October 18, 2012

If you find yourself one day in government and you are dealing with serious ethical andtransparency problems, here are two very different methods to deal with it:

First, the one I recommend, aims to recognize the real problem in your administration, and starta reform in order to settle the problem once and for all.

The second one consists instead of identifying a false problem… with those who have helped tobring out this lack of ethics and transparency.

Waking up one morning, the MP from South Surrey — White Rock— Cloverdale, Mr. RussHiebert, thought he “heard” the citizens demanding more transparency. And it wasn’t a dream.The public do indeed want more transparency and more ethics from the government. Andbecause this MP is a man at the service of his people, he decided to tackle the problem head on.To face the music. Therefore, he identified the source of the problem (according to him) and heis now proposing his solution.

One might have expected that Mr. Hiebert would suggest that the government end thecountless refusals of its ministers to comply with the requests for access to information thathave come in from all sides. That he order them to finally collaborate with the StandingCommittee on Public Accounts which has asked in vain for this collaboration for months. Mr.Hiebert could also have asked the prime minister to abide by the Québec Superior Courtjudgment on the long gun registry. Suggest that the Conservative ministers respond honestly tothe repeated questions from the opposition on a myriad of subjects which concern the publicand remain today without a response. That is what the solution proposed by Mr. Hiebert shouldlook like. At least if he had used the first method.

But the Conservative government does not think that way. That is why instead of the solutionsthat I have just listed, MP Hiebert preferred to present a typical Conservative response to theproblems of transparency and ethics that have been criticized for years: Bill C377. A draft billaimed at increasing transparency and accountability… of the unions.

In essence, the wording of the law would force the unions to make their financial statementsand their expense statements public within six months of the end of the fiscal year.Unfortunately for Mr. Hiebert, labour organizations are not public institutions. They areonly accountable to their members, already fulfill their responsibilities to them and are fullytransparent when it comes to rendering accounts to them.

It would seem obvious that the real goal sought by this law is neither transparency nor thepublic interest. What Mr. Hiebert and the Conservatives are seeking is first to have their ownfailings ignored, and then to cast the public’s doubt on the unions, to try all means to discreditthose who hinder the pursuit of their conservative views.

This does not take into account that if this law is passed, it would create a power imbalancebetween the employers and the unions forcing the latter to make public their pressure tacticsin the context of an eventual negotiation or work conflict (if not, how does one explain that thesame obligations for businesses are not found in Bill C377?).

It might be politically expedient, but it is also dishonest and a bit embarrassing for a governmentthat is supposed to put the citizens’ interests first – in this case, the right of workers to defendthemselves and to hope for better living conditions – faced with partisan politics and ideology.The last government that acted that way was shown the door on September 4.