[CaptainCrunch]

Interview with the soon to be former ethics commissioner, where he states his frustrations.

https://nationalpost.com/news/politi...iberals-lapses

“The public has to believe that ethics are taken seriously, and they have yet to have any big evidence of that since 2018,” Dion said in an interview with the National Post shortly after announcing he was leaving his post for health reasons.

After five years on the job, Dion said that parliamentarians’ knowledge and concern about their ethics and conflict of interest obligations isn’t worse than when he started, but it’s also not getting better. And that’s of great concern to him.

“The act has been there for 17 years for God’s sake, so maybe the time has come to do something different so that we don’t keep repeating the same errors. After 17 years, maybe we should realize that something is not working,” he said.

n an interview, ethics expert and associate professor at York University’s school of public policy and administration Ian Stedman shared Dion’s observation.
“These are not new rules. You can’t make these mistakes, you make everyone look bad, and you make public trust decline by making these mistakes,” Stedman said.

Over his mandate, Dion’s office gave 140 presentations on ethics and conflict of interest obligations to thousands of attendees, one third of which he gave himself. It also offers virtual training to any MP or staffers who want to learn more about their obligations under the law, and has advisers available to answer any ethics queries.


And yet that did not prevent International Trade Minister Mary Ng from telling a House committee last week that it would be helpful if the commissioner’s office offered “additional” ethics training to political staff after no one in her office raised a flag when she dolled out two contracts to a firm owned by a “close friend.”

“That’s like if I drive in my car this afternoon and I drive through a red light and then argued with a (police) officer that it was too bad because I should have received training about red lights. It’s a convenient excuse, in my view,” he said.

“Giving a contract to a friend, I don’t think you require much training to understand this isn’t appropriate,” he added.

But he also said the public is understandably frustrated at what appears to be a lack of accountability from law-breaking MPs.

“No one’s resigning, no one’s forced to resign and no one is shuffled. And there’s no appearance of even any sort of accountability, beyond having to stand in front of that question period and say a quick mea culpa,” he said.

“It’s really dissatisfying that these regimes work that way, and the solution has to lie with culture of accountability within parliamentary democracies.”

I mean as much as we want the government to reform the ethics rules or increase penalties its never going to happen as long as there's a sense of entitlement with government members.

Why increase the fines? When right now its worth it to do a little personal enriching or helping your pals out, I mean the worst that can happen is a $500.00 fine, and a party that won't force you to leave their seat because of the fact that if that was the punishment Trudeau would have been gone a long time ago.

I mean if I was in government and I had the ability to give my friends a sole source contract worth lets say $30,000 to help a brother out. Or if I had the ability to accept a personal gift in exchange for making an endorsement call for a friends or fundraisers business. Why wouldn't I? I get a fine, pretend I'm sorry, get to keep my six figure salary and pension.

I mean I laughed at Mary Ng with her little apology that she made a mistake. Then said she'd signed a promise not to do it again. These people literally sign an oath of office when they take their roles as MP's that basically say you agree to the code of conduct of the office. And on this new document that she probably scrawled on a napkin, what's the punishment if she does violate again? That's right, nothing.