Thursday, July 31, 2008

OTTAWA - OTTAWA - Today, as the federal Conservative caucus holds its summer meeting, Democracy Watch called on the Conservatives to introduce a bill containing the 27 promised government accountability and democratic reform changes they failed to include in their so-called Federal Accountability Act (FAA), and called on all federal political parties to work together to close the dozens of other loopholes in the federal government’s accountability system, changes which could all easily be made before the next election.

“If the Conservatives had made all, instead of only half, of the democratic reform and government accountability changes they promised, Parliament would be working better, which Prime Minister Stephen Harper said yesterday he wants, and scandals such as the Julie Couillard affair would be prevented, something the PM should also want,”   said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.  (To see Democracy Watch's December 2007 Report Card on the Conservatives' democratic reform and government accountability record, click here)
   
Because the Conservatives broke their promise to change the federal lobbying law to "require ministers and senior government officials to record their contacts with lobbyists", Ms. Couillard's lobbying remained secret until recently instead of being exposed earlier.  As well, if the Conservatives had kept this promise, both Cabinet minister Maxime Bernier and Cabinet staff person Bernard Côté would have been in violation of the law for failing to register Ms. Couillard’s lobbying, and would have face significant penalties for their unethical secrecy.
   
Because the Conservatives broke their promise to provide whistleblower protection to everyone, any of Bernier’s ministerial staff or anyone in the RCMP with knowledge of rule-breaking could not report on Bernier and and Côté’s actions without the fear of being fired or retaliated against in some other way.
   
And because the Conservatives broke their promises to require documentation of all meetings, and to give the Information Commissioner the power to release any public interest document, the meetings between Couillard and Bernier and Côté remained secret for longer than they should have, and the RCMP's information about Couillard remains secret still today.
   
In addition, because the Conservatives broke their promise to establish a Public Appointments
Commission, Ms. Couillard’s mother Diane Bellemare was not screened and interviewed by an independent commission before being handed a contract to arbitrate employment-insurance disputes.
   
Other loopholes in the federal government's security and accountability system have been revealed
by the Couillard affairs, but the Conservatives can only blame themselves for this and other recent scandals because they failed to include these and many other promised rules in the FAA.  The FAA only included 30 of 57 democratic reform and government accountability measures promised by the Conservatives in their 2006 election platform, and failed completely to address dozens of other loopholes and flaws.  (To see the list of the 90 loopholes that remain in the federal government's accountability and democratic governance system, click here)
   
Overall, Parliament is working generally as it should in a minority government situation in which the ruling party only won 36 percent of the popular vote in the last election, and 40 percent of the seats in the House of Commons.  Yesterday in a speech to his Conservative caucus, Prime Minister Harper claimed that his government’s “mandate” is being unjustifiably held up by Parliament, but it is very questionable whether the Conservatives have a mandate beyond the five priority changes they promised in their platform during the last election. 
   
It is also dishonest and hypocritical of the PM to make this claim, given that his government thwarted its own mandate by failing to include 27 promised measures in the FAA, has failed to establish the promised Public Appointments Commission even though the FAA (which was passed by Parliament more than one year and 7 months ago) empowers Cabinet to set it up, and given that Conservative MPs have held up parliamentary committees for months through filibusters and other delay tactics.
   
“Prime Minister Harper’s federal Conservatives are making themselves look like fools, not fooling Canadians, as scandal after scandal and their own dishonest, unethical, secretive, unrepresentative and wasteful actions reveal that they broke most of their promises to clean up the federal government and make it work better,” said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.  “Will they and all federal parties now finally work together to close the dozens of remaining undemocratic and accountability loopholes in the federal government?”
   
Democracy Watch and its nation-wide coalitions of citizen groups will continue to push all federal parties to close the dozens of loopholes that remain in the federal government’s accountability system.  (To see the list of the 90 loopholes that remain in the federal government's accountability and democratic governance system, click here)