No Account for Conservative Lack of Accountability

In 2006, Harper’s Conservatives got their accountability act made law. It was a key plank in the election, which gave the Conservatives their minority government. They’d really begun talking about accountability in 2005, taking advantage of the prior sponsorship scandal, which was pinned to some unprincipled Liberals. Unfortunately Harper’s Conservatives haven’t followed through.  According to CTV News¹ (5 November 2005) Harper said

“”When I become prime minister I will undertake an unprecedented overhaul of the federal government… That is my commitment to you.”

“Cleaning up government begins at the top,” he added, accusing Prime Minister Paul Martin of deflecting blame whenever the taint of scandal touches him.”

In principle of course, I don’t think many would argue that greater government accountability is not only important but necessary for the well-being of our democracy. Unfortunately, the Conservatives’ act was largely just an act. It did little of what the Conservatives led Canadian citizens to believe they’d do. Worse, the Conservatives have repeatedly acted against the spirit of not the letter of the act. Here’s some background and evidence.

Democracy Watch² (16 December 2009) reported on the Conservatives progress since 2006, noting that they’d increased or attempted to increase accountability in a few instances but also that they’d weakened it in eight ways, failed on 29 promises, and ignored 90 loopholes or flaws in the accountability system. Thus they gave the Conservatives a much lower grade than the Conservatives originally set out to earn. Democracy Watch also graded the main parties’ platforms^2b, with the NDP in the lead.

CBC reported³ (25 October 2006) about Justice John Gomery’s concerns his commissions studied recommendations on accountability had fallen into a black hole. John Gomery of course was responsible for the inquiry into the sponsorship scandal and so the 18 recommendations in his reports would have been incredibly relevant to for the Conservatives’ push on accountability. The article states

“Gomery said he thought the government would have taken action on the recommendations by now, or at the very least, started a debate on the issues covered by the inquiry. The inquiry covered a lot more ground than does the accountability act, he said. The act is designed to make the government more transparent and to crack down on unethical government actions. It also tightens political financing laws in Canada. It has not yet been proclaimed into law, although it has passed second reading in the Senate. Gomery said his request for a report on implementation did not mean that the government should do nothing for two years.”

Since Gomery’s report recommended solutions to the very lack of accountability that enabled both the sponsorship scandal to occur and the Conservatives to trumpet their accountability credo and thus eake their way into an minority government, why didn’t the Conservatives pay attention to it?

Gomery was back in the news with a Calgary Herald⁴ report (13 March 2008).

“Gomery told MPs on the government operations committee he was profoundly disappointed the Harper government ignored many of his recommendations because its signature Federal Accountability Act will not fix the imbalance of power between MPs, the prime minister and cabinet.”

According to the article the Harper government never responded to Gomery’s recommendations. Instead the Harper government has let the power of unelected political aides increase.

CBC reported⁵ (12 January 2007) that the Conservatives were already neglecting their own Accountability Act. It had become law in December of 2006. That same month Harper’s Conservatives made 118 appointments but were accused of violating the spirit of their act, which required that an independent body oversee such appointments. This trend would continue.

The Globe and Mail⁶ (5 January 2008) reported about a broken election promise the Conservatives had made requiring “ministers to record their contacts with lobbyists.” the article states

“In the 2006 election campaign, the Conservative Party platform pledged a new law to “require ministers and senior government officials to record their contacts with lobbyists.”

However, a federal spokesman said the new rules are not going in that direction. The new regulations are the details of how the Lobbying Act, which was passed in 2006 [emphasis mine], will work.

“The balanced approach that we determined as a Parliament was to put the positive obligation on the lobbyists,” said Mike Storeshaw, a spokesman for Treasury Board President Vic Toews.”

It doesn’t sound like the Conservatives followed through with a regulation that would make government more accountable, rather one that introduces easy ways out for officials communicating with lobbyists.

That year continued to show Harper breaking his promises for more accountability in government. After he talked up a storm about reforming the senate, pushing to turn it into an elected body, his actions went in the opposite direction. The Star⁷ (29 December 2008) pointed out that

“With his appointment of 18 Senators, most of whom are Conservative party cronies, Prime Minister Stephen Harper has added another broken promise to the 27 democratic reform and government accountability promises the Conservatives have already broken since they were elected in January 2006.”

Note that Stephen Harper⁸ addressed a senate committee (7 Septemeber 2006) regarding his plans for senate reform.

“As everyone in this room knows, it has become a right of passage for aspiring leaders and prime ministers to promise Senate reform – on their way to the top… But once they are elected, Senate reform quickly falls to the bottom of the Government’s agenda. Nothing ever gets done. And the status quo goes on. Honourable Senators, this has got to stop… As yet another step in fulfilling our commitment to make the Senate more effective and more democratic, the Government – hopefully this fall, – will introduce a bill in the House to create a process to choose elected Senators. This bill will further demonstrate how seriously the Government takes the issue of Senate reform.”

Look back at that same Star (29 Dec ’08) article, which recalls that the Conservatives

“promised to establish an independent Public Appointments Commission to ensure fair, merit-based and widely publicized searches for qualified candidates for the PM and his cabinet to appoint to government agencies, boards and commissions.”

As stated previously the Conservatives already had a problem with their 118 appointments made in 2007, when they also pledged to have that Public Appointments Commission set up in no time. It seems that almost two years later, instead of setting up the commission they continued appointing people, actually over 1000 appointments. So it’s perfectly consistent that they’d do nothing on senate reform after two years either. Stephen Harper succeeded with his own right of passage to get elected and do nothing about senate reform.

These few examples show that Harper’s Conservatives cannot be trusted to act on their own accountability act. There are other examples including questionable use of campaign money, mistreatment of the financial watchdog, and mistreatment of a whistleblower, I’ll get to those in other posts but Greg Weston summarizes nicely in his Toronto Sun article (13 December 2009)⁹.

Other perspectives on the Conservative accountability problem include

• Keith Martin, M.P. — Esquimalt—Juan de Fuca¹⁰ (12 May 2006)
• Doug Banwell’s Blog¹¹ (4 April 2009)