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Canada’s Biggest Political Scandal You Never Heard Of
Canada’s Biggest Political Scandal You Never Heard Of
Big oil, taxpayers’ millions, call girls and a ‘mechanic’ named Bruce Carson.
It’s probably the biggest political scandal you’ve never heard of.
The tale involves Big Oil, millions of taxpayer dollars, call girls and someone the RCMP describes as “one of the prime minister’s longest serving advisors”: Bruce Carson.
And it largely took place at Stephen Harper’s alma mater: the University of Calgary between 2009 and 2011 with a cast of industry CEOs as well as several Harper ministers and aides, including Nigel Wright.
CANADA’S NO-TEETH LOBBYING ACT
The 1989 Lobbying Act bans public office holders from lobbying for five years after they have left office.
The act requires anyone paid to communicate or set up meetings with federal public office holders on a variety of subjects set out in the statute to register their activities in the Registry of Lobbyists, a federal list with more than 5,000 names.
The act, however, is weakly enforced and full of loopholes. Between 2005 and 2010, the nation’s lobbying commissioner referred only 11 cases to the RCMP. No charges were laid.
Since then the Office of the Lobbying Commissioner, the RCMP and Crown prosecutors have decided not to penalize 67 lobbyists caught violating the act and Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct.
Their identities have been kept secret.
To date, only one person has been found guilty of violating the act, and only two other people have been charged with violating it, including Bruce Carson.
Democracy Watch calculates that nearly 1,600 people have violated the Lobbying Act and Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct since 2004, but that 95 per cent of them were not caught and that 81 per cent were left off the hook.
“Lobbying Commissioner Karen Shepherd has clearly failed to enforce the federal lobbying law and code effectively as she has failed to even name and shame 81 per cent of the lobbyists caught violating the law,” saidDuff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch and visiting professor at the University of Ottawa in a 2015 press release.
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Watchdog Group Wants Audit of Taxpayer-Funded Ads
Watchdog Group Wants Audit of Taxpayer-Funded Ads
‘It’s false advertising,’ says Democracy Watch.
An independent government watchdog group has called on Canada’s auditor general to review taxpayer-funded spending on government advertising. Democracy Watch has also launched a letter-writing campaign through its website, demanding the office look at what it describes as “questionable” ad initiatives in the past.
The group’s co-founder, Duff Conacher, said the federal government is spending public money on ads that mislead or advertise for initiatives that don’t exist.
Government ads can be seen on TV, radio, billboards and the Internet and are paid for by taxpayers’ dollars. There’s currently no oversight to make sure money isn’t spent on partisan ads, though in the past, citizens have complained to Advertising Standards Canada about government ads they felt were misleading.
For example, the government’s current ad blitz will cost $13.5 million for April and May, according to a Canadian Press storyon Monday.
Those ads highlight measures in the federal budget, which was introduced last week, but hasn’t been passed by Parliament.
“The ads are being done, the measures have not been passed, they don’t exist. Therefore it’s false advertising,” Conacher said. “They may never be implemented if the budget bill does not pass before the fall election.”
Conacher wants the auditor general to do a quick audit of the current government ad campaign, which promotes its budget plans, such as tax programs for families. Democracy Watch also wants an audit of another government ad campaign from last fall that advertised tax relief measures.
After that, he said, he’s calling for a comprehensive audit of all advertising going back to 2006.
Political not informative
He said previous ads campaigns, such as one claiming the government treats military veterans well, and another that caused a scandal in 2013 advertising a training grant program that didn’t exist, were political in nature. They did not help to inform Canadians about services available to them.
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