Report which dropped Canada from 11th to 19th out of the almost 100
countries evaluated since 2007. The Report is the world's most
comprehensive, detailed assessment (using more than 300 indicators)
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 other countries,
and weak enforcement in many areas, and so has a lot of work to do
to become the world's leading democracy," said Duff Conacher, Lead
Researcher for the Canada report, and Coordinator of Democracy Watch
and Assistant Coordinator of the Democracy Education Network.
"Government integrity 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, secret, unethical lobbying, and is
also undermined by Cabinet patronage appointments, arbitrary
election calls and a flawed voting system, and lack of Prime
Minister, judicial and Senate accountability and weak whistleblower
protection and government accountability lapdog agencies."
"Democracy Watch and the good government coalitions it coordinates
call 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," said Conacher.
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 and 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 Canada's federal government from the
high-"Moderate" score of 80 in 2008 to the mid-Moderate rating of 75
in 2010.
Overall, 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 and flaws in the laws, and
weak enforcement, undermine the system (so that Canada received Weak
overall score of 61 for its implementation of the laws).
TO SEE this full news release with details and links to the full
Report, go to: http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/
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