Canadian Government Executive - Volume 24 - Issue 01

46 / Canadian Government Executive // January/February 2018 C anada has eight officers of Parliament, each of whom assists Parliament in scrutinizing the government and holding it to account. Each officer has a particular field or policy area of focus, such as ethics or privacy, and the expertise and resources that officers of Parliament bring to the table help to equalize the relationship between the executive and legislative branches and enable the latter to perform the scrutiny function more effectively. Most bills that come before the House of Commons are intro- duced by Ministers, who have considerably more resources at their disposal than Members of Parliament do. MPs are spread thinly in terms of their committee responsibilities, House duty, stakeholder meetings, and constituency work, leaving them little time to develop policy expertise in each of the various matters that comes before the House. They also do not have the tools and resources to delve deeply into the operations of departments to determine value for money, procedural compliance, and other matters of public interest. Though officers of Parliament are not departments, they do have research and investigative capacity, as well as the time, resources, and mandate to do the deep-dive into matters of policy and government accountability. Most officers submit annual reports to Parliament, as well as reports outlining the findings of any investigations that the office has undertaken. These reports are devoured by MPs, as well as the press gallery, and provide much material for Question Period, order paper questions, and media scrutiny. Several officers of Parliament have responsibility for promoting compliance with their respective statutes; for example, the Commissioner of Lobbying has explicit direction to engage with lobbyists, their clients, and public office holders to raise awareness around what the rules entail. Officers of Parliament are independent from government and report directly to Parliament. The autonomy of these officers is es- sential and is maintained both through their direct relationships with the House of Commons and its committees and through their security of tenure once appointed. Speaking of appointment, since its election in 2015, the Liberal government has appointed three new officers of Parliament: Ma- rio Dion has replaced Mary Dawson as the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner; Nancy Belanger is the new Commissioner of Lobbying, replacing Karen Shepherd; and Raymond Théberge is the new Commissioner of Official Languages, following the re- tirement of Graham Fraser. Within the coming months, the gov- ernment will appoint a new Chief Electoral Officer, as well as a new Information Commissioner. History has taught us that these offices are shaped very much by the person who holds them, so the Trudeau government’s op- portunity to appoint five new officers of Parliament during its first mandate could have a significant impact in terms of how these offices operate. Some officers of Parliament, like former Auditor General Sheila Fraser, have opted to bring visibility and public- ity to their roles, while others, like former Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, have chosen to function more quietly. Regardless of the implications of personal style, each officer has the opportunity and responsibility to engage the policy process directly when they come before parliamentary committee to give feedback and recommendations on how their respective statute could be improved. The new Conflict of Interest and Ethics Com- missioner, Mario Dion, has described himself as an “extrovert” and has promised that he will be “fearless” and proactive in his interpretation of the Conflict of Interest Act. He has pledged to encourage compliance not just with the letter but also the spirit of ethics rules, and has indicated that, when before committee, he might seek harsher penalties for noncompliance. It is up to Parlia- ment whether to change the enforcement regime that is included in the Act, but Dion’s public promise to take a “different approach” from Mary Dawson is sure to make for interesting politics in the coming months. He has taken up Ms. Dawson’s investigation into whether Finance Minister Bill Morneau was in a conflict of inter- est when he sponsored legislation that could benefit his former company, Morneau Shepell. This case and others provide an op- portunity to understand the effect of personal style on the work of an office of Parliament. If Dion is more extroverted and forceful than Dawson, how will this affect the relationship between the Commissioner’s office and Parliament, not to mention govern- ment? What are the consequences of the Commissioner becom- ing a central public figure in his own right, garnering media and public attention? Does this risk politicizing the office, if the Com- missioner is seen as an opponent of government? A common subject of debate among scholars of Parliament is whether the work of these officers, including the uncovering of government waste and wrongdoing, has the effect of encouraging or discouraging public trust in government institutions. The pres- ence of watchdogs might nurture trust, but their findings might have the opposite effect. In the months to come, we will have the opportunity to assess the approaches taken by all new officers of Parliament, and the implications for government accountability as well as public trust. L ori T urnbull is the interim director of the School of Public Administration at Dalhousie University and a fellow at the Public Policy Forum. THE LAST WORD Liberals appoint new cadre of Officers of Parliament By Lori Turnbull