The System Is The Scandal

The opposition parties' and media's criticisms of the Liberals would have a stronger ring of sincere concern if they pushed just as loudly and strongly for changes to ensure integrity in the annual flow of tens of millions of dollars through the bank accounts of federal political parties and politicians, and the annual flow of tens of billions of dollars in government spending, and in government policy-making processes generally. Unfortunately though, like the Liberals, opposition parties and the media have not highlighted the many serious flaws in political donations, government ethics, openness, spending and hiring laws and enforcement systems. True, finally in 2003-04 the Liberals made significant, democratizing changes to the federal political donations law and federal ethics rules. However, several huge loopholes remain that, essentially, legalize corrupt activities, and the opposition parties and the media have also been almost completely silent about them. First, if you can believe it, secret donations of unlimited amounts of money are still allowed to candidates in federal elections. Second, parties and candidates are still not required to disclose who bankrolled their election campaigns before election day, and some election costs still do not have to be disclosed. As a result, voters have to cast their ballot without knowing who may have some ownership or undue influence over a candidate or party. Third, individuals are still allowed to donate up to $5,000 annually to each party, and to each nomination candidate or party leadership candidate, and the employer and other affiliations of donors are not disclosed. Ad company executives have testified at Gomery Commission that they hid large donations by splitting them up and funnelling them through employees. To prevent this in the future, donations must be limited to no more than $1,000 annually, full identity of donors must be clearly disclosed, and limits must be placed on total donations from any business, industry or organizational sector. Fourth, federal ethics rules for political parties, politicians, government employees, and lobbyists are still filled with many other loopholes, are still not effectively enforced, have weak penalties, and don’t protect people who blow the whistle on wrongdoing. Access-to-information, hiring and spending rules for parties, politicians and government employees are similarly loophole-filled and weakly enforced (allowing the government to hide, among many other things, the size of the federal surplus). Fifth, incredibly many government organizations and organizations that receive significant government funding are not even covered by the key accountability measures of the access-to-information law, ethics rules, hiring and spending rules, and auditor general oversight. Organizations operating without legal accountability in one or more of these areas include the Senate, Crown corporations, and several foundations created by the Liberals in the past several years that are responsible for handing out $7 billion in grants. Parties and candidates raise tens of millions of dollars each year, and during each election campaign, and politicians, their staff, and government employees are constantly wined and dined by corporate lobbyists and special interest groups wanting changes to laws, policies and programs, or wanting tax breaks, subsidies, contracts or grants of some of the $200 billion the federal government spends each year. continued here: http://www.oneworld.ca/external/?url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.dwatch.ca%2Fcamp%2FOpEdApr1405.html%23Full%2520version%2520of%2520op-ed [Here's the Democracy Watch link again which has both versions of the op-ed: http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/OpEdApr1405.html --Ed.]