In Ottawa, Democracy Watch and the national Government Ethics Coalition called on the Conservative Cabinet to go further than the recommendations of the House Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee by changing the federal Lobbying Act and enforcement system in 10 key ways to finally end secret, unethical lobbying of the federal government.

"The time for accountability has arrived."

These were the first words written by Stephen Harper in the Conservatives' 2006 election platform, "Stand Up for Canada." Indeed, if there is an animating theme in what would become the Conservatives' winning election message in 2006, it was the Tories' insistence that they would inaugurate an era of transparent and accountable government that would "replace old-style politics with a new vision."

Among the proposals designed to restore accountability and transparency to government, the Tories promised to:

1. "Clean up the procurement of government contracts."

2. "Ensure truth in budgeting."

We should know within a matter of weeks if WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is extradited from England to Sweden, where he faces sexual assault charges. But even if Assange ends up behind bars and has his website taken down, others will be happy to take his place. Think of the whack-a-mole game at the arcade. Hit one on the head and another will pop up.

WikiLeaks is just one example of why I say we are entering an era of hyper-transparency. Courtesy of the Internet, people everywhere have at their fingertips the most powerful tool ever for finding out what's really going and informing others. They are gaining unprecedented access to all sorts of information about governments, corporations and other organizations in society.

OTTAWA - As representatives of 60 countries gather in Brasilia, Brazil to present their two-year action plans at the first international Open Government Partnership (OGP) meeting, the nation-wide Open Government Coalition, Government Ethics Coalition and Money in Politics Coalition, made up of more than 70 citizen groups in total with three million members (all co-ordinated by Democracy Watch), called on the OGP Steering Committee to reject the federal Conservatives' Action Plan for failing to fulfill its own commitment to increase government integrity.

OTTAWA - Democracy Watch released its analysis of Elections Canada's enforcement of the Canada Elections Act since 1997, revealing that the main problem is no one can tell whether Elections Canada has been enforcing the law fairly and properly because it has failed to disclose details of how it has investigated and ruled on 2,982 of the 5,018 complaints it has received about federal elections in the past 15 years.

All federal politicians who have served on the committees that have, at least once each year since 1997, questioned the Chief Electoral Officer of Elections Canada have been negligent by failing to notice and question this huge gap in Elections Canada's reports.

The federal Conservatives' so-called Action Plan that they will submit to the Open Government Partnership meeting in Brasilia, Brazil on April 17-18 fails to increase public integrity and transparency in the federal government.

The plan says that the Conservatives believe they can "introduce measures that will further strengthen access to information, public ethics, and public participation" but no one should believe them because their plan fails to commit to any measures that will close the dozens of loopholes and correct the many flaws in the federal Access to Information Act, Conflict of Interest Act and MP and Senate ethics rules, Lobbying Act, Public Servants Disclosure Protection Act, Financial Administration Act and Canada Elections Act.