Wednesday, November 2, 2005

"A Liberal government will move quickly and decisively in several ways to address these concerns about conflict of interest, influence peddling, and selling access.
"We will follow the basic principle that government decisions must be made on the merits of a case rather than according to the political influence of those making the case.  We will take an approach of openness in decision-making.  A Liberal government will not allow the public agenda to be dominated by lobbyists as it has been since the Conservatives took office."
The Liberal Party's 1993 "Red Book" (Creating Opportunity), p. 93

"My Ministers will insist upon integrity, honesty and openness on the part of those who exercise power on behalf of Canadians."
Speech from the Throne, January 18, 1994

OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch blamed Paul Martin and almost all past Liberal Cabinet ministers, MPs, staff, and appointees for the Adscam sponsorship scandal, given that they remained silent while the Liberal government broke key promises from the "Governing with Integrity" chapter of the Liberals' 1993 election platform "Red Book" to make changes that would have prevented the scandal from occurring.

"Almost all federal Liberals should be ashamed of themselves for failing to publicly oppose the breaking of promises they made in 1993 to make changes to clean up the federal government, and failing to support other key government accountability changes, and no one should believe the Liberals will keep their promises to make changes now," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.

Other than the few exceptions noted below, Paul Martin and all other federal Liberals kept quiet between 1993 and 2005 while the Liberal government failed in the following ways to keep the general promises quoted above, and many other specific promises, to clean up the federal government:

• the Liberals introduced very weak guidelines in May 1994 on contracting for communications, advertising and public opinion research that gave Cabinet ministers the power to control bidding and awarding of contracts;
• the Liberals broke the 1993 Red Book promise to appoint an "independent" ethics watchdog with "the power to investigate complaints" when they established an Ethics Counsellor who was under the control of then-Prime Minister Chrétien, and who had no powers, and still today the more-independent Ethics Commissioner has very limited powers;
• in 1994, then-Justice Minister Allan Rock pledged to strengthen the federal Access-to-Information Act, but the changes have still not been made and past-Liberal MP John Bryden's efforts to strengthen the Act were opposed;
• the Liberals delayed for years action on whistleblower protection, and current Bill C-11, if passed, would establish a very incomplete, ineffective "whistleblower" protection system;
• the Liberals broke their promise to "force lobbying out from the shadows into the open" and ban "contingency fees in lobbyists contracts" and still today secret lobbying is legal and rules on fees are not effectively enforced;
• the Liberals delayed the establishment of ethics codes for MPs and Senators for a decade;
• the Liberals continue to appoint party supporters instead of keeping their 1993 Red Book promise to make appointments "on the basis of competence"; and,
• the Liberals have failed to ban all secret donations and secret bank accounts.