Wednesday, March 31, 2004

OTTAWA - Today, after almost 10 years of campaigning for an effective federal government ethics system, Democracy Watch celebrated the passage by the Senate yesterday of Bill C-4, which creates a new, more independent and therefore more effective ethics enforcement system for federal politicians.  Bill C-4 must still receive Royal Assent by the Governor-General and be proclaimed into law by the federal Cabinet before it will be law, but Democracy Watch will be shocked if the federal Liberals fail to take these steps.

“If the federal Liberals had governed with integrity as they promised in the 1993 election, an independent and effectively enforced federal government ethics system would be 10 years old today,” said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch and Chairperson of the Government Ethics Coalition. “The passage of Bill C-4 sets a new standard for ethics enforcement that must still be strengthened, but brings effective ethics enforcement for federal politicians closer than it has ever been in Canadian history.”

Bill C-4 is the most important government accountability measure ever passed by the federal government, an even more important measure than the changes to the federal political donations system made last year.  While the new donations system reduces the influence of donations from wealthy interests, the effective ethics enforcement system that Bill C-4 sets the basis for will reduce many more undemocratic, unethical activities that have undue influence over federal politicians.

Bill C-4 eliminates the lapdog Ethics Counsellor, creates an Ethics Commissioner to enforce ethics rules for Cabinet and MPs, creates a Senate Ethics Officer to enforce ethics rules for senators, and shifts enforcement of the Lobbyists’ Code to the Registrar for Lobbyists.

However, the ethics enforcement system created by Bill C-4 remains flawed in the following ways:

• the new ethics watchdogs will still be chosen by the Prime Minister (without approval required from all parties in Parliament);
• the Ethics Commissioner will be allowed to give secret advice to Cabinet ministers;
• none of the ethics watchdogs have the power to fine violators (as the watchdogs do in 7 provinces);
• only partisan MPs and senators will explicitly be allowed to file complaints with the new ethics watchdogs;
• none of the new ethics watchdogs have the power to protect whistleblowers from retaliation;
• the new ethics watchdogs will also not be fully independent because Cabinet will be allowed to cut their pay for any reason, and because the ethics watchdogs will be allowed to serve more than one seven-year term so they will be tempted to please politicians to win a second term; and
• the ethics watchdogs will not be sufficiently accountable because they will not be subject to the federal access-to-information law, and there are limits on applications to court to review a watchdog’s decision.

Democracy Watch is also very concerned about loopholes Prime Minister Paul Martin created and kept in the new Cabinet ethics code he introduced in December.  Because Bill C-4 eliminates the federal Ethics Counsellor position, the Cabinet ethics code will be changed to replace the Ethics Counsellor with the new Ethics Commissioner.  If Martin does not also change the Cabinet code to eliminate the following loopholes, Cabinet ministers and their staff will continue to be allowed to act unethically:

• Martin narrowed the definition of “private interest” so that ministers can vote on proposals that are of “general application”(s.4(1) - so Martin will be allowed to vote on anything re: shipping except a law that only affects his sons’ shipping company);
• Martin narrowed the definition of “public office holder” so that anyone who works less than 15 hours per week for a Cabinet minister will not be subject to the ethics enforcement system (s.4(1))
• the Prime Minister still has the power to overrule the ethics watchdog on whether he or other ministers or officials have broken the rules in the Code (s.24);
• complaints cannot be filed about violations of the 10 fundamental ethics principles in Part I of the Code (s.25), nor about violations of the new ethics rules introduced by Jean Chrétien in June 2002 because Martin did not include these rules in his Code;
• ministers are still allowed to become lobbyists 2 years after they leave office, and ministerial staff will only have to wait 1 year before becoming lobbyists (s.30 - they should be required to wait 5 years, as in the U.S.);
• receiving information about financial holdings is still allowed under “venetian blind” management agreements (s.1 of the Schedule in the Code); and
• the Code is not law (all provincial codes are laws).

“Cabinet ministers, MPs and senators are in a conflict of interest when they are drafting ethics rules for themselves, and if they don’t all show integrity by creating loophole-free rules they will demonstrate, yet again, that they are deeply unethical and more interested in protecting themselves from accountability than they are in upholding the public interest,” said Conacher.

Democracy Watch’s 30-member group Government Ethics Coalition will continue to push for a comprehensive, loophole-free, independently and effectively enforced federal government ethics system.