Ottawa — The lobby group Democracy Watch has launched a formal complaint with the federal Ethics Commissioner accusing the Conservative government of breaking election promises.
The same letter of complaint also repeats Democracy Watch's call for ethics commissioner Bernard Shapiro to resign for failing to vigorously enforce ethics rules.
Duff Conacher of Democracy Watch said Thursday that Bill C-2 – the federal Accountability Act – breaks or omits 13 specific promises made by Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the run-up to the Jan. 23 vote.
Included on Mr. Conacher's list were Tory promises to require ministers to record all contacts with lobbyists, to protect all whistleblowers, to promptly disclose whistleblower complaints, to close conflict loopholes for ministers and to allow the public to launch ethics complaints.
He said the new Accountability Act also deletes from the ethics code a clause requiring politicians, their staff and senior public servants to “act with honesty.”
The complaint names Mr. Harper, Treasury Board President John Baird and Mr. Harper's communications director, Sandra Buckler, for “being dishonest about broken election promises.”
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