News

Prime Minister Stephen Harper's heavy-handed “boycott” of an ethics investigation has made the resignation of Parliament's much-maligned ethics commissioner all but impossible, says former MP Ed Broadbent.

And that's deeply ironic, said the veteran NDP parliamentarian, given that there was a broad consensus among MPs that Bernard Shapiro needed to go.

“The Prime Minister put him in a position that he can't resign now. You can quote me on that,” Mr. Broadbent said in an interview Wednesday.

“It will look like he was hounded out of office and then it will make it difficult for anyone coming in to look like other than someone who is going to be totally acceptable to the Prime Minister.”

Mr. Broadbent should know.

Mr. Harper approached him a month ago to take over the ethics commissioner's job — well before the latest imbroglio. Mr. Broadbent declined for the same reason he chose not to seek re-election in January. His wife Lucille is seriously ill.

Mr. Harper and Mr. Shapiro are at loggerheads over the commissioner's decision to launch a “preliminary inquiry” into the sudden, post-election floor-crossing of former Vancouver Liberal David Emerson.

Mr. Shapiro announced last week he was investigating both Mr. Harper and his new Trade Minister for possible breaches of the conflict of interest code for MPs. Mr. Shapiro has refused to clarify what aspect of the code he feels they may have broken.

Mr. Harper's office responded with a blistering rebuttal, accusing Mr. Shapiro of being a partisan Liberal appointee who has persecuted Conservative MPs while ignoring Liberals and selectively applying his mandate.

The Prime Minister is refusing to co-operate with the investigation and has made it clear he feels the issue of floor-crossing cabinet appointees is not within Mr. Shapiro's purview.

Mr. Broadbent and other experts on parliamentary ethics — including a former senior government insider with working experience of the conflict code — agree with Mr. Harper.

“For what it's worth, Mr. Harper is right in implying that the ethics code doesn't apply,” said Mr. Broadbent.

But it is not for the Prime Minister to make such a judgment in his own case, he added. Moreover, by refusing to co-operate with the investigation, Mr. Harper is breaking an explicit provision of the conflict code.

The boycott, as Mr. Broadbent calls it, now makes it very difficult to “revisit the consensus that had been established by all parties.”

The consensus was that Mr. Shapiro, a former university administrator and senior public servant at the Ontario government legislature, is in over his head.

His five-year appointment doesn't expire until 2009.

Last fall, a Commons committee reprimanded Mr. Shapiro for failing to notify a Tory MP he was under investigation while he at the same time spoke to the media about the case.

It was just the most formal expression of non-confidence following a string of troubled investigations.

Mr. Broadbent sees no immediate end to the impasse.

Mr. Harper should reconsider and agree to co-operate with the investigation, even while reiterating his reservations about Mr. Shapiro's impartiality and the case, said Mr. Broadbent.

And Mr. Shapiro could complete this inquiry and then announce “for the good of the office” to retire, given the general lack of confidence by parliamentarians.

“What is needed there is a person with not just good academic credentials, but someone with political experience,” said Mr. Broadbent.

“Virtually all the decisions he's required to make are political-slash-ethical, or ethical-slash-political.”