Wednesday, June 28, 2000

OTTAWA - At a news conference today, Democracy Watch released the petition it has filed with the Attorney General of Canada challenging the legality of the federal ethics enforcement system.

In its 1993 election platform, the federal Liberals promised to appoint an ethics watchdog who "will report directly to Parliament" and have "the power to investigate complaints." In June 1994, the Liberal government broke their promises and created an Ethics Counsellor who reports privately to the Prime Minister and cannot investigate alleged violations of the code without the approval of the Prime Minister.

Democracy Watch believes that this ethics enforcement system violates the law because the Ethics Counsellor lacks independence, is always in a conflict of interest (especially if there is an allegation that the Prime Minister has violated conflict of interest rules) and lacks effective investigatory powers. According to Supreme Court of Canada and other court rulings, Democracy Watch believes that Canadian law requires the federal government to establish an independent and impartial entity that has the purpose of investigating all alleged violations of the ethics rules for both the public officials and lobbyists; that has full investigative powers to do so; and that reports directly and only to Parliament.

"In every way, the Ethics Counsellor is a lapdog," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. "We hope the Liberals will finally act with integrity and replace the Ethics Counsellor with an independent and effective ethics watchdog."

Democracy Watch's petition includes three complaints the group has filed concerning alleged violations of ethics rules. The Ethics Counsellor took almost 8 months to respond to the first complaint, concerning donations received by the Prime Minister's riding associations by companies that also received federal grants and contracts, and his response letter reveals that he did not even investigate the situation detailed in the complaint. The other two complaints have not been responded to, and they concern ministers fundraising for political parties, and a fundraising event organized by registered lobbyist Barry Campbell on behalf of Secretary of State Jim Peterson.

Democracy Watch is calling for the immediate appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate these complaints, while the government hopefully takes steps to set up an independent ethics enforcement body. If the Attorney General of Canada does not take these steps, Democracy Watch will apply to court for a hearing of the case.