Senate Republicans Decide That Ethics Can Wait

As many as four top Cabinet nominees of President-elect Donald Trump will receive confirmation hearings this week without having completed financial disclosure reports and ethics agreements, breaking a longstanding tradition in the Senate.

Citing the importance of the new president having his national-security team in place immediately, Republican leaders are intent on seating as many of Trump’s Cabinet picks as possible by the time he takes office on January 20. In pushing ahead, however, they are brushing aside a warning from the director of the independent Office of Government Ethics that their aggressive hearing schedule is “cause for alarm.”

Will the last ethical Conservative please stand up?

With all the reporting on the Senate scandal you might think there's not much more to be discovered. But reading the actual documents the RCMP turned up in its Mike Duffy investigation is definitely worth the effort. The documents pull back the curtain on Harperland, a landscape so profoundly unethical Harper's staff does not hesitate even for a second in plotting to interfere with a supposedly independent official Senate audit. You have to ask yourself that if this is how Harper's inner circle behaved on the Duffy file, what kinds of things do they get up to when they are strategizing against Harper's enemies.

Tories’ asbestos policy ‘unethical and shameful’ say Canadian doctors

ST. JOHN’S—The Canadian Medical Association condemned the Conservative government for blocking asbestos from being listed as a hazardous substance around the world earlier this summer.

“I think this sends a strong message to the federal government that their unethical and shameful behaviour will not be tolerated by the physicians of Canada,” Dr. Barry Turchen of Abbotsford, B.C. told the annual gathering of the national body representing about 75,000 doctors on Wednesday.

Canada opposed the inclusion of chrysotile asbestos in a United Nations treaty last June that would have forced exporters to warn importing countries of health hazards.

The Rotterdam Convention, which operates by consensus, would have also given recipient countries the freedom to refuse to allow the product to enter their borders if they did not believe they could handle it safely.