“There’s a lot of frustration about an act that was supposed to give really clear tools to ensure that Parliamentarians and designated public office holders play by the rules, and yet it’s become fairly toothless,” said NDP ethics critic Charlie Angus (Timmins-James Bay, Ont.).
The Conflict of Interest Act applies to more than 3,000 public office holders, including every minister and Parliamentary secretary, as well as more than 530 ministerial staff, as well as people appointed to high-level jobs and Crown corporations.
The act tackles public office holders’ conduct while they are in office, including how they receive gifts and other perks, as well as how they use their governmental ties after they leave office.
The act came into force July 9, 2007, and was supposed to be reviewed by July of this year. The House Access to Information, Ethics and Privacy Committee is responsible for reviewing the act, but did not begin a review before the Commons rose for summer break in June.
One former Member of Parliament who did not want to be identified noted that the five-year reviews pose a logistical problem for Parliament.
“The problem is it doesn’t necessarily align with the election cycle or the House legislative cycle,” the former MP said. “How do you fit that review into everything else the House is doing?”
The former MP also noted that the Conflict of Interest Act is probably not the only piece of legislation that’s past its review deadline. “I think people see those kinds of things as a soft target,” the MP said.
NDP democratic reform critic Joe Comartin (Windsor-Tecumseh, Ont.) said that in his experience, it is only when the laws are scheduled to expire without a review that it is done promptly.
“I’m frustrated where we put these time limits in for review. … You’ll often go literally years before you do the mandated review even though it’s right in the legislation,” he said.
The chair of the Ethics Committee, New Democrat Pierre-Luc Dusseault (Sherbrooke, Que.) and its vice-chairs, Conservative Patricia Davidson (Sarnia-Lambton, Ont.) and Liberal Scott Andrews (Avalon, Nfld.) were not available for comment July 30. But Mr. Angus, who sits on the committee, said the committee was preoccupied with a study on privacy and social media and would sit down and work out when to study the act in the fall.
Democracy Watch coordinator Tyler Sommers said that it’s unlikely a study of the Conflict of Interest Act will begin promptly when Parliament returns from summer break on Sept. 17.
He said he is concerned that it will be postponed until December, when the public is distracted by the holidays and potential witnesses are busy.
He also noted that the Conflict of Interest Act is not the only piece of legislation whose review has been postponed indefinitely.
The Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, which is meant to protect whistleblowers, is also up for review. That process was meant to begin three months ago, according to Democracy Watch.
Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson said that she would like to be consulted on any changes to the Conflict of Interest Act.
“The commissioner will continue to seek ways in which we may contribute to the five year reviews of both the act and the code by sharing our experience,” said Sherry Perreault, spokesperson for the ethics commissioner.
She noted that in the past, the commissioner has used annual reports to Parliament to highlight issues with the act.
This year, she tabled her report in Parliament June 21—the second-last day the House of Commons sat before breaking for the summer, making it unlikely any MP or Senator has yet to crack the spine on her observations.
In the annual report Ms. Dawson noted a couple of shortcomings in the act and its enforcement.
When it comes to public office holders’ responsibility to let her know about any job offers, whether or not they are accepted, Ms. Dawson expressed skepticism that this responsibility was being taken seriously.
“I received only 15 disclosures of firm offers or acceptances in the past year. … I wonder whether more than 15 may have had an offer of employment in hand at the time they left office,” she wrote in her report, noting that eight ministers and more than 350 public office holders left government in the same period.
Between April 2011 and March 31, 2012, Ms. Dawson fined seven people for failing to disclose their financial assets to her on deadline, or not detailing all of their assets and their estimated worth at all.
She also started eight conflict of interest investigations.
Ms. Dawson wrote that “one of the biggest challenges” she has had to deal with when it comes to administering the Conflict of Interest Act is dealing with gifts or other advantages given to public office holders.
She said that many public office holders have the impression that any gift worth less than $200, the threshold for publicly disclosing gifts, is acceptable. In reality, any gift is subject to a test to ensure it will not inappropriately influence the office holder.
During the reporting period, 30 public office holders reported 55 gifts or other advantages, and a “very limited number” of gifts were returned to the giver or paid for because they were not considered appropriate, according to the commissioner’s report.
Mr. Sommers said that while Democracy Watch has “a number of issues” with the Conflict of Interest Act, one of the major problems lies with how the act is enforced, and Ms. Dawson’s record of enforcing it.
“Without effective enforcement, there’s really no point in having an act, even if it’s ironclad,” he said.
Ms. Dawson’s enforcement record has been “weak,” he said.
She “has refused to investigate clear violations of ethics rules, and she’s let Cabinet ministers and others off the hook when all evidence points to the conclusion that they’ve violated those rules,” he said.
The most recent case of high-profile allegations under the Conflict of Interest Act to be checked out by the commissioner is that of Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.) allegedly using his position when he was Health and Industry minister to benefit a company in his riding.
Mr. Clement allegedly broke the rules by appearing in a promotional video for Lord and Partners Ltd. as a minister. At the same time, three government contracts were also awarded to the company and one of the firm’s partners was appointed to the Canadian Tourism Commission. The allegations, which the public sector integrity commissioner passed along to the ethics commissioner, also stated that Mr. Clement was friends with the company’s owners.
Ms. Dawson looked into the matter and determined that there was no reason to believe that Mr. Clement was friends with the heads of Lord and Partners, and so there was no reason to examine further.
“Tony Clement—the guy was hawking floor cleaning products for a guy in his riding as the minister. No consequences,” said Mr. Angus. He also pointed to the case of Industry Minister Christian Paradis (Mégantic-L’Érable, Que.), whom Ms. Dawson found was in conflict of interest when he set up meetings with bureaucrats for former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer to pitch a business idea.
“The Prime Minister chalked it up to a learning experience. Well, that’s not an acceptable ethical standard,” he said.
Mr. Paradis is currently under investigation again by Ms. Dawson, who is looking into whether he was involved in relocating an employment insurance office into his riding, and for his dealings with lawyer and businessman Marcel Aubut. Mr. Paradis stayed at Mr. Aubut’s cabin in 2009 during a hunting trip, and the concern is that he may have been lobbied during his stay, an allegation Mr. Paradis has denied.
The problem with the act, Mr. Sommers said, is that even in cases where someone is found to have violated the act, there is little that the ethics commissioner can do about it, as the act lacks heavy sanctions and minimum penalties, he said.
Punishment “would be very little, but a strong ethics commissioner, even in the current role, would at least be able to bring more public attention and public shame,” he said.
He suggested that the ethics commissioners serve only one non-renewable term, to ensure that he or she isn’t tempted to pander to the government to be re-appointed. Currently, commissioners serve seven-year renewable terms.
Since it was created, the act has been significantly amended just once. In December 2011 it was changed to include a third acceptable reason for public office holders to have another job. Previously, public office holders could only have another job if it was at a Crown corporation or related to charitable work. Now, a public office holder can work for free in order to make sure that their status as a practicing professional doesn’t lapse.
The Conflict of Interest Code, which governs Members of Parliament specifically, was also up for review this year and is being studied by the Procedure and House Affairs Committee. The committee has held four meetings on the topic, and was originally meant to issue a report by June 11. It has asked for more time.
“I hope that these reviews will provide opportunities to address the challenges that I have identified and thereby enhance my ability to administer the act and the code in a practical and effective way,” wrote Ms. Dawson, who gave feedback on the code for the House Affairs committee’s review.
Mr. Angus said that the New Democrats would like to examine more than the letter of the act: “We want to look at it, and it’s not just the letter of the law but whether the people that are bound by it actually feel that it’s something that they need to live by.”
Original Article
Source: hill times
Author: Jessica Bruno
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