Set out below is a letter-to-the-editor by Democracy Watch Board Member Duff Conacher which was published in the Globe and Mail May 15, 2012

Many of the federal officers of Parliament who are supposed to enforce key democracy and good government laws are unfortunately lapdogs in important ways (Watchdogs of Parliament forge closer ties – May 12).

The ruling party chooses them and, in a majority government, can appoint whomever they want (opposition party leaders are consulted, but have no power to stop any appointment).

All of the laws they enforce have loopholes that allow for dishonesty, conflicts of interest and other unethical activities, excessive secrecy, and waste of the public’s money.

None of the officers can penalize anyone who violates the key rules they enforce — they can bark by issuing reports, but can’t bite.

And, unfortunately, some of them are unaccountable themselves — it is illegal to challenge a ruling of the Ethics Commissioner or Commissioner of Lobbying in court no matter how incorrect their ruling is.

All of the laws for the officers are being reviewed by Parliament this year.  Hopefully, they will finally be made into watchdogs who can hold politicians and public servants accountable, and can be held accountable themselves when they fail to do their jobs properly.

For more details, go to Democracy Watch’s Clean Up the System page

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Sorry, this entry is only available in Français.

Sorry, this entry is only available in Français.

Set out below is a letter-to-the-editor by Democracy Watch Coordinator Tyler Sommers which was published in the Edmonton Journal April 30, 2012

The spending scandals involving federal Conservative Cabinet minister Bev Oda, and the Montreal Port Authority, and the Department of National Defence, along with recent past scandals such as the G8 conference slush fund and similar scandals in provinces, show the clear need for stronger rules, and stronger enforcement.

No one in any Canadian government or quasi-government institution should be allowed to spend the public’s money on anything unless they are paying a reasonable cost (all luxury purchases prohibited) and where fitting have held a competition to ensure the best price is obtained.

No one should be allowed to spend significant amounts without checking early on with the Auditor General’s office that what is being bought, and the proposed spending process, comply with these stricter spending rules.

And because some people in government will continue to try to rig spending processes to favour themselves or friends or interest groups they support, the Auditor General must also be given the power, and required, to penalize people who break the rules with high fines.

In other words, government spending rules must be as strict, and strongly enforced, with as high as penalties, as most of the laws are that politicians and bureaucrats have imposed on Canadians.

As the old saying goes, what’s good for the goose is good for the gander.

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

To see related Calgary Sun article, click here

Voting system, failure of Elections Alberta to inform voters of right to decline their ballot likely reasons for turnout

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch called for democratic changes to Alberta’s political system in response to the clear crisis of low voter turnout in the provincial election, despite the heated battle between the Progressive Conservatives and the new Wildrose Party.  Initial results show that the Alberta Progressive Conservatives have won 61 of 87 (70%) seats with the support of only 25% of eligible voters (of the 57% of eligible voters who cast ballots, 44% did so for the PCs).

“With only 57% of eligible voters casting ballots, only slightly more than half of Alberta’s eligible voters, alarm bells should be going off and questions raised about the legitimacy of the provincial government,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator for Democracy Watch.  “Changes need to be made to increase voter turnout, Elections Alberta needs to inform Albertans of their right to decline their ballot, donation limits must be tightened so that corporations cannot buy a voice, and parties need to end undemocratic elections and government.”

In addition to Elections Alberta properly educating voters about their right to decline their ballot, some of the most important changes Alberta’s parties can make to increase voter turnout are as follows:

• pass an honesty-in-politics law that gives voters an easy, low-cost way to file complaints to the Integrity Commissioner, and gives the Commissioner the power to penalize misleaders (and requires MLAs who switch parties in-between elections to resign and run in a by-election);
• change the voting system so that the percentage of MLAs each party receives more closely matches the popular vote percentages.

In addition, if the parties strengthened and/or created provincial ethics, political finance, lobbying, open government, and whistleblower protection laws, voters would have more reason to vote because they would be more assured of good government no matter which party won.

“While the increase from the last election is good to see, it’s unlikely that it will be maintained. More and more voters know from their experience of the past few decades of elections that they are not going to get what they vote for, and are likely to get dishonest, secretive, unrepresentative, and wasteful governments no matter who they vote for, and as a result no one should be surprised to see voter turnout at such low levels. To buck this trend and increase citizen engagement, significant changes need to be made” said Sommers.

These problems exist in all the provinces and territories across Canada.  All of these changes should be made by the federal and provincial and territorial governments, and for their municipalities, before either mandatory or Internet voting are tried (because both of those have likely serious negative effects).

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

Democracy Watch’s Voter Rights Campaign

Will the Conservatives uphold good government principles by finally establishing the PAC, or will they continue their undemocratic, unethical bad government patronage and cronyism?

Thursday, April 19, 2012

OTTAWA — Today, Democracy Watch called on the federal Conservatives to finally keep their 2006 and 2008 election promises to: “Establish a Public Appointments Commission to set merit-based requirements for appointments to government boards, commissions, and agencies, to ensure that competitions for posts are widely publicized and fairly conducted.”

In the recent federal budget, the federal Conservatives finally ended the sham they have maintained for the past five years by cutting the $1 million annually that was supposedly being used by a secretariat of the non-existent Commission.

The Conservatives also made the false claim in the budget that their government ” has significantly strengthened the rigour and accessibility of the public appointments system over the past five years.”  This is not surprising, as the Conservatives have been consistently misleading about the Commission, including when they claimed (archive website) in April 2006 that the opposition parties opposed the creation of the Commission.  In fact, the opposition parties opposed the creation of a lapdog commission (the Conservatives’ did not initially propose an independent commission with power to end patronage and cronyism) and a lapdog head commissioner (the Conservatives initially proposed Conservative donor and Harper leadership supporter Gwyn Morgan as the first head commissioner, and he would have likely done very little to challenge any Harper Cabinet appointment).

“The federal Conservatives have lied again and again about establishing an independent public appointments commission to help end patronage, and have proven themselves to be just as bad as past political parties at rewarding friends and cronies with appointments, and at appointing lapdogs, to key good government and law enforcement agencies,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.  “By continuing to practise undemocratic, unethical politics as usual, the Conservatives continue to damage Canada’s democracy in dangerous ways.”

The Conservatives have appointed hundreds of their friends and supporters to agencies, boards, commissions, tribunals (many of them key law enforcement agencies), as well as the Senate, just like the Liberals did in the past and other parties have in various provinces (because patronage and cronyism is a problem across Canada).

The Conservatives have also failed to appoint anyone from outside the federal government to head up any good government watchdog agency, and three of their appointments (former disgraced Integrity Commissioner Christiane Ouimet (archive webiste), Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson (archive webiste), and Commissioner of Lobbying Karen Shepherd (archive website)) have all failed in more than 100 cases to enforce key good government and ethics laws and rules effectively.

Until a fully independent, fully empowered Public Appointments Commission is established for the federal government, and in every jurisdiction in Canada, the unethical, undemocratic and bad government practice of appointing ruling party supporters will continue.

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179

Democracy Watch’s Voter Rights Campaign

For a related Huffington Post article click here

News Release

Federal politicians continue to fail to require disclosure of key information to ensure the Canada Elections Act is enforced fairly and effectively

Monday, April 16, 2012

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch released its analysis of Elections Canada’s enforcement of the Canada Elections Act since 1997, revealing that the main problem is no one can tell whether Elections Canada has been enforcing the law fairly and properly because it has failed to disclose details of how it has investigated and ruled on 2,982 of the 5,018 complaints it has received about federal elections in the past 15 years.

All federal politicians who have served on the committees that have, at least once each year since 1997, questioned the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada have been negligent by failing to notice and question this huge gap in Elections Canada’s reports.

“Politicians from every federal party, and the Chief Electoral Officer, have all said that it’s very important for Canadians to have faith in the fairness of their federal elections but Elections Canada continues to hide details about its investigations and rulings on almost 3,000 complaints it has received since 1997, and MPs continue to fail to demand this information from Elections Canada,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.  “Without this information no one can tell whether Elections Canada  enforces the federal election law fairly and effectively.”

“Federal MPs have to stop being so negligent and start demanding regular, detailed reports about what all the key federal good government watchdogs are doing, and not doing,” said Sommers.

On March 12th, the House of Commons unanimously passed a resolution (archive website) committing the federal government to introduce and pass a bill to enhance the Chief Electoral Officer’s investigative power and to restrict robocalls, and on March 29th the Chief Electoral Officer testified before a House committee.  However, on both occasions MPs failed to require Elections Canada to disclose publicly the results and findings and rulings for each decision made on each past complaint.

Elections Canada head Marc Mayrand took a small step toward much-needed transparency when he disclosed at the House committee hearing that, in fact, a total of 800 complaints were filed by voters about false phone calls during the 2011 federal election from 200 ridings, and that 250 investigations have been initiated.

However, Mr. Mayrand continued to keep secret its rulings on 1,003 other complaints filed with Elections Canada by voters during the 2011 election, and on 1,979 other complaints that Elections Canada received during the 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006 and 2008 elections (as well as an unknown number of complaints filed in between elections since 1997).

The details of Democracy Watch’s analysis of Elections Canada’s reports on the 1997, 2000, 2004, 2006, 2008 and 2011 elections are as follows:

• Overall, 5,018 complaints were received by Elections Canada during election periods since 1997, and Elections Canada provides at least a summary in its post-election reports of how 2,026 complaints were resolved (1,874 of these were summarized in Elections Canada’s report on the 2011 election (all resolved without major problems), 108 are described on its Compliance Agreements webpage, and 44 on its Sentencing Digest webpage);
• Note that since 1997 Elections Canada has only required a compliance action in 108 cases (47 of which were in 2002), and has only won sentences in 44 cases (only 15 of which have been won since 2004) — this could indicate a very weak investigation and enforcement record, or that most complaints are not serious;
• Elections Canada’s enforcement record is currently unknowable because it continues to keep secret details about how and when it resolved 2,982 of the complaints it received during elections since 1997;
• Note that it is likely that Elections Canada has received many other complaints about which it has never issued public reports or rulings, as the above totals are only about election-related complaints (Elections Canada does not issue an annual report on enforcement of the Canada Elections Act);
• Elections Canada’s report on the 1997 Election (Investigations section) stated that 257 complaints had been brought to the attention of Commissioner and investigations were underway;
• Elections Canada’s report on the 2000 Election (Enforcement section) stated that 382 complaints had been brought to the attention of the Commissioner, with 251 resolved, and 131 remaining open;
• Elections Canada’s report on the 2004 Election (Enforcement Section) stated 511 complaints had been brought to the attention of the Commissioner, with 419 resolved, and 92 remaining open;
• Its May 2006 report on the 2006 election (section 4.2.4 Electoral Law Enforcement) stated that 329 complaints had been received, 231 had been resolved, and 98 remained open;
• However, Elections Canada provided no details in either the 2004 or 2006 report about any of the complaints, whether resolved or still open;
• In both its 2004 and 2006 reports (in the sections cited above), Elections Canada claims that: “As the cases progress, updated statistics on complaints, investigations and prosecutions appear in the Chief Electoral Officer’s periodic reports and publications, as well as on the Elections Canada Web site”.  No updated statistics have appeared in any of the CEO’s reports or publications, nor on its website.
• In its February 2009 report on the 2008 election (section 2.10 Electoral Law Enforcement), Elections Canada stated that 500 complaints had been received, but did not provide any details about the number of complaints resolved or still open;
• In its August 2011 report on the 2011 federal election, Elections Canada did better by including a chart that categorized the 1,872 complaints it had received about accessibility problems (Report on accessibility subsection of section 2.4), and summarized how they had been resolved.  Elections Canada also provided a summary of two situations about which it had received 2,956 emails (about interference in an advance poll in Guelph, Ontario), and 700 emails (about a radio interview during the blackout period just before election day);
• However, its 2011 report provided no details about 1,003 other complaints Elections Canada received (Electoral law enforcement subsection of section 2.4), nor any details about how they had been investigated or what rulings had been issued.

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

[email protected]

Democracy Watch’s Voter Rights Campaign page