Current code is so full of loopholes it should be called the
“Almost Impossible to be in a Conflict of Interest Code”
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, March 1, 2022
OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch and the Government Ethics Coalition it coordinates, made up of 30 citizen groups from across Canada, released its submission to the House Procedure and House Affairs Committee calling for changes to close huge loopholes in the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons that allow MPs to take part in most decisions even when they have a financial conflict of interest, and allow MPs and their staff to accept unethical gifts and favours, and also calling for key measures to strengthen enforcement and for mandatory penalties to discourage violations.
The Committee is rushing a superficial, long-overdue review of the Code – having held only three brief meetings it will go behind closed doors this Thursday to review possible proposals for Code changes.
The Code, which was enacted in 2004, is supposed to be reviewed every five years, but was last reviewed in 2015, and before that in 2008 to 2009, and before that in 2006-2007. The original version of the Code had loopholes in it, a weak enforcement system, and penalties that MPs themselves decide in a “kangaroo court” process, and past reviews by the Committee have added more loopholes, allowing for even more conflicts of interest and unethical favours, or have done nothing to close loopholes or strengthen penalties, and little to strengthen enforcement.
Click here to see the Backgrounder listing the 10 key changes needed to make the MP Code effective at preventing, prohibiting and penalizing conflicts of interest and unethical gift- and favour-trading.
“The MP’s ethics code is so full of loopholes it should be called the Almost Impossible to be in a Conflict of Interest Code, the Ethics Commissioner doesn’t do basic enforcement actions like auditing MPs, and MPs decide whether to penalize other MPs which is a kangaroo court,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch. “MPs are rushing their first review of their ethics code in seven years and, unless they slow down and do their job properly, they will likely once again fail to close loopholes or strengthen enforcement or penalties, leaving it open for MPs to continue to corrupt federal politics by being inside lobbyists for their own interests, and the interests of their families, friends and their investments in big businesses.”
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion has made six recommendations for changes to the MP Code (and also for nine other technical changes), and while they will all somewhat improve the Code, they completely ignore huge loopholes that allow for unethical decision-making by MPs, and do nothing to strengthen enforcement. As well, Ethics Commissioner Dion has made the self-contradictory claim that the Code is working well and doesn’t need to be reviewed, and issued several highly questionable rulings since he began in January 2018 that allowed clear violations of federal ethics rules. Democracy Watch has an ongoing case in the Federal Court of Appeal challenging Commissioner Dion’s weak ruling that Prime Minister Trudeau didn’t violate the Conflict of Interest Act when he approved the grant in June 2020 to WE Charity, for which his wife served as an ambassador at the time.
All of this is not surprising given Mr. Dion had a record of eight unethical and questionable actions when he was the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, and was handpicked by the Trudeau Cabinet through a secretive, dishonest process that the Federal Court of Appeal ruled was biased, and given the sister-in-law of Trudeau’s old friend and Cabinet Minister Dominic LeBlanc is the Ethics Commissioner’s senior lawyer (which may explain why the Ethics Commissioner has failed to issue a ruling on whether LeBlanc violated the ethics law by participating in the appointment process for judges in New Brunswick with financial and other connections to him.
“Ethics Commissioner Dion has failed to enforce federal ethics laws effectively, even when the law has been clearly violated, and also made self-contradictory, confusing and unclear statements about the rules,” said Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch. “It’s clear that the only way to ensure federal ethics rules are enforced effectively is for MPs to require the Ethics Commissioner to issue a clear guideline for every rule, investigate and issue a public ruling on every situation and complaint, and to impose a penalty for every violation.”
Many other changes are needed to other federal laws, including closing similarly huge loopholes in the Conflict of Interest Act (which applies to Cabinet ministers, staff and appointees) and the Senate Ethics Code, closing huge secret, unethical lobbying loopholes, decreasing the donation limit in the Canada Elections Act to $75 (as the current donation limit of $3,300 is essentially legalized bribery for those who can afford to make the maximum donation), closing huge excessive secrecy loopholes in the federal Access to Information Act, strengthening the whistleblower protection law, and changing the way that the Ethics Commissioner and other democratic good government watchdogs are appointed (given MPs currently have a clear conflict of interest as they choose their own watchdogs) and banning re-appointments (as that gives a watchdog an incentive to please MPs in order to secure a re-appointment).
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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
Email: [email protected]
Democracy Watch’s Government Ethics Campaign