Liberals are working to make government more accountable

“After four years in office, the Conservatives have yet to live up to their election promise to make government more accountable and transparent,” said Liberal Leader Michael Ignatieff. “Prime Minister Harper’s Accountability Act delivered little more than smoke-and-mirrors. The focus of today’s forum is to look back at what was promised, what was delivered and what is needed to make government more accountable to Canadians.”

The roundtable, hosted by Liberal Deputy House Leader and Government Ethics and Democratic Reform Critic Marlene Jennings, will hear from a number of governance experts, including former senior public servant Scott Clark, Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch Canada, Maryantonett Flumian of the Institute on Governance, Retired Colonel Michel Drapeau, Parliamentary Budget Officer Kevin Page and the University of Ottawa’s Professor Errol Mendes.

It is the second of a series of public forums on governance organized by the Liberal Working Group on Governance, spearheaded by Marlene Jennings and Senator James Cowan.

Ms. Jennings said these roundtables are important if Canadians are to have faith in their federal government again. “The Federal Accountability Act was adopted in 2006 based on a Conservative election promise to ‘clean up government,’ but since that time, the unaccountability and secrecy has only gotten worse,” she said. “I expect today we will hear some very helpful views on how to improve the Act so that we have a truly open and transparent government.”

In particular, the Act has been criticised for failing to reduce the large number of exemptions that the government can use to shield documents under the Access to Information Act. Furthermore, lobbying rules under the Act have been criticized as containing too many loopholes, most notably evidenced by the extensive lobbying activities of former Conservative insider Ken Boessenkool. “Even the former Information Commissioner John Reid described the provisions of the Accountability Act as being ‘retrograde and dangerous,’” said Marlene Jennings. “The Liberal Party believes that more needs to be done to ensure a culture of accountability in Ottawa.”