Thursday, February 6, 2003

OTTAWA - Today, in testimony before the House Procedural Affairs Committee, the nation-wide Government Ethics Coalition called on the Committee, the federal government and all Parliamentarians to close key gaps in the proposed ethics rules and ethics enforcement system for Ministers, MPs and Senators. If the gaps are not closed, the Coalition does not believe that the new system will do enough to ensure honest, ethical government.

"Stronger measures than the Prime Minister has proposed are needed to reverse the undemocratic, unethical, secretive and dictatorial habits and attitudes the Liberals have entrenched in the federal government in the past nine years," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch and Chairperson of the Government Ethics Coalition.

National surveys in the past decade have consistently shown that 80% of Canadians want strong ethics rules for politicians and public servants, and in May 2002, the Liberals' own polling firm reported that 45% of Canadians believe the Liberals are corrupt. In a 1996 Supreme Court of Canada case about a public servant accused of an ethical breach, the Court stated: ". . . given the heavy trust and responsibility taken on by the holding of a public office or employ, it is appropriate that government officials are correspondingly held to codes of conduct which, for an ordinary person, would be quite severe."

In order to have an open, effective government ethics system, key loopholes and gaps in the federal government's proposed system must be closed through the following changes and new measures:

• the appointment of the Ethics Commissioner must require the approval of opposition parties (instead of, as proposed, approval by the ruling party only);
• anyone (instead of, as proposed, just parliamentarians) must have the right to file a complaint with the Ethics Commissioner;
• all advisory opinions and rulings by the Ethics Commissioner must be made public (the government proposes that all advisory opinions and some rulings will be kept secret);
• the Ethics Commissioner must also be empowered to issue public advisory opinions and investigate alleged violations of ethics rules by lobbyists (as opposed to the Registrar of Lobbyists enforcing the Lobbyists Code of Conduct) and by public servants (instead of senior public servants enforcing public service ethics rules), with all advisory opinions and rulings made public;
• the Ethics Commissioner must be given the power to protect public servant "whistleblowers" (replacing the current Public Integrity Officer who lacks key powers and does not make public rulings);
• the Ethics Commissioner must have the power to fine violators of any of the ethics rules (in addition to the Prime Minister's proposed penalty for ministers of dismissal from Cabinet and the proposed penalties for MPs or Senators of censure or possible dismissal from Parliament); and
• the ministers' and lobbyists' and public servants' codes should be changed into laws (similar to the proposed code for MPs and Senators) so they have greater force, with high fines as a penalty for breaking any of these ethics laws.

"Even if the Liberals pass all the proposed rules and changes to ethics enforcement, the Ethics Commissioner will not be as independent as needed, some ethics rulings will likely still be kept secret, public servants will still not have an independent ethics watchdog, penalties for unethical behaviour will still be too weak, and ethical whistleblowers will still not be adequately protected," said Conacher. "These key gaps in the government's proposals must be closed."

Democracy Watch's nation-wide, 30-member group Government Ethics Coalition will continue to push for these stronger and more comprehensive measures to be included in the changes that are finally made to the federal lobbying law, ethics rules and the ethics enforcement system.

The Government Ethics Coalition is also pushing for changes to Bill C-15, which amends the federal Lobbyist Registration Act, to require more detailed disclosure of corporate lobbyist activities, and to restrict the influence of lobbyists on the federal government:

• Ministers and other senior public officials should be required to disclose on an searchable Internet site who is lobbying them, or if this is not done, paid lobbyists must be required to register even if they are only contacting officials to find out what is happening on various policy decision-making processes;
• lobbyists should be required by law to disclose how much they spend on a lobbying campaign, and past work with candidates, parties and governments;
• lobbyists should be prohibited from working in senior campaign positions for any politician or candidate, and from working for the government or having business ties to anyone who works for the government; and
• the prohibition on lobbying the government for ex-Ministers and ex-senior public officials should be increased to 5 years.

Democracy Watch also has two cases before the Federal Court challenging what it believes is bias of the current Ethics Counsellor, and delay by the Ethics Counsellor in ruling on several complaints concerning lobbyists violating ethics rules by putting Cabinet ministers in conflict of interest situations.