Mr. Harper, your pants are on fire.

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Democracy watchdog files complaints against Harper government

An Ottawa-based democracy watchdog group filed a formal complaint on Thursday against the federal Conservative government for breaking a "baker's dozen" promises to tighten ethics and accountability policies.

Democracy Watch filed the complaint with ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro against Prime Minister Stephen Harper, Treasury Board President John Baird and Harper's director of communications Sandra Buckler.

The group's letter of complaint also repeats its call for ethics commissioner Shapiro to resign for failing to vigorously enforce ethics rules.

"Canadians have a right to be disappointed," Democracy Watch coordinator Duff Conacher said at a news conference in Ottawa on Thursday.

"Prime Minister Harper has broken promises that guaranteed a clean-up of the federal government and effective measures to ensure that public officials act honestly, ethically, openly and prevent waste."

http://www.cbc.ca/story/canada/national/2006/05/25/democracy-watch.html

The 13 broken promises are as follows:

1. the promise to "Enshrine the Conflict of Interest Code into law" (In fact, the Federal Accountability Act (FAA) deletes five of the rules in the current Code);
2. the promise to "Make part-time or non-remunerated ministerial advisers subject to the Ethics Code" (In fact, the FAA increases the number of part-timers and unpaid advisers not covered by most of the requirements in the Code);
3. the promise to "Extend to five years the period during which former ministers, ministerial staffers, and senior public servants cannot lobby government" (In fact, unless Cabinet ministers put ministerial staff on a list, the staff person will be allowed, as they were already, to become a lobbyist one year after they leave their staff position);
4. the promise to "Close the loopholes that allow ministers to vote on matters connected with their business interests" (In fact, the FAA does not close these loopholes);
5. the promise to "Allow members of the public - not just politicians - to make complaints to the Ethics Commissioner" (In fact, the FAA only allows politicians to file complaints);
6. the promise to “Give the Ethics Commissioner the power to fine violators” (In fact, the FAA does not empower the Ethics Commissioner to fine violators of many ethics rules);
7. the promise to "Require ministers and senior government officials to record their contacts with lobbyists" (In fact, the FAA does not include this requirement);
8. the promise to "Create an independent Parliamentary Budget Office" (In fact, the FAA allows Cabinet to dismiss the Officer at any time for any reason, which means the Officer will not have a key safeguard needed to act independently);
9. the promise to publish "all government public opinion research . . . within six months of the completion of the project" (In fact, the FAA only requires some government institutions to publish some research);
10. the promise to "Ensure that all Canadians who report government wrongdoing are protected, not just public servants" (In fact, the FAA does not even protect all public servant whistleblowers);
11. the promise to "Require the prompt public disclosure of information revealed by whistleblowers . . ." (In fact, the FAA prohibits the disclosure of much of the information revealed by whistleblowers);
12. the promise to "Establish a Public Appointments Commission to set merit-based requirements for appointments to government boards, commissions and agencies, to ensure that competitions for posts are widely publicized and fairly conducted" (In fact, the FAA does not require Cabinet to create the Commission (it only allows Cabinet to do so) and since a parliamentary committee rejected the Prime Minister Harper’s nominee for Commission chair, the Prime Minister has derailed the Commission), and;
13. the promise to "Appoint a Procurement Auditor . . ." (In fact, the FAA does not require Cabinet to appoint the Auditor (it only allows Cabinet to do so) and it does not give the Auditor promised powers needed to ensure fair and transparent procurement practices).

http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/RelsMay2506.html

Thank the Lord that those filthy, corrupt, thieving Liberals are out of power and the Conservatives have brought accountability to government!
 
I'm having flashbacks to zulu9812 posting articles about the US now.
 
Erik Mesoy said:
I'm having flashbacks to zulu9812 posting articles about the US now.
Yeah, me too. That a government breaks promises unfortunately appears to be one of the fundamental laws of democracy. At least i can't recall a single German election, where both candidates weren't making false promises.
 
Till said:
Yeah, me too. That a government breaks promises unfortunately appears to be one of the fundamental laws of democracy. At least i can't recall a single German election, where both candidates weren't making false promises.

Just because it happens frequently doesn't mean that you should just let it go.
 
Accountability in government, after a decade of perceived and largely imagined* Liberal corruption and cronyism was Harper's flagship issue, and his promise to eliminate it altogether was his flagship promise during the elections. Now, it appears that in his Federal Accountability Act is he not only failing to deal with the issue, but he appears to be furthering the ability of government and its bureaucrats to engage in corruption and cronyism and be protected from the law while committing the crime. I don't know, this seems like something worthy of getting all worked up about, don't you people?

And as zulu said, just because something that is wrong is also common does not mean we should just accept it as a fact of life. Dictatorships are born that way.

*Conservatives like to ignore the fact that during Martin's tenure as PM, he purged all of those guilty of corruption and those involved were prosecuted. It also turned out that it was only a very small circle of Liberal Party members who were corrupt, Martin himself was exonerated by the Police and he was the finance minister (before becoming PM).
 
zulu9812 said:
Just because it happens frequently doesn't mean that you should just let it go.
There are all kinds of reason why promises migh need to be broken. If the party has to form a coalition and the coalition partner has other plans, for instance.
Or the newly formed government "discovers" that the promises were impossble to keep in the first place.

That doesn't mean one shouldn't hold the party accountable to their promises. Politicians need constand reminder of what they said during their election campaign as they all seem to suffer from a bad memory. :D

But having a democracy watchdog interfere is a bit over the top, in my opinion.
 
It doesn't matter really - we got what we deserved. This election demonstrated once again how hopelessly flawed democracy is when dealing with the slobbering masses.

Please let me pre-face this with: "If you truly are a right winger and support the neo-conservative agenda and voted for Harper then fine - I disagree with you but I RESPECT your choice - THATS democracy"

However Harper didn't win the election based on those people. Exit polls and opinion polls showed time and time again that Canadians rejected his conservative agenda and voted conservative mostly in digust of the Liberals. Every time I heard someone on the street say they were votong for Harper because "It's time for a change" I cringed. What does that MEAN? Was it just some catch phrase you're parroting like a mindless drone or do you actually know what you're talking about? If actually questioned about political ideology those same people would probably show themselves to be more in line with the Liberals or NDP.

However Harper's campaign kept their mouths shut about his right wing beliefs and most people conveniently forgot about his past actions and statements, in favour of paltry tax cuts (most people clamouring for their paltry child care rebate didn't even realize they were going to have it taxed).

Most Canadians support gay marriage, environmental reforms, social safety nets and universal health care yet we elected someone who stands against all of those things.

We smugly sneer at Americans and their government but we elected someone just like Bush who has been basically parroting his political playbook. We're geniuses indeed. Even the Americans are fed up with Bush by now but we're stumbling towards a government just like it... probably a majority.
 
Pasi Nurminen said:
And as zulu said, just because something that is wrong is also common does not mean we should just accept it as a fact of life. Dictatorships are born that way.

And you would probably end up worshipping whichever dictator we ended up with as a god, right?
 
Erik Mesoy said:
I'm having flashbacks to zulu9812 posting articles about the US now.

The difference is that Pasi is making a post about his own government, which he has every right to do.

As far as the topic at hand goes, my sig summarises my feelings.
 
warpus said:
And you would probably end up worshipping whichever dictator we ended up with as a god, right?

where on earth did you get that from???
 
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