Cash-for-access’s currency is hypocrisy

Liberals caught in ‘unsavoury’ grey area

The government’s cash-foraccess scandals are multiplying like zebra mussels, as more ministers are revealed to have rented out their public office to anyone prepared to stuff hundreds of dollars into the Liberal party’s coffers.

The case for the defence is that the government does not offer preferential access to donors and there is no conflict of interest, either real or perceived. All Canadians have equal access to ministers, said Marco Mendicino, the Liberal MP who drew the short straw and had to defend the scheme on CTV’s Question Period.

The Conservatives heard clunking sounds in the Trudeau electoral juggernaut even before the prime minister lauded one of the world’s great dictators and found himself being booed at Sunday’s Grey Cup.

“They are breaking their own code of ethics and are close to breaking the law,” said Candice Bergen, again on Question Period.

Bergen had it half right. Five-hundred-dollar-aticket fundraisers in private homes, such as the one attended by finance minister Bill Morneau and the chief executives of companies that lobby Finance Canada, clearly breach the Liberals’ open and accountable government guideline on preferential access for donors.

But the fundraisers go beyond that. There is a strong case to make that they violate the federal Conflict of Interest Act.

The problem here is not lack of legislation — it’s want of enforcement.

Section 7 of the federal act says: “No public office holder shall, in the exercise of an official power, duty or function, give preferential treatment based on the identity of the person or organization that represents the first mentioned person or organization.”

It’s clumsily worded but it effectively says the same thing as Trudeau’s “preferential treatment” guideline.

The Liberals might argue that no preferential treatment has been proffered, even if it was the expectation of being treated preferentially that motivated most donors.

But if section 7 is deemed not to have been contravened, other portions of the Act are clearly being violated — such as section 16, which says, “No public office holder shall personally solicit funds from any persons or organizations if it would place the public office holder in a conflict of interest.”

Is this rule null and void just because it is party bagmen who are passing the hat at private gatherings, not the minister?

Canada has a conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, though you may not have heard of her, since her modus operandi is to create as few waves as possible.

Mary Dawson has released only 34 public reports on the 219 cases she has investigated since 2007, finding just 10 people guilty in all that time.

Dawson’s term is up in January, but she won’t say whether she hopes to be reappointed and she didn’t return calls for comment for this article.

The ethics commissioner has called the pay-to-play fundraising activities of the Liberals “unsavoury” but has said she cannot pass judgment on whether they breach Trudeau’s own rules because the prime minister gave that mandate to the Privy Council Office.

Yet it is not Trudeau’s guidelines she should be enforcing, it’s the Conflict of Interest Act — her raison d’être, a function so central to her office it makes up part of its name.

She might argue that Morneau and the others were not exercising “official power, duty or function” at the fundraisers.

But ministers did not attend these events as private individuals — they were there in their official capacity and in Morneau’s case, it was said to be part of his budget consultation outreach.

In fact, Dawson hasn’t said much, beyond pointing out that political activity is beyond her remit. But rich donors are not shelling out $1,500 as a show of democratic philanthropy — the expectation is that they will enjoy future favours. As such, the suspicion must be that political activity is indivisible from public policy.

As far as we know, Dawson hasn’t even investigated to see whether preferential treatment was extended to top-level Liberal party donors precisely because they were donors.

Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, said there are plenty of reasons found in the Conflict of Interest Act for Dawson to say to ministers that they are in violation. “If she was actually a watchdog who was fulfilling the main purpose of the Conflict of Interest Act, she would rule that ministers can’t participate in these events,” he said.

It constitutes rank hypocrisy by the Liberals. They came in claiming to wash whiter than other brands. Now their defence is built on the fact that the other guys did it too.

I have chatted over cocktails with a number of members of this government. They are, for the most part, witty and interesting people.

But it’s not as if it’s an evening with Louis C.K. — and you can get decent seats to see him at Madison Square Garden next month for a hundred bucks.

People seeking favours from Liberal ministers will continue to pay for access until we have a government that appoints a watchdog that barks. My advice — don’t hold your breath. Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson has released only 34 public reports on the 219 cases she has probed since 2007.