PRESS RELEASE
For Immediate Release
TACKLING THE PERSISTENT CONFLICT OF INTEREST LOBBYING PROBLEMS
Winnipeg, Manitoba – October 16, 2021 – Canadian major political parties have a persistent conflict of interest problem. This was recently brought to the spotlight with the resignation of the Liberal’s Campaign Co-Chair, Dan Gagnier. Dan Gagnier is a lobbyist that has previously been linked to Bruce Carson, Harper’s former adviser. Dan Gagnier was linked to the First Nations water filtration scandal [1] along with Bruce Carson and Nigel Wright. That all three names are the top aides of Canada’s two major political party’s leader is no accident. It reveals that influential backbenchers with substantial conflicts of interest are often affecting policies that goes against the public’s interest.
It is no wonder that a lot of policies first introduced by a past Liberal government are continued by the Conservative government right after an election. The Liberal party first introduced Lawful Access legislation under Bill C-74 [2]. When the Liberal minority government fell, Conservatives picked it up and re-packaged it as Bill C-30 “Protecting Children from Child Pornographers Act”. It was later changed to Bill C-13 “Protecting Canadian from Online Criminal Act” following a huge public outcry against the “You are with us or with the child pornographer” Bill C30.
A copyright amendment that favours the influential copyright monopoly lobbyists was introduced by the Liberal Party of Canada as Bill C-60, and later re-introduced by the Conservatives as Bill C-61 [3].
The group of lobbyists and their cronies in government can be expected to lobby hard for the adoption of TPP. Trudeau’s non-mention of the harmful intellectual monopoly and anti digital rights provisions offer Canadians no assurance that there would be “real change”. These chapters and provisions are already well-publicized and globally known [4] which suggests that Trudeau does not think it is important enough to raise as an issue. This is coming after he supported C-51’s bypassing of the due process guaranteed by the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms, and his whole party voting in favour of the government’s bullying enabling and anti-privacy bill C-13 [5].
The almost identical policies between the two parties have lead to accusations that they are one and the same. But who is really calling the shots in government? Is it the elected officials or their top aides and backbenchers, who have serious conflict of interest issues?
The Pirate Party policies includes creating a new online platform to improve accountability, transparency and interaction between the MP and their constituents. The Constituents-Representatives-Interaction-Sytem (C.R.I.S.) will be administered by Elections Canada, with anonymous logins provided to all eligible voters in a riding. The party will also enhance Canada’s conflict of interest laws to lower the threshold for disciplinary actions without waiting for the time consuming, costly and hard to prove scandals to surface. By setting high ethical standards by which elected officials, top aides and backbenchers must abide, cases of plausible deniability and mock innocence will not be tolerated. Depending on the level of seriousness and negligence, a public official should be summarily dismissed.
[1] Senior Trudeau advisor linked to Bruce Carson’s alleged illegal lobbying: RCMP document
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Modernization_of_Investigative_Techniques_Act
[4] Our Digital Rights & Future, The Truth About TPP (Trans Pacific Partnership) – Informational Video from the Pirate Party of Canada https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iooHkQ-fo-Y
[5] New MPs Voting History Tool shows Liberal voted overwhelmingly for the government’s C-13 bill https://www.votes.mp
Press Contact: Ric Lim or Shawn Vulliez pr (at) pirateparty.ca
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