Dear Hill Times,

By coincidence, the August 1st issue of the Hill Times provided three examples of the federal Liberals mode of governing, which can be summed up as "When all is said and done, much more is said than done" (unless, of course, the Liberals or their corporate supporters want something done).  In other words, delay is usually the name of the game, especially in the area of democratizing the government (as democratization would decrease the current undue, unethical influence of corporate lobbyists).

First, the article on the review of the Access to Information Act revealed that the Liberals will take any step possible to delay strengthening the Act.  In 1994, then-Justice Minister Allan Rock committed to strengthening the Act within the year.  In 2000, then-Prime Minister Chrétien appointed a Task Force to review the Act, and the Task Force reported in 2002 with a mix of good and bad recommendations.  In spring 2005, Justice Minister Irwin Cotler issued a discussion paper on the Act.  And now we have Prime Minister Martin initiating another delay tactic through a review of whether the access and privacy laws and offices should be merged.

Second, the article on Bill C-11, the whistleblower protection bill, reveals the same tactics being used to delay this key government accountability measure.  Court rulings forced the Liberals to take action a few years ago, and since then they have used a task force, a poorly drafted bill, an election call, committee hearings, a delayed response to the committee by Treasury Board minister Reg Alcock and lots of talk to delay Bill C-11 so that it now has little chance of passing (simply because of lack of time) before the next election (assuming Paul Martin keeps his promise to call an election in early 2006, an assumption that should not be made given Martin's promise-breaking record).

With these two issues, the one thing the Liberals won't say is what their inactions clearly reveal -- they don't want to increase their accountability to the public by passing strong access to information and whistleblower protection laws, and they are trying to delay passage of such laws until they win a majority in Parliament again, and then they will hold up passage of such laws as long as they hold on to the majority (as they held up passage of such laws between 1993 and today).

Third, the article on the issue of reviewing bank mergers reveals another, but distinct, area of Liberal inaction.  To clarify one point first, your article (and many other pieces in the media) neglect to mention that the federal government has a bank merger review process already (anyone can read it on the following Department of Finance webpage:  http://www.fin.gc.ca/finserv/docs/finserv2e.html#Merger).  Since that process was established in 1999, the Liberals have also maintained a ban on merger proposals.  The banks don't like the current review process (because it includes a public interest impact review by a House of Commons committee), and so they have been pushing since 1999 for a weaker review process.

Complicating the issue for the Liberals is that their bank backers (the largest of their corporate sector donors every year from 1993 to 2003) are split on another part of the review process.  Some of the banks want a first-in, first-our review process so that the first merger proposal would have a better chance of getting through, while other banks want a process that would review all proposals (and their impacts) together.  As only one bank merger is likely legal under Canada's competition law, this is no small issue.

No merger of the big banks in Canada is in the public interest, as every study ever completed has shown that banks larger than Canada's banks are less efficient, and any merger that the banks would want would result in bank branch closures that hurt communities, job losses, and higher charges for consumers and businesses.  In addition, our banks have clearly shown that if they were bigger, they would lose even more of Canadians' money investing in speculative and criminal corporations like Enron and Worldcom (CIBC has already lost $1.5 billion on its investment in Enron, as well as paying $2.8 billion so far in penalties for financing Enron's fraudulent activities -- that's $4.3 billion that did not go to maintaining full-service bank branches across Canada, to lowering service charges and credit card interest, or to financing job-creating businesses).

The Liberals should be focused instead on making our banks better, not bigger, but they have been negligent since 1993 in failing to regulate the banks to ensure they treat everyone fairly and requiring detailed disclosure invest our money to ensure the banks only invest it in sustainable, Canadian economy building activities.  The Liberals have been so negligent that, if Finance Minister Ralph Goodale did approve a merger of two banks, he would have no idea whether the new megabank's lending, investment and service record was better or worse than in the past.

With this issue, the game for the Liberals is again to delay action until they win a majority in Parliament, but in contrast to the government accountability issues discussed above the Liberals want a majority in order to shove their bank merger agenda down the throats of Canadians whether they (including some of the banks) want it or not.

Unfortunately, the ruling parties in the provinces also frequently use this "rhetoric not action (unless we and our corporate or union backers want the action)" mode of governing.  All polls in the past 15 years show clearly that a large majority of Canadians want better, more publicly interested and active governments, especially in terms of actions on issues of government accountability and corporate responsibility.

One can only hope that ruling and opposition parties across the country will, sooner than later, respond to these wishes of the large majority of Canadians and act on much-needed and well-known reforms.  After all, isn't that what democratic governments are supposed to do, respond to the wishes of the majority?

Sincerely,
Duff Conacher, Coordinator
Democracy Watch