Canada Drops in Integrity Rankings

Canada's laws on effective government are strong, but implementation is lacking.

This week, Global Integrity released its 2010 Global Integrity Report, which dropped Canada from 11th to 19th out of almost 100 countries that it has evaluated since 2007. Using more than 300 indicators, the report is the world's most comprehensive, detailed assessment of national government accountability, integrity, and democratic process, and measures the strength of key laws and enforcement records up to the end of 2010.

As the Global Integrity Report makes clear, Canada's federal government has significant loopholes in its democratic process and government accountability systems when compared to the governments of other countries, and has weak enforcement in many areas. In other words, the Canadian government has a lot of work to do to become the world's leading democracy.

The integrity of the Canadian government continues to be undermined by loopholes that allow for dishonesty; secret donations to some candidates and to political-party trust funds; conflicts of interest by policy-makers; excessive government secrecy; and secret, unethical lobbying. It is also undermined by cabinet patronage appointments; arbitrary election calls; a flawed voting system; a lack of accountability for our prime minister, our Senate, and our judicial systems; and weak whistleblower protection and government accountability lapdog agencies.

Democracy Watch, as well as the good-government coalitions it co-ordinates, calls on all federal parties in the new Parliament to pass a “Real Accountability Act” to close the dozens of undemocratic and accountability loopholes in the federal government.

Global Integrity assesses each national government by asking in-country experts to answer more than 300 questions on an Integrity Indicators Scorecard. The scorecard is divided into six categories (with 23 subcategories), as follows:

1. Non-Governmental Organizations, Public Information, and Media
2. Elections
3. Government Conflicts-of-Interest Safeguards and Checks and Balances
4. Public Administration and Professionalism
5. Government Oversight and Controls
6. Anti-Corruption Legal Framework, Judicial Impartiality, and Law Enforcement Professionalism

None of the national governments that have been assessed since 2007 have received a "Very Strong" (above 90) rating. In Canada, increasing problems with government secrecy, weak enforcement of key ethics and government accountability laws, as well as the 2008 arbitrary election call and the 2008 and 2009 shutdowns of Parliament, have lowered the federal government from the high-"Moderate" score of 80 in 2008 to the mid-Moderate rating of 75 in 2010.

The main problem with Canada's federal government is that, while it has enacted almost all the laws needed for an effective government-integrity system (and so receives a “Strong” overall score of 90 for its legal framework), loopholes, flaws, and weak enforcement of those laws undermine the system (such that Canada received a “Weak” overall score of 61 for its implementation of the laws).

In the 2010 Global Integrity Report, Canada received its worst scores in:

• Government Conflicts-of-Interest Safeguards (because of loopholes in rules and weak enforcement by our ethics commissioner), and especially in the Judicial Accountability subcategory (because of patronage appointments to federal agencies, boards, commissions, and tribunals, and a lack of effective conflict-of-interest enforcement for all types of judges and commissioners);
• Public Administration and Professionalism, and particularly in the subcategories of Civil Service: Conflicts of Interest and Political Independence (because of a lack of independence and effective conflict-of-interest enforcement) and Whistle-blowing Protections (because of flaws in the law and weak enforcement by our integrity commissioner), and;
• Anti-Corruption Agency enforcement (because of the weak enforcement records left by our ethics commissioner, commissioner of lobbying, integrity commissioner, and Senate ethics officer, and because of the lack of key powers for our information commissioner, auditor general, and parliamentary budget officer.

On the other hand, Canada received its best scores in:

• Elections;
• Government Oversight and Controls of finances, and;
• Media's Ability to Report on Corruption.

It is possible that a government like Canada’s, which has dozens of undemocratic and accountability loopholes in its laws, and weak enforcement agencies, can still make decisions that uphold the public interest. However, it is much more likely that such a government will instead protect and further the private interests of its politicians, staff, and appointees, and their families, friends, and supporters. For this reason, all Canadians should be concerned about these loopholes.

The Conservatives promised to eradicate many of these loopholes in their 2006 so-called Accountability Act, but broke most of their promises to clean up Ottawa (as past governments have done as well). And, just like past governments, the Conservatives suffered the consequences of breaking their promises: Various cabinet ministers, MPs, former MPs, staff, government officials, and lobbyists embarrassed the government by exploiting loopholes to act dishonestly, unethically, secretively, or wastefully. For this reason, all MPs should be concerned about these loopholes. No matter how cleanly individual MPs act, it is likely that their names will be tarnished by the actions of someone else in their party (especially when those who violate the rules are let off the hook because of weak enforcement, which angers Canadians more than anything).

Democracy Watch and its nationwide coalitions invite everyone to join in pushing for the passage of a “Real Accountability Act” to get rid of these loopholes. After 144 years of Canadian government, it is high time that we take this very necessary step toward making Canada the world's leading democracy.