Princes of patronage

We need clear rules and tougher enforcement of government ethics

PETER HADEKEL
Montreal Gazette Thursday, January 24, 2002

I guess we're all supposed to sleep soundly now that the Liberal government has sent Alfonso Gagliano off to a Hamlet-like fate in Denmark. Good night, sweet prince of patronage.

Since Gagliano is taking his secrets with him, I guess we're supposed to believe that if there ever was an ethical problem surrounding his conduct as public works minister, it's over.

His replacement, Don Boudria, is already vowing to clean up the place. No more fat communications contracts like the ones given to Gagliano's good friend, speechwriter MichËle Tremblay. No more favours to friends, like the hiring of Gagliano associate Tony Mignacca, at Canada Lands Co. Boudria promises to use in-house services at Public Works and to run a "transparent and accountable" operation.

And, if anyone's worried about the way cabinet ministers lean on Crown corporations for favours, relax. Jean ChrÈtien has appointed the irreproachable John Manley, cabinet's rising star, to watch over the Crowns.

Yes, the prime minister has done a pretty good job of cleaning up the spill from the Gagliano affair. But you can still see stains on the rug.

The story won't go away. It again exposes the holes in the Liberals' ethics policy, and it reminds everyone of similar conduct by the prime minister during Shawinigate.

Gagliano pressured the former head of Canada Lands Co. to hire two friends. ChrÈtien, in 1996 and 1997, pressured the former head of the Business Development Bank to grant a loan to a money-losing Grand-MËre hotel owned by his former business partner.

Gagliano's actions were a classic example of old-fashioned patronage. The prime minister's conduct was arguably more serious. He might well have had a personal interest in seeing the hotel loan granted since he was still owed money on the sale of shares in an adjacent golf club.

In both cases, there was an ethical problem - the appearance of a conflict of interest. Both used their positions to influence decisions by Crown corporations.

It's been obvious for a while that Ottawa needs a tougher code of ethics to prevent this kind of thing. It's just too easy for a cabinet minister to pick up the phone and ask for a favour from a senior executive of a Crown corporation. And since these jobs are often filled with former political aides and friends of the party in power, the temptation is even greater.

It was almost a year ago that ChrÈtien's ethics counselor, Howard Wilson, made recommendations to tighten the rules. His report came three months after the Shawinigate story first broke.

Since then, nothing. Wilson's report has gathered dust while the Liberals continue to thrash around in an ethical swamp. Chrétien has now handed the file to Manley - apparently the prime minister can't be bothered to deal with this himself.

We don't know what Wilson's recommendations were because they were never made public. He reports to the prime minister alone, and the boss keeps him on a pretty short leash.

This, too, needs changing. Like the auditor-general, the ethics counselor should be truly independent and report directly to Parliament. That's the way it's done in several provinces, where ethics commissioners answer to provincial legislatures.

In Ottawa, the excuse is that this is ChrÈtien's show. He's the one who drew up the government's ethics code, after campaigning in 1993 to restore public confidence in government. He's the one ultimately responsible to Parliament for the performance of his cabinet ministers. So, the argument goes, the ethics counselor is his baby.

But this is not good enough. As the ChrÈtien Red Book stated back in 1993: "If government is to play a positive role in society, as it must, honesty and integrity in our political institutions must be restored."

We could start by spelling out exactly what the prime minister and his cabinet can and can't do when they communicate with a Crown corporation. We could broaden the ethics code to cover not just the cabinet, political staff and government appointees but all MPs and senators. And we could take the leash off the ethics counselor so that he reports in public, to Parliament, and is free to investigate breaches of the ethics code wherever he sees them.