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Tuesday, January 15, 2013

While there are clearly problems with secrecy concerning attendance and other parts of the operations of the Senate, many recent scandals have shown clearly that it is not the only federal government institution with secrecy problems.

The federal Conservatives promised in their 2006 election platform to require every federal government institution to keep records of every action and decision, and to disclose the records except if someone's personal health or safety would be hurt, or their personal privacy violated.

The Conservatives broke those promises, and also failed to include any promises to strengthen the federal Access to Information Act in their international Open Government Partnership Action Plan for the next three years.

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OTTAWA - Following the release of the fifth annual report by the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner, civil society groups are calling the federal Conservatives' 5-year-old whistleblower regime a failure and calling for major reforms to ensure protection of Canadian whistleblowers.

The Commissioner of Lobbying has continued the partial enforcement of federal lobbying disclosure rules by finding Keith Beardsley, former deputy chief of staff for Prime Minister Harper, guilty of violating the Lobbyists' Code because he lobbied without registering within five years after leaving his job.

However, this ruling highlights just how weak the Lobbying Act is (compared to the Code), and how weak the enforcement of the law continues to be by the RCMP and especially the Public Prosecutor (who makes the decision about whether to charge lobbyists for failing to register).

Huge loopholes in the Act make it very difficult for prosecutors to prove beyond a shadow of a doubt that the lobbyist intentionally was paid to lobby and failed to register.