SEND A LETTER: Bill C-2 (The So-Called "Federal Accountability Act&Quo

The Concerns are about: - dishonest and misleading politicians and government officials;
- secrecy in government that hides waste, wrongdoing, and deals with corporate lobbyists that hurt the public, the environment and valuable public services such as health care;
- Prime Ministers appointing party supporters to high-paid, powerful positions;
- politicians taking gifts from, and doing favours for, corporate lobbyists;
- politicians and their staff selling out and becoming corporate lobbyists soon after they leave the government;
- ineffective government watchdog agencies that point out problems, but don't have the power to solve problems, or;
- politicians violating voter rights by switching parties in between elections.

Please support the only campaign in Canada that is pushing to make the federal government more accountable in every way BY SENDING THIS LETTER.

If you want to see all the details about Bill C-2, the "Federal Accountability Act", and changes needed to the bill, please click on the following 2 releases:
See Democracy Watch Press Release: Sept 15/06
See Democracy Watch Press Release: May 30/06

Making the federal government more accountable to citizens in Canada will help win the changes and solutions you are seeking.

Feel free to change the sample letter set out below as you like, BUT PLEASE SEND THE LETTER BY THIS FRIDAY. PLEASE PASS ON THIS MESSAGE TO OTHERS

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SENDING THE LETTER
Please send a letter to the Senate Committee by this Friday, October 20th based on the letter set out below (copying and/or changing it as you like) and using the following email addresses of Senate Committee members OR (even better) send a hand-written or typed letter by mail to:
The Standing Senate Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs
The Senate
Ottawa, Canada K1A 0A4

EMAIL ADDRESSES:
leg-jur@sen.parl.gc.ca, lafreg@sen.parl.gc.ca, olived@sen.parl.gc.ca, andrer@sen.parl.gc.ca, bakerg@sen.parl.gc.ca, info@larrycampbell.ca, campbel@sen.parl.gc.ca, cowanj@sen.parl.gc.ca, dayja@sen.parl.gc.ca, joyals@sen.parl.gc.ca, nolinp@sen.parl.gc.ca, ringup@sen.parl.gc.ca, ringup@sen.parl.gc.ca, jcrivest@sen.parl.gc.ca, stratt@sen.parl.gc.ca, zimmer@sen.parl.gc.ca, lebrem@sen.parl.gc.ca, comeag@sen.parl.gc.ca, haysd@sen.parl.gc.ca, frasej@sen.parl.gc.ca

Please send a copy of the letter you send to the Committee also to Democracy Watch at:

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DEMOCRACY WATCH SAMPLE LETTER

Dear Senate Standing Committee on Legal and Constitutional Affairs,

The federal government's accountability system is the real scandal because for 139 years it has allowed politicians, government appointees, political staff, government employees and lobbyists to act dishonestly, unethically, secretively, non-representatively and wastefully -- with little chance of getting caught and usually no penalty.

Either laws and rules don't exist or are full of loopholes, or enforcement and penalties are too weak to prevent wrongdoing and penalize wrongdoers effectively.

Incredibly, the laws against illegal parking in Canada are enforced more strongly and effectively than key government accountability laws and rules, and in some cases the penalties for parking illegally are higher than for wrongdoing in the federal government!

The problem is undeniable, as dozens of scandals have occurred and, in the past four years alone, Canada's federal government has dropped from 5th to 14th in the Global Corruption Report's rankings of governments.

If the federal government's accountability system is not strengthened in many key ways, secrecy, corruption and waste will continue to infect the federal government, and the government will continue to fail to solve Canada's problems and address Canadians' concerns in many areas.

Bill C-2 (the "Federal Accountability Act) is an historic opportunity to strengthen the federal government's accountability system in many key ways. However, because the Conservatives broke many election promises and did not include many other key measures in Bill C-2, the bill must be strengthened in many key ways to be effective in ensuring that everyone in the federal government is required to act honestly, ethically, openly, representatively, and to prevent waste.

Honest and open government is a key priority - my vote in the next federal election will very much depend on what your party does to strengthen Bill C-2. Please write me back and give me the details about whether your party proposed the following changes to Bill C-2, the "Federal Accountability Act" and whether your party voted in favour of these changes:

1) to make it illegal to be dishonest or to mislead Canadians, and to reverse the Conservatives' attempt to cut the ethics rule on honesty, put back in Bill C-2 the ethics rule that requires the Prime Minister, Cabinet ministers, their staff, Cabinet appointees, and senior public servants to "act with honesty" and add a similar requirement to be honest to the laws that apply to all MPs, senators, their staff and everyone who works at any federal government institution;

2) to ensure the Conservatives keep their election promise to end secret, unethical lobbying, add to Bill C-2 a requirement that Cabinet minister and senior public officials register on the Internet lobbying registry the identity of anyone who contacts them to try to influence their decisions (and the issue they contacted them about), and a requirement that everyone contacting and trying to influence ministers and senior officials on behalf of any corporation or organization to register as a lobbyist for that organization and to follow the ethics rules for lobbyists, and a ban on all staff of Cabinet ministers becoming lobbyists for at least 3 years after leaving their position;

3) to ensure the Conservatives keep their election promise to allow the public to file complaints with ethics watchdog agencies, remove from Bill C-2 the barriers to the public filing complaints, and add a measure that gives the public a clear right to file a complaint with the relevant agency about the decisions or actions of anyone in the federal government;

4) to ensure the Conservatives keep their election promise to establish a Public Appointments Commission that will effectively check the Cabinet's power to make appointments, change Bill C-2 to require Cabinet to set up the Commission, to make the Commission independent of Cabinet, and to set out merit-based rules that the Commission must follow when advertising and screening possible appointees, and to require opposition party leader approval of the more than 3,500 people Cabinet appoints to agencies, boards, commissions, tribunals, courts, Crown corporations and other government institutions;

5) to ensure the Conservatives keep their election promise to strengthen openness of the federal government, add to Bill C-2 measures ensuring every government institution is covered by the Access to Information law and is required to disclose regularly detailed information about their decisions and actions, and to give the Information Commissioner the power to review any decision to keep secret any information and to order the release of the information if it is in the public interest and no harm or injury would be caused;

6) change Bill C-2 to ensure all government watchdog agencies are not under the control of Cabinet, MPs or senators (for example, the Senate's ethics watchdog is under the control of a committee of senators), by requiring all watchdog agencies to make all their decisions and rulings public, prohibiting them from giving secret advice to anyone, and by requiring them to disclose the identities of anyone who violates any law, rule, code or policy;

7) change Bill C-2 toincrease the penalties for anyone in the federal government who breaks any law, rule, code or policy to the same level as the penalties for lobbyists who break the lobbying law (lobbyists face $50,000 to $200,000 fines and possible jail terms for breaking the lobbying law, while Cabinet ministers only face a maximum $500 fine for breaking key ethics rules, and MPs only face a maximum $2,000 fine for taking secret donations!);

8) to ensure effective whistleblower protection, add a measure to Bill C-2 to ensure the whistleblower protection agency can protect anyone (not just public servants) who blows the whistle on any wrongdoing by anyone in the federal government, and;

9) to respect voter rights, add a measure to Bill C-2 to require any MP who switches parties (or leaves their party to sit as an independent MP) to resign and run in a by-election, unless they have a justifiable reason (such as their party breaking an election promise or changing key policies, or someone in a leadership position in their party being found guilty of acting unethically or illegally).

Sincerely,
[[ Your name and address ]]

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Please also make a donation to the campaign Democracy Watch and the 3 nation-wide coalitions Democracy Watch coordinates are leading to strengthen government accountability in Canada, BY GOING TO: http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/support.html and on the same webpage you will find details about what Supporters of democratic reform, government accountability and corporate responsibility campaigns in Canada receive in return for their donation.

All together we can clean-up the Canadian federal government and turn it into a much more citizen-driven and accountable government that addresses citizen concerns - more accountable than it has ever been in history!

Thank you again for your support,
Duff Conacher, Coordinator
Democracy Watch

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