Thursday, November 3, 2005

OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch called on Justice John Gomery in his second report on the federal Adscam sponsorship scandal to make strong recommendations to close all of the loopholes in the federal government’s accountability system that encouraged and allowed the scandalous activities to occur.  Democracy Watch also called on all the federal political parties to do whatever it takes now, and in their election campaign platforms, and after the next federal election, to finally clean up the federal government.

“The federal political parties can clean up the federal government before the next election, and no one should tolerate any further delay or ineffective half-measures by any of the parties,” said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. “Any changes not approved before the next federal election must be included as detailed, iron-clad pledges in all the parties’ platforms, and the media must fulfill their primary watchdog purpose by highlighting gaps in each of the parties’ platforms, and asking key accountability questions such as whether party leaders will resign if they break their election promises.”

Key accountability changes needed to prevent similar scandalous activities in the future are as follows:

• the Senate should strengthen current Bill C-11 and send it back to the House of Commons to ensure an effective, comprehensive “whistleblower protection” system;
• pass an “honesty in politics” law with high fines for liars, and require MPs to resign and run in a by-election if they leave their party in between elections;
• remove all loopholes in the spending, access-to-information, political donations, ethics, lobbying and hiring/appointment laws, and apply all these laws to every government and government-funded institution, with high fines and firing as the penalty for all violations;
• give all key government watchdogs the power to order compliance with these laws and to punish violators with high fines, and require them to make public rulings that name violators, and prohibit them from giving secret advice;
• give opposition party leaders a veto over appointments of all law enforcement watchdogs so they serve Parliament and the public interest, not the ruling party;
• ban all secret donations and secret bank accounts and ban donations by corporations, unions and other organizations, and limit donations by individuals to $1,000 annually and limit spending in political party leadership campaigns, and (as proposed by the federal Department of Finance) place federal politicians, their staff, Cabinet appointees and any government employees with decision-making power on the anti-corruption watch list of the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada (Fintrac);
• make the lobbying disclosure law effective by requiring Ministers and senior public officials to disclose all their meetings/communications with anyone (paid or unpaid) lobbying them, and make the watchdog for lobbyists independent of Cabinet control, and require lobbyists to disclose how much they spend on each lobbying campaign and their past work with any Canadian or foreign government, political party or candidate, and clearly ban lobbyists from working with any government, political party or candidate;
• increase the ban on ministers, ministerial staff, Cabinet appointees and senior government officials becoming lobbyists after they leave office to 5 years (as in the U.S.);
• in the Cabinet’s ethics code, remove the loopholes Paul Martin added in December 2003 that allow ministers to make decisions even if they have a financial interest in the outcome, and that exempt part-time ministerial staff from the code, and;
• introduce and pass a “meaningful public consultation” law to ensure Canadians have a strong and direct say in policy-making.