Liberal Senators Table Ethics Act Amendments

The senators say many of the amendments are repairing errors both technical and substantive which should have been caught before the bill was tabled. Senator Grant Mitchell accused the Conservatives of rushing the legislation through the House of Commons. "Although the Senate was advised by Treasury Board Minister John Baird that this Bill had been 'examined with a microscope' by his colleagues in the House of Commons, the myriad errors identified suggest it was pushed through with more regard for speed than substance," Mitchell said in a statement. The accountability act, aimed at cleaning up the way government does business in the wake of the Liberal-era sponsorship scandal, introduces new ethics regulations and tightens up Canada's political financing laws. The act amends dozens of statutes and: tightens restrictions on lobbyists and political donations; establishes an independent public prosecutor to probe bureaucrats and politicians who breach federal law; protects whistleblowers; and ramps up the powers of the auditor general and ethics commissioner. Under the Tory legislation, Canadians would have been limited to donating $1,000 annually each to a candidate or political party. http://tinyurl.com/ydyvwz [Proofreader's note: this article was edited for spelling and typos on October 25, 2006]

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