politicians in the provinces and territories need to be pushed and so Democracy Watch will continue its letter-writing drive that makes it easy for people across the country to call on key politicians across Canada to make the changes needed to clean up and ensure our elections are fair.”

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 provincial elections

Measures to make false robocalls illegal and essentially impossible will help, but there are also enforcement problems. Elections Canada is investigating the false robocalls from the 2011 federal election, but there are serious questions about its enforcement.

Elections Canada has failed to disclose the rulings it has made on more than 2,000 complaints it received from 1997 to 2010, and more than 1,000 complaints it received during the 2011 federal election. It has also 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

For more details, go to Democracy Watch’s Voter Rights Campaign page

Refusal to disclose past rulings illegal, and raises question of whether Chief Electoral Officer will keep commitment to disclose rulings on more than 1,300 robocall complaints – full public inquiry needed

More than 44,000 messages have been sent by Canadians through Democracy Watch’s letter-writing drive calling for disclosure of election complaint rulings, and other fair election enforcement measures

Monday, November 19, 2012

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch released Elections Canada’s preliminary refusal and final refusal to disclose its rulings on more than 3,000 complaints filed by Canadians in the past 15 years, which Democracy Watch requested under the federal Access to Information Act initially last March.

Elections Canada’s main reason for refusing to disclose the rulings is that the rulings could make the Commissioner of Elections look bad – which is a bizarre reason given that Elections Canada has sent a ruling letter to each of the complainants, and all Democracy Watch has requested are copies of those already public letters.

By deciding to keep its complete past record of enforcement of the Canada Elections Act secret, Elections Canada also raises serious doubts about whether it will actually disclose the rulings the Commissioner makes after investigating the 1,300 robocall complaints filed during and after the 2011 election.  It is completely contradictory and hypocritical for Elections Canada to commit to disclosing its rulings on every robocall complaint while at the same time refusing to disclose its rulings on past complaints.

More than 44,000 messages have been sent by Canadians to key politicians through Democracy Watch’s national letter-writing drive calling for clear requirements to disclose election complaint rulings, and for passage of other fair election and strong enforcement measures.

“Elections Canada raises serious questions about its commitment to transparency and accountability by refusing to disclose its rulings on more than 2,000 complaints filed during elections since 1997, on an unknown number of complaints filed in-between elections since 1997, and on more than 1,000 complaints filed during the 2011 election, even though the Access to Information Act allows the rulings to be disclosed, even though the Canada Elections Act requires that most of the rulings be disclosed, and even though the rulings have been publicly  disclosed in letters to almost all the complainants over the past 15 years”  said Democracy Watch Coordinator Tyler Sommers.  “This is more evidence that a full public inquiry is needed into how Elections Canada has been enforcing the law for the past several elections, because if it is allowed to keep its rulings secret it can hide a biased, unfair or ineffective enforcement record.”

Democracy Watch will continue to seek the information from Elections Canada as the public has a clear right to see the rulings that any law enforcement agency makes on any complaint.  If this information is kept secret, it is a recipe for abuse and corruption as it can allow any agency to hide a biased, unfair, discriminatory, ineffective or otherwise improper enforcement record.

Last March, Democracy Watch submitted an access to information request about a total of 2,982 complaints people have filed during elections since 1997, requesting the ruling letters Elections Canada has sent to the complainants.  Democracy Watch also requested the ruling letters Elections Canada has sent to an unknown number of people who filed complaints in-between elections (the total is unknown because Elections Canada does not disclose any information about complaints it receives in-between elections).

Democracy Watch was seeking the rulings on complaints about possible violations of the Canada Elections Act over the past 15 years, with the personal information removed, in order to determine whether Elections Canada has been fairly, properly, and effectively enforcing the Canada Elections Act since 1997.  Democracy Watch has serious questions about the effectiveness of Elections Canada’s enforcement given a very questionable ruling Elections Canada made in July (the complainant sent the ruling to Democracy Watch).

In a preliminary letter and then final letter responding to Democracy Watch’s Access to Information request, Elections Canada invoked a blanket exemption in the Access to Information Act, section 16.3 (SEE below) which allows the Chief Electoral officer to refuse any record that contains information “created by or on behalf of a person who conducts an investigation, examination or review in the performance of their functions under the Canada Elections Act.”  In using this exemption, Elections Canada stated that the reason was:

… there is a very [real] risk that if all the responses to complainants were released, precisely because they are drafted in a summary way and because they do not provide the full background to any decision, erroneous or wrong conclusions could be drawn with respect to particular cases or to classes of cases, which could negatively affect the Commissioner in the discharge of his mandate.

This, as with the other excuses Elections Canada is using to refuse to disclose its past rulings, is an invalid concern.  Democracy Watch was only requesting the final ruling letter sent to each complainant, not information about the investigations, examinations or reviews of the complaints.  As well, if all past rulings have been legally correct and proper, Elections Canada will have no difficulty at all convincing the public that it has been fairly, properly, and effectively enforcing the Canada Elections Act.

In addition, section 16.3 of the Access to Information Act is restricted by section 541.(1) of the Canada Elections Act (SEE sections set out below) which explicitly states that correspondence and other reports of this nature, specifically “all decisions or rulings” by the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) “are public records and may be inspected by any person on request during business hours.”  It is very likely that most of the complaints were ruled on by the CEO as most would be about minor disputes and problems that would not have been referred to the Commissioner of Canada Elections for investigation and/or possible prosecution.

Also, Elections Canada has sent a letter with its ruling to each complainant, so it has already made each ruling public, and in doing so it has made it clear that it is comfortable with members of the public seeing the rulings.

Elections Canada is also trying to use the excuse that the ruling letters contain private personal information (such as the name of the complainant) – but Democracy Watch made it clear in its request that it was fine with that information being kept secret and redacted from the rulings.

Democracy Watch will continue to push Elections Canada to disclose all its past rulings since 1997 to ensure the public has the evidence it needs to determine whether Elections Canada’s enforcement record over the past 15 years has been fair and effective.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
[email protected]

Democracy Watch’s Voter’s Rights Campaign

16.3 Access to Information Act

Subject to section 541 of the Canada Elections Act, the Chief Electoral Officer may refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains information that was obtained or created by or on behalf of a person who conducts an investigation, examination or review in the performance of their functions under the Canada Elections Act.

541.(1) Canada Elections Act:

Inspection of instructions, correspondence and other reports

541.(1) All documents referred to in section 403.35, 424, 429, 435.3, 435.35, 451, 455, 478.23 or 478.3, all other reports or statements, other than election documents received from election officers, all instructions issued by the Chief Electoral Officer under this Act, all decisions or rulings by him or her on points arising under this Act and all correspondence with election officers or others in relation to an election are public records and may be inspected by any person on request during business hours.

19.(1) Access to Information Act

Subject to subsection (2), the head of a government institution shall refuse to disclose any record requested under this Act that contains personal information as defined by section 3 of the Privacy Act.