Friday, July 23, 2004

OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch detailed all of the flaws in the Cabinet responsibility and accountability system that allow ministers and other officials to lie, and act unethically, secretly, wastefully and unresponsively and called on the new Cabinet to make increasing government accountability a priority.  Despite Democracy Watch winning its court challenge of the federal Ethics Counsellor recently, several serious flaws still exist in the federal government's accountability system.

"Anyone who believes that Cabinet ministers who can legally lie and act unethically, secretively, wastefully and unresponsively will consistently uphold the public interest is fooling themselves," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. "The past decade has shown clearly that ministers will continue to abuse their power unless they are checked by a comprehensive, effective accountability system."

Democracy Watch called on Prime Minister Paul Martin to strengthen the Conflict of Interest and Post-Employment Code for Public Office Holders in the following ways to ensure ministers act ethically (the Prime Minister is required by law to re-affirm the Code by July 29, and to change it to add the new Ethics Commissioner as enforcer):

• the Prime Minister must change the Code so that complaints can be filed about violations of the 10 fundamental ethics principles in Part I of the Code, and so that all the supplementary rules introduced by Jean Chrétien are included in the Code;
• the Prime Minister must remove from the Code the rules he added in December that  allow ministers to make decisions even if they have a financial interest in the outcome, and mean part-time ministerial staff are not covered by the Code (s.4(1));
• the Prime Minister must change the Code to prohibit public office holders from receiving information about financial holdings under "venetian blind" management agreements (s.1 of the Schedule in the Code);
• the Prime Minister must remove section 24 from the Code because it gives him the power to overrule the Ethics Commissioner about whether he or other ministers or officials have broken the rules in the Code; and
• the Prime Minister must increase the Code ban on ministers and ministerial staff becoming lobbyists after they leave office from 2 years to 5 years (as in the U.S.).

• pass an "honesty in politics" law covering all elected officials and public servants (with complaints filed with the new Ethics Commissioner, and the Commissioner given the power to penalize violators of the law and Code with high fines);
• the Cabinet must immediately give final approval to Bill C-15 to close loopholes in the federal lobbying law that allow corporate lobbyists to hide their activities (Bill C-15 was passed by Parliament in June 2003, more than one year ago);
• the Prime Minister must nominate the Senate Ethics Officer, and the Senate must approve the Officer and the new ethics code for senators;
• change the lobbying law to give the Registrar for Lobbyists, who enforces the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct, a fixed term and control over annual budget and staff hiring, to ensure the Registrar is independent of Cabinet;
• strengthen the federal political donations law to ban all secret donations (secret, unlimited donations to candidates in an election are still legal); and
• all government accountability watchdogs (Ethics Commissioner, Senate Ethics Officer, Registrar for Lobbyists, Public Service Integrity Officer, Auditor General, Information Commissioner, Public Service Commissioner) must be given the power to order compliance with rules and laws, and to fine violators, and must be appointed in the future only with the approval of opposition party leaders (so they serve Parliament, not the ruling party), and must not be allowed to give secret advice.

• change the lobbying law to require Ministers and senior public officials to disclose all their meetings and communications with anyone (paid or unpaid) lobbying them;
• strengthen the federal access-to-information law to require that records be created for all federal government actions, to reduce the number of secrecy exemptions, and and to require that all records be made public as they are created unless the law clearly allows them to be kept secret;
• introduce and pass a "whistleblower protection" law that allows anyone who has knowledge of a violation of any rule to file a complaint with an independent investigator empowered to investigate and penalize the violator, to protect the whistleblower from retaliation, and to reward the whistleblower; and
• introduce and pass an "open meetings" law so that all meetings of federal and provincial ministers will be public, as the September meeting on health care will be.

• introduce and pass a "meaningful public consultation" law that ensure that individual Canadians have a dedicated, direct avenue to have their voice heard regularly in Ottawa (a Treasury Board guideline exists that sets a good standard for public consultations, but it is currently not enforceable);
• introduce and pass laws creating broad-based, citizen-funded and directed government and industry watchdog groups using the Citizen Utility Board (CUB) method that has worked well in the U.S. (a federal task force and two parliamentary committees has recommended that this method be used to create a financial institution watchdog group);
• change the federal appointments process to require opposition-party-leader approval for the 3,000 appointments currently made by the Prime Minister; and
• change the federal lobbying law to prohibit lobbyists from working in senior positions for political parties and candidates.