All Canadians can help get their politicians to sign the 7-point Pledge

Tuesday, January 15, 2013

OTTAWA – Today, Democracy Watch called on politicians and government officials across Canada to sign the Democratic Good Government Pledge as their New Year’s Resolution, and called on Canadians to contact their politicians, and political staff, and government appointees and officials and ask them to sign the Pledge (and to let Democracy Watch know who they are approaching by sending an email to [email protected]).

Democracy Watch created the Democratic Good Government Pledge because current laws and enforcement systems across Canada do not go far enough to ensure that politicians, their staff, appointees, government employees, and election candidates act honestly, ethically, openly, representatively, efficiently and respectfully.

The 7-point Pledge reflects the best-practice international standards for democratic good governance, and the standards that surveys have shown Canadians want politicians and government officials to uphold.

By signing on to the Pledge, politicians, political staff, appointees and officials agree to all of the following 6 standards, and also to vote for changes to laws, codes, policies etc. to require these standards to be upheld (and they can choose to sign on only to parts of the Pledge):

1. To be honest;  2. To be ethical;  3. To be open;  4. To be representative;  5. To be waste-preventing;  6. To be respectful; and; 7. To support positive changes.

“We know that not all or even many people in politics are dishonest, unethical, secretive, unrepresentative and wasteful, but those who act in these undemocratic ways are usually let off the hook with no penalty because of loopholes in rules and weak enforcement, and this is not the system Canadians want or deserve,” said Tyler Sommers, Coordinator for Democracy Watch.  “So we’re simply asking people in politics to pledge to behave the ways Canadians want and expect and deserve, and Canadians to help by pushing politicians and others to take the pledge.”

The Pledge has already been sent to all federal politicians as well as provincial party leaders across Canada, and will be sent to all politicians in Canada.  Politicians can send in their signed copy of the Pledge by mail to Democracy Watch at P.O. Box 821, Stn. B, Ottawa K1P 5P9, by email to: [email protected] or by fax to: 613-241-4758.