The Canadian National Newspaper: Ontario Liberals miss opportunities for progressive change

Provincial politicians propose to raise their own pay, while avoiding strengthening ethics rules

Compiled by John Stokes

OTTAWA - Politicians in the Ontario legislature are currently debating the raising of their own pay based on a proposal introduced by Marie Bountrogianni. As this goes on, the Liberal Ontario Government's Minister Responsible for Democratic Renewal, Democracy Watch ironically called on Ontario politicians to focus on democratic reforms that are in the public interest rather than changes that are only in their 'self-interest'.

"It shows just how out of touch, undemocratic and unethical many of Ontario's politicians are when they use the excessively high pay of federal politicians as the reason to increase their own pay," said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch.

"Instead of proposing to increase politicians' pay and perks, why is the Ontario Liberal government not proposing to strengthen the Ontario government's overall accountability system..." said Duff Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch. Mr. Conacher furthermore explained that, "It shows just how out of touch, undemocratic and unethical many of Ontario's politicians are when they use the excessively high pay of federal politicians as the reason to increase their own pay."

Ontario's Integrity Commissioner Colter Osbourne made an error in judgement when he recommended an increase in Ontario politicians' pay because federal MPs are paid 40 percent more.

Instead, Mr. Osbourne should have pointed out that when politicians are paid at a level that puts them in the top two percent of income earners in the country (as federal politicians are), their pay is too high and has the undemocratic effect of putting politicians out of touch with the day-to-day concerns of voters.

Ontario's politicians should recognize that they are in a conflict of interest when voting on their own pay, and that if they are actually dedicated to public service they would set aside acting in their self-interest and focus instead on public interest changes to increase their own, and the government's, accountability.

"Much more needs to be done to ensure that everyone in the Ontario government, and in Ontario's corporations, is effectively required to act honestly, ethically, openly, efficiently and representatively, and can be easily held accountable," said Conacher.

Democracy Watch proposes the following 18 systemic changes that need to be made by Minister for Democratic Renewal Marie Bountrogianni and the Ontario Cabinet to make Ontario an effectively democratic society:

To empower citizens in their day-to-day relations with corporations and government: * the government must help citizens band together and form broad-based, well-resourced.democratically structured citizen citizen watchdog groups over the insurance, investment and utilities business sectors, and over public health care and government ethics and spending, which it can do at no cost using the method that has very successfully created such associations in several U.S. states;

To increase honest and ethics standards in the Ontario government: * an honesty-in-politics law must be passed covering politicians, appointees and public servants and election campaigns, with complaints going to the Integrity Commissioner, and very high fines as the penalty for lying to Ontarians; * ethics rules for politicians, appointees, public servants and lobbyists must be strengthened to match the much higher standard in in the current Canadian federal ethics rules for Cabinet ministers, their staff, senior government officials and lobbyists (including a multi-year ban on becoming a lobbyist after leaving office, and a ban on lobbyists working on political campaigns or for the government)

To increase the openness of the Ontario government: * the access-to-information system must be strengthened by ensuring all government institutions are covered by the law, ensuring that all officials must create a record of all decisions and actions, and making all exemptions to disclosure subject to a proof-of-harm test and public interest override; * the lobbying disclosure system must be strengthened by requiring all Ministers, junior ministers, and senior public officials to disclose who is lobbying them; * whether or not Ministers and senior officials are required to disclose who is lobbying them, lobbyists (whether paid or unpaid) must be required to register even for gathering information, to disclose total spending on lobbying campaigns, and to disclose past work with the government and political parties and candidates;

To make the Ontario government more accountable and representative: * opposition party leaders must be given a veto over the appointment of all government accountability watchdogs (the Integrity Commissioner, the Information and Privacy Commissioner, the Auditor General, the Election Commissioner) and other key law enforcement watchdogs after an independent, merit-based nomination process; * all government accountability watchdogs must be given the power to penalize violators of the laws they enforce with high fines, and to order a clean-up of any government institution's operations in violation of the law; * a law must be passed requiring all government institutions to use meaningful public consultation methods when making any significant decisions;

To democratize the political donations system in Ontario: * disclosure must be required of all donations and loans of money, property, in-kind services and volunteer labour to candidates for political office, to candidates for leadership of a political party, to politicians, to appointees, and to public servants; * as the federal government has done partially, donations from corporations, unions and other organizations of money, property, in-kind services and volunteer labour must be banned, and donations from individuals must be limited to a combined total of no more than $1,000 annually to each party and its MPPs or candidates; * as the federal government has done, non-political parties (so-called "third parties") must be restricted in how much they can spend during election campaigns to ensure that wealthy interests cannot dominate debates on issues nor overwhelm individual candidates whose spending is limited;

To make the Ontario government and Ontario corporations more responsible: * anyone who "blows the whistle" about any violation of any law must have an agency to complain to that can investigate, protect them from retaliation, reward them if their allegations prove to be true, and penalize violators and retaliators;; * for the Ontario government, enact all of the measures set out above and the government will act much more responsibly than it does currently; * for municipal governments, extend all of the measures set out above to them and they will act much more responsibly than they do currently; * for Ontario corporations, enacting the first step set out above under the category "To empower citizens" will be a very significant step forward in corporate responsibility in Ontario; * Ontario corporations should be required to disclose detailed information about their records of compliance with labour, environmental, human rights, consumer, health & safety, criminal, competition and tax laws and policies to a government-run, accessible searchable, on-line database, and; * Ontario corporations that violate the law should be banned from receiving any government subsidy, tax break, contract or grant.

"The Ontario government's overall accountability and corporate responsibility systems are the scandal, and no one should be surprised to see scandalously dishonest, unethical, secretive, wasteful and irresponsible behaviour by government and corporate officials as long as these systems are full of loopholes and ineffectively enforced." said Conacher.

Democracy Watch and the four nation-wide coalitions it coordinates furthermore indicates that it "plans to continue to push the Ontario government to make the meaningful, and democratizing changes."