Wednesday, October 23, 2002

OTTAWA - Today, in response to the release of proposed changes to the federal lobbying law, ethics rules and ethics enforcement system, Democracy Watch called on the federal government and all Parliamentarians to strengthen and add to the proposed measures to close loopholes and ensure honest, ethical government.

"The federal Liberals continue to play a shell game with government ethics, introducing half-measures that are full of loopholes while falsely claiming that they have made the federal government honest and ethical," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.

The proposed changes that will be significant steps forward (if the changes are actually made) are as follows:

• the Liberals finally propose to keep their 1993 election campaign promises to establish an Ethics Commissioner who has full investigative powers and reports publicly and only to Parliament on alleged violations of ethics rules by ministers, ministerial staff, MPs and Senators, with a 5-year fixed term for the watchdog;
• the Liberals also finally propose to keep their 1993 election campaign promise to pass an ethics law for MPs and Senators (a draft law was prepared between 1995-97 (the fifth draft since 1986)), but never passed by Parliament; and
• the registration requirement for lobbyists is proposed to be broadened to cover people who are only gathering inside government information (the current requirement only covers people who are advocating and trying to influence government decisions) and proposed to be broadened in other ways.

The key loopholes and gaps still remaining in the federal government's ethics system need to be closed through the following changes and measures:

• the appointment of the Ethics Commissioner should require the approval of Parliament, including opposition parties;
• anyone (not just Parliamentarians) should have the right to file a complaint with the Ethics Commissioner;
• all rulings of the Ethics Commissioner should be made public;
• the Ethics Commissioner should also be empowered to investigate alleged violations of ethics rules by lobbyists and public servants, with rulings made public, and to protect public servant "whistleblowers";
• the Ethics Commissioner should have the power to fine violators of any of the ethics rules (in addition to the Prime Minister's possible penalty for ministers of dismissal from Cabinet and the possible penalty for MPs or Senators of censure or dismissal from Parliament);
• the ministers' and lobbyists' and public servants' codes should be changed into laws so they have greater force, with high fines as a penalty for breaking these ethics laws;
• Ministers and other senior public officials should be required to disclose on an searchable Internet site who is lobbying them;
• lobbyists should be required by law to disclose how much they spend on a lobbying campaign, and past work with candidates, political parties and governments;
• lobbyists should be prohibited by law from working in senior campaign positions for any politician or candidate for public office, and from working for the government or having business ties to anyone who works for the government;
• the prohibition on lobbying the government for ex-Ministers and ex-senior public officials should be increased to 5 years;
• the ethics watchdog should be a 3-person commission, instead of one person, to increase the likelihood of effective enforcement of ethics laws; and
• changes are needed to the federal political finance system to make it transparent and democratic (last June the Prime Minister promised some transparency changes, and to consider some democratization changes).

"Even if the Liberals pass all the proposed measures, secret lobbying will still be allowed, some ethics rulings will likely still be kept secret, public servants will still not have an independent ethics watchdog, penalties for unethical behaviour will still be too weak, and secret donations to Cabinet ministers will still be legal," said Conacher.

"Stronger measures than the Liberals have proposed today are needed to reverse the undemocratic, unethical, secretive and dictatorial habits and attitudes the Liberals have entrenched in the federal government in the past nine years," said Conacher.

Democracy Watch's nation-wide, 30-member group Government Ethics Coalition, and its nation-wide, 50-member group Money in Politics Coalition will push for these stronger and more comprehensive measures to be included in the changes that are finally made to the federal lobbying law, ethics rules and ethics enforcement system, and political finance system.