Wednesday, May 23, 2007

OTTAWA - Today, in response to the recent federal government secrecy and leaks scandals that have highlighted how loophole-filled and ineffective the government’s access-to-information system (and the related spending and donations control, ethics enforcement, lobbying disclosure and whistleblower protection systems) are, Democracy Watch called on the federal Conservative government and all federal parties to introduce, and work together, to pass a comprehensive open government bill to help prevent future similar situations, and to ensure violators of open government rules are penalized.

Politicians and political staff regularly “leak” government announcements in advance to hand-picked reporters and media outlets without any negative consequences (even though the leaked documents are often inaccurate and aimed at “spinning” inaccurate media coverage), but a public servant who is alleged to have done the same thing recently was investigated by the RCMP for breach of trust.

Security officials kept key information secret for more than 20 years about how the Air India airline bombing occurred, and finally went public in the past two weeks.

Spending by senators on a recent, publicly funded trip is considered by the senators to be private, personal information that can’t be disclosed, while spending by a minister on several publicly funded trips is considered by the minister to be departmental information that doesn’t have to be disclosed.

And tracking how Canadians imprisoned in other countries are treated is a top priority, while information about how Afghanis arrested by Canadian armed forces are treated is top secret.

“Recent secrecy and leaks scandals are just the latest in literally thousands of similar past situations, and all are the fault of all federal governments throughout the history of Canada as none of them have taken steps to ensure everyone in the government operates openly,” said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.

Most recently, then-Liberal Justice Minister Allan Rock broke his 1994 pledge to strengthen the federal Access to Information Act (ATI Act), former Liberal Prime Minister Jean Chretien broke his pledge to pass a whistleblower protection law, and the Liberals delayed increasing disclosure of lobbying for 10 years.  And Conservative Prime Minister Stephen Harper broke his 2006 election promises to include measures in his so-called “Accountability Act” to close a few dozen loopholes in the ATI Act, to end secret lobbying, and to protect all whistleblowers effectively (To see the details about the ethics complaint Democracy Watch filed about the Conservatives' breaking their election promises concerning Bill C-2, the so-called "Accountability Act", click here).

These broken promises reveal one of the most fundamental loopholes in the open government system -- the lack of a requirement that parties and party leaders tell the public clearly what they will do (and will not do) if they are elected, and the lack of penalties for misleading the public in this fundamental way.

While other parties and politicians have accused the Conservatives and Harper of having a secret agenda, the truth all voters should face (a truth shown clearly throughout Canadian history) is that all of the parties and politicians have secret plans they don’t want to reveal to voters until after election day.

Beyond the lack of an effective honesty-in-politics law, the following measures are needed to end the cult of secrecy in the federal government (and, as well, in most Canadian provincial, territorial and municipal governments as well):

• all government bodies must be covered by openness rules (including all bodies funded mainly by the government), and required to create a detailed record of all decisions and actions (as the Conservatives promised);
• all government bodies must be required by a new law to consult with the public in an honest, open manner before making decisions or undertaking actions (including disclosing the options the government is considering, and costs and benefits);
• all government bodies must be required to have an information management system that regularly discloses most information, and that can produce information deemed secret for review by the Information Commissioner within the 30-day legal limit;
• the Information Commissioner must be given the power to review and order the release of all information (as in Ontario, Alberta and B.C.) if it will not cause any harm (as the Conservatives promised);
• everyone in government must be required to disclose the detailed receipt for every expense they claim (showing the number of people involved in any activity, what was purchased, by whom, and at what price) and the Auditor General must be given the power to audit all claims;
• everyone in a decision-making position in government must be required (as the Conservatives promised) to disclose the identity of anyone who communicates with them or their staff as part of a lobbying effort and to disclose a summary of the communication, and lobbyists must be required to disclose how much they spend on lobbying campaigns, and the Registrar of Lobbyists must be made fully independent of Cabinet (as the Conservatives promised);
• secret, unlimited donations to nomination race and party leadership race candidates must be banned (and such races run by Elections Canada and all donations regularly audited by the Commissioner of Elections), and donations of volunteer labour and financial loans to all candidates, riding associations and parties must be limited and disclosed and audited;
• the proposed Parliamentary Budget Officer must be made fully independent to ensure truth in government budgetting;
• the federal Ethics Commissioner and Senate Ethics Officer must be banned from giving secret advice or rulings, and required to conduct audits of financial statements submitted to them;
• everyone in government must be required to report wrongdoing, and the Public Sector Integrity Officer must be given the power to protect all whistleblowers from retaliation (currently, because the Conservatives broke their election promises, only some government employees are protected if they report some types of wrongdoing in specific ways), and;
• all of the watchdog officers mentioned above must be given the power to fine violators of rules with high fines, suspensions and firings.

In the minority federal government situation that has existed since June 2004, there are even fewer barriers to making these changes as any party’s proposals have the possibility of being passed.

With this upcoming July 1st marking 140 years of secretive Canadian federal governments (and, as a result, often dishonest, unethical, wasteful and unjust governments), the questions remain, as always -- is there a federal political party that will clearly propose these solutions in a bill? and will all the parties work together to ensure the bill is passed as soon as possible?

Or will they all just continue, as they have for decades, to point the finger at each other’s scandalously secret behaviour?

“As the old saying goes, sunshine is a good disinfectant -- one can only hope that it is strong enough for federal politicians to feel the heat so they will, finally, open up the federal government and, in doing so, clean it up in a lot of ways as well,” said Conacher.

To see a summary of the 85 undemocratic loopholes in the federal government's accountability system that Bill C-2 does nothing to close, click here

To see the details about the ethics complaint Democracy Watch has filed about the Conservatives' breaking their election promises concerning Bill C-2, click here

To see an opinion piece about Bill C-2 by Democracy Watch Coordinator Duff Conacher which was published in two Canadian newspapers, click here

To see Bill C-2, the so-called“Federal Accountability Act”and related federal government documents go to: http://www.accountability.gc.ca