Liberal rules should be law

Justin Trudeau appears more confident about everything than most of us are about anything, particularly when it comes to the righteousness of his party’s fundraising activities.

The messianic sense that the Liberals are on a crusade to create a Just Society has stood the PM in good stead. In his year-end press conference, he recapped the busiest session since his party won power — a free-trade agreement with the European Union; a free-spending fall fiscal update; the introduction of carbon pricing; the approval of two pipelines.

But the conviction that you’re always right, and that any criticism is a trivial distraction, inevitably leads to the arrogance that has proven to be a political immunodeficiency disorder for the Liberal party for decades.

During the press conference, he was asked if he had ever been approached about government policy at Liberal fundraisers.

He admitted he is lobbied at private cashfor-access events, but said that donors have no more influence or special access than other Canadians.

Liberal party spokespeople have argued for weeks that no such lobbying takes place at these extremely lucrative fundraisers but they have now been contradicted by their own leader.

The matter might even veer into a breach of the Criminal Code, if the lobbying was not reported.

It’s a blind spot for the Liberal leadership team. The erosion in popular support picked up in a Forum Research poll Monday — from 51 per cent to a still lofty 42 per cent — might be a blip, but it would be no surprise if political gravity is taking hold because people are becoming disillusioned with a party that is failing to maintain the Olympian standards of ethical behaviour laid out in its own “open and accountable government” guidelines.

The accusation levelled by the Conservatives that the prime minister “thinks he is above the law” is starting to register but the Liberals, adamant in their own righteousness, refuse to budge. The belief is that the Ontario government, which was in a similar ethical bind, was buffeted by bad press into making changes that will push political fundraising into the backrooms, where lobbying companies will wield undue influence.

But the federal Liberals need not follow the lead set by their Ontario cousins and ban all senior party officials from fundraisers. They merely have to introduce legislation that mirrors their own ethical guidelines. The NDP has said it will use a private member’s bill to do just that — and has dared the Liberals to vote against their own “open and accountable government” rules. The bill would give the ethics commissioner powers to investigate political fundraising that she claims she lacks under existing conflict of interest legislation.

This government has been careful in calibrating its big decisions, running the wind on pipelines, catching the tide on carbon tax, never veering too far from the fat part of the political bell curve where most of the votes are. The polling suggests the average Canadian is onside with most of the important things this government has acted upon in the past three months. But there is very little support for the defence that the Liberals are abiding by the fundraising rules; that this is a media-generated crisis and there is nothing to see here.

Trudeau appears unassailable at this point in the electoral cycle. But the risks are asymmetrical — you might be able to get away with multi-year $30-billion deficits but be undone by a $1,500 donation that results in a favourable government decision for the donor.

Trudeau said Monday he is looking at ways to strengthen trust in Canada’s political institutions.

Putting into law the rules that the prime minister set out for his cabinet in the open and accountable government document would be a very good start.