Tuesday, June 10, 2003

OTTAWA - Today, as the House Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs begins voting on amendments to Bill C-34, which proposes a new ethics enforcement system for Cabinet, MPs and senators, the nation-wide Government Ethics Coalition called on the Committee to correct the fatal flaws in proposed system.  The Committee's meeting is in Room 112-N, Centre Block from 11 am-1 pm.

The new ethics enforcement system proposed by Bill C-34 will be too weak to effectively ensure honest, ethical government because of political interference, conflicts, secrecy, and lack of accountability of the new ethics watchdogs.  The following are the major flaws in the proposed system (for each flaw the measures that will make the system effective are provided):

• only MPs and senators will be able to file complaints about Cabinet ministers, parliamentary secretaries, ministerial staff, and some Cabinet appointees (COALITION'S RESPONSE: the public must have the right to file complaints about violations of any ethics rule by any public official);
• Bill C-34 prohibits an application to court to review the decisions of ethics watchdogs, and the access to information law will not apply to the watchdogs (COALITION'S RESPONSE: a right to appeal to court, and the access to information law, are essential accountability measures for all ethics watchdogs);
• three new ethics watchdogs will replace the current Ethics Counsellor and this will very likely result in conflicting ethics standards for MPs compared to senators (COALITION'S RESPONSE: one ethics watchdog should enforce all the ethics rules for Cabinet ministers, MPs, senators, lobbyists and public servants);
• the Cabinet will select the three ethics watchdogs (COALITION'S RESPONSE: being selected by Cabinet will make the watchdogs biased in favour of the ruling party -- all party leaders must have a veto over selection of the watchdogs); and
• the ethics watchdog for ministers will give secret advice to ministers (COALITION'S RESPONSE: all advice and rulings of all ethics watchdogs must be made public).

In addition, the Coalition is concerned that Bill C-34 removes the rules in the Parliament of Canada Act that prohibit MPs and senators from being involved in government contracts, with no guarantee that these rules will be included in the new ethics codes for MPs and senators that are supposed to be passed this fall.  There is a great danger that MPs and Senators will not pass ethics codes for themselves, as they have failed in seven past attempts to pass such rules.

In order to have an effective, comprehensive government ethics system, the Coalition also believes that the following gaps in the current system must be closed by the following new measures:

• the codes for ministers, MPs, Senators, lobbyists and public servants should be changed into laws so they have greater force;
• there should be high fines as a penalty for breaking any of these ethics laws;
• the proposed new Ethics Commissioner should also be empowered to issue public advisory opinions and investigate and publicly rule on alleged violations of ethics rules by public servants (instead of senior public servants enforcing public service ethics rules); and
• the Ethics Commissioner should also be given the power to protect public servant "whistleblowers" (replacing the current Public Integrity Officer who lacks key powers and does not make public rulings).

Democracy Watch's nation-wide, 30-member group Government Ethics Coalition will continue to push for stronger and more comprehensive measures to be included in Bill C-34 before it is passed by Parliament.