Anyone who watched the House of Commons ethics committee question interim federal ethics commissioner Konrad von Finckenstein on Tuesday no doubt wondered what the point of the exercise was.
The committee members used their allotted time to accuse each other’s caucus colleagues of accepting dodgy gifts and trips, asked loaded questions so that they could later post the loaded answers on social media as gotcha moments, and bickered over the cost of a hypothetical Ferrari – an issue, no doubt, close to the heart of every Canadian.
Except for one moment of lucidity (more on that below), the members’ hyperpartisan showboating conveniently ignored the fact that it is within their power – and indeed is their responsibility – to fix a conflict of interest regime whose weaknesses allow for the ethically dubious behaviour they claim to find so upsetting.
They acted as if they believe the Conflict of Interest Act and the Conflict of Interest Code for MPs were written in stone by Hammurabi himself, and that they couldn’t possibly do anything to prevent Prime Minister Justin Trudeau from accepting a free luxury seaside accommodation from a friend, or to stop MPs from going on lavish overseas junkets that are paid for by interest groups, and which feature $600 bottles of the finest Champagne.
The truth is they and every one of their colleagues, from the Prime Minister down, are complicit through inaction in the continued existence of conflict of interest rules that seem designed to put MPs’ perks ahead of any reasonable person’s perception of what ethical behaviour should look like.
Indeed, if you purposely set out to create a system rife with loopholes, the Canadian model would be the place to turn to for guidance. Among the things you would do would be to:
- refer only to “conflicts of interest” and not to “real or apparent conflicts of interest,” a critical difference, in the Conflict of Interest Act, which applies to cabinet ministers;
- in the Conflict of Interest Code for MPs, which applies to all MPs regardless of stature, say that the MPs are “expected” to act ethically and avoid conflicts of interest, rather than that they are “required” to;
- make the system as toothless as a newborn puppy. As Mr. von Finckenstein said Tuesday, MPs who seek his office’s guidance on trips and gifts are free to ignore that guidance if they believe they can “weather” any ensuing outrage. Mr. Trudeau weathered the storm over his illegal trip to the Aga Khan’s private island in 2016, and was re-elected twice; two of his cabinet ministers, Mary Ng and Ahmed Hussen, weathered blatant violations of the Act by being renamed to cabinet afterward;
- allow cabinet ministers to accept gifts, including lavish Caribbean holidays, from wealthy friends without defining the word “friend” or setting any limit on the value of the gift (this is what led to the discussion about the sales price of an imaginary Ferrari);
- allow regular MPs, including opposition party leaders, to accept “sponsored travel” – fully paid trips, meals and transportation included – from private companies, unions and public interest groups to such hardship destinations as Las Vegas, Paris and New Orleans;
- let the prime minister choose the ethics commissioner (fox, meet henhouse), and also let the PM delay for an unlimited time the naming of a new commissioner with a seven-year term when a vacancy occurs, by instead letting him install an interim commissioner for an unlimited number of six-month terms;
- allow interim commissioners to unilaterally make major changes to the rules to the benefit of MPs, as critics say Mr. von Finckenstein has done, even though he has only been in office a few months and could be gone by March.
We could go on. It was heartening on Tuesday to see the ethics committee, in the moment of lucidity mentioned above, vote to ask the standing committee on procedure and house affairs to consider ending sponsored travel, and instead allow MPs to pay for two international trips a year out of their office budgets.
That would be a step forward, but so much more is needed. The fact is that Parliament hasn’t done a proper review of the Act or the Code for more than a decade. MPs have tons of concerns about their political opponents’ actions under the existing rules, but they’ve done nothing about it except to feign outrage. And that’s the biggest conflict of interest of all.