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28 Mar 2024, Edition - 3180, Thursday

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Columns

LEGER: Harper wants transparency — but not for his government

Covai Post Network

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It seems fitting, somehow, that the last act of the tragic 41st Parliament should play out on that theatre’s dilapidated second stage, the Senate. And how typical that the last law passed should be a Conservative measure to undermine their political opponents.

More than a week after the House of Commons had shut for the summer and with an election looming when the leaves turn, senators were still there, play-acting their roles as sober second thinkers.

It turned out that the final dialogue in the final act of Parliament 41’s theatre of the absurd concerned organized labour. The Senate passed a Conservative private member’s bill forcing public disclosure of union financing, spending and the salaries of senior officers.

Labour organizations will file the information with the Canada Revenue Agency, which will publish it online.

Now, there is indisputable merit in advancing the cause of transparency among the actors in our political dramas. Unions, part of the chorus to stage left, shouldn’t be exempt from critical scrutiny of their role in partisan affairs.

As Bill C-377’s proponents argued, unions get beneficial tax treatment. That’s a public subsidy, so there should be fair disclosure.

I’d guess that most union members don’t know how much their national leaders make in salary, expenses and benefits, nor where their dues money goes. Many don’t bother looking.

But it’s clear that C-377, passed using what even the Senate’s Conservative Speaker called “draconian methods,” aims to undermine confidence in union leaders, expose their politics and make them look more like plutocrats than proletarians.

It’s not the least bit coincidental that many union leaders are aligned with the New Democratic Party, now the strongest apparent threat to the ruling Conservatives if the current polling trends are to be believed.

Like most of their “democratic reform” measures, such as in campaign financing and voting rules changes, C-377 aims to maximize Conservative advantages over other parties and political actors.

Through it, the government can damage the surging NDP by undermining one of its collective allies. And they can do it in the name of transparency, a word the Conservatives can still utter, somehow, without bursting out laughing.

And that’s the point, really. The Conservative government holds a fervent belief in openness, transparency and accountability for every public organization except itself.

In 2013, it passed a law forcing aboriginal organizations to disclose financial statements and salaries of chiefs and top leaders.

“All Canadians, including First Nations, want and deserve transparency and accountability from their governments,” said Saskatchewan Conservative MP Kelly Block at the time.

And we do want that from our governors. But the Harper government has also cracked down on environmental groups and charities, with no public clamour for greater accountability from them and no matching accountability for itself.

Last March, Information Commissioner Suzanne Legault said public access to information was being choked off. Its misuse of access laws wasn’t “moving the government forward in a culture of openness, it has seemed to have moved us forward in a culture of secrecy.”

Legault suggested that instead of improving transparency, the government had used the laws to “act as a shield against disclosure.” Some unfilled information requests date back to 2009.

But there’s more, much more.

Parliamentary committees are drowned in talking points, journalistic access has been severely restricted, public servants have been muzzled and accountability watchdogs, such as Legault, the Parliamentary Budget Office, the Auditor General and Elections Canada, are attacked as biased opponents of a besieged Tory government.

But we’re sure going to get accountability from unions, First Nations and public interest groups critical of the Harper government.

The election campaign won’t likely turn on the merits of transparent government. But if transparency does becomes an issue, it certainly will work against Team Harper.

Openness and accountability were core promises of the Conservatives when they came to power in 2006. Nine years later, it’s clear they meant it for everyone but themselves.

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