Thursday, December 9, 2010

OTTAWA - Today, on International Anti-Corruption Day, Democracy Watch called on all federal, provincial, territorial and municipal political parties and politicians to close key loopholes in laws, regulations and ethics codes across Canada that allow for corrupting secret donations to many political candidates, and secret lobbying of politicians, political staff, appointees and government officials, and to strengthen enforcement systems, including whistleblower protection.

"The corruption, ethics and spending scandals that have occurred in almost every province and territory in the past year are likely the tip of a large iceberg of wrongdoing in government in Canada, and yet Canadian politicians continue to refuse to close loopholes in rules and to strengthen enforcement and penalties," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.  "How many scandals will it take before Canadian politicians will finally clean up their governments and establish strong good government systems that meet international standards?"

The federal Conservatives have not responded to the May 2010 Oliphant Commission report which made four recommendations to close ethics rule loopholes, and 14 recommendations to increase federal government ethics enforcement.  Dozens of other loopholes and weak enforcement practices undermine the federal good government system.

The Ontario, Quebec and B.C. governments have all recently proposed changes to some of their good government laws, but despite the changes secret donations and gifts and secret lobbying will still be allowed.
  
Democracy Watch also called on the federal government to fulfill its commitments under section 52 of the United Nations Convention Against Corruption, and the international Financial Action Task Force (FATF) standards, by amending the Proceeds of Crime (Money Laundering) and Terrorist Financing Act (PCMLTFA) to require Canadian financial institutions to monitor the bank accounts of senior politicians and government officials and their families and associates in all levels of government, thereby adding them to the watch-list of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (FINTRAC).

In December 2006, federal politicians quickly and quietly passed Bill C-25, which only added foreign politicians and key officials and their families to FINTRAC’s watch-list.

As well, because of loopholes the federal Conservatives’ so-called “Accountability Act” left open, and because of loopholes in provincial, territorial and municipal laws, it is currently effectively legal:

• to make a secret, unlimited donation or loan of money, property to a nomination race or party leadership candidate (and, in most jurisdictions, to an election candidate) who is not a sitting politician (as long as they don’t use the donation for their campaign);
• to make a secret donation of services to a political campaign (because of lack of requirements to disclose who is providing services to campaigns);
• for political parties and riding associations to have secret trust funds (some governments even allow such trust funds to benefit sitting politicians);
• for politicians, their staff and government officials to accept valuable gifts (because they only have to disclose property they own worth more than $10,000), and;
• for an in-house corporate lobbyist to lobby in secret (usually as long as they lobby only 20% of their work time on average).