There’s the growing sense that an ethics violation on the part of a Canadian politician is now a meaningless thing. It wasn’t always this way, but it’s become so under the Trudeau Liberal government.
On Tuesday, federal Ethics Commissioner Mario Dion found Liberal MP Greg Fergus guilty of contravening ethics laws by signing a letter of support for a private broadcasting company submitting a licence application to the CRTC.
The judgment reads, in part, that: “Dion determined that Mr. Fergus sought to improperly further Natyf Inc.’s private interests because he intervened in the decision-making process of a quasi-judicial tribunal.”
The rules allow MPs to write such letters, but parliamentary secretaries and cabinet ministers cannot and Fergus is the parliamentary secretary to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.
While it sounds bad to read that someone was found guilty of breaking an ethics law, Canadians are increasingly learning that it doesn’t really mean much. There are no real consequences to such a finding.
The worst of Dion’s report was his statement that he’d like more politicians to undergo ethics training because he’s concerned by the increasing number who are found to be breaking the rules. They’re free to take or leave his offer.
Fergus, using a page from the Trudeau playbook, thanked Dion for the report and labelled his misstep an “unintentional error”.
Now I’m sure most people would agree that signing an inappropriate letter of support for a CRTC application is a pretty small offence in the grand scheme of things, especially compared to previous Liberal politicians’ ethics breaches. But what makes this one newsworthy is the sense that these violations are becoming normalized.
It was just the other month that the ethics commissioner found Minister Mary Ng guilty of ethics breaches for giving contracts to a friend. Then there are the famous ones involving Prime Minister Justin Trudeau and former Finance Minister Bill Morneau.
Canadians rightly laughed at the idea of the extremely wealthy Morneau facing a punishment of a $200 fine. And Trudeau has previously been fined $100 for breaches.
We need to ask ourselves: Do these violations actually matter or not?
The post of Ethics Commissioner was created in 2007 by the Stephen Harper Conservative government as part of their Federal Accountability Act. It was devised in the aftermath of the Sponsorship Scandal, where Canadians felt that there were perhaps too many shady dealings going on in Ottawa.
But since then, it’s become clear that this office has no teeth. Dion announced his resignation on Wednesday and as the search begins for a replacement, now is the time to have a conversation about what we want to do with this office.
Former Commissioner Mary Dawson said it was fine that there weren’t serious consequences because the mere public airing of a guilty finding is sufficient to inform the voter and let them judge their elected representatives accordingly at the ballot box.
But Dion disagreed and when he started the job he said he wanted the power to be able to issue fines of up to $10,000. It was a good idea but never came to pass.
For starters, $10,000 would be serious coin for most politicians (except for Morneau). But such a sum also sends a signal that this is a serious offence. A $200 fine is more equivalent to a parking ticket, which most people have likely received once or twice in their life.
We shrug off parking tickets. We shouldn’t shrug off political ethics breaches.
The next Ethics Commissioner should be granted powers to issue heftier fines. If this doesn’t happen, then we’re sending the signal that these rules don’t actually matter and so we might as well just abolish the position.
