CANADA: LABOUR ORGANISATIONS
CANADA’S UNIONS: SHOULD TAX-FREE STATUS MEAN GREATER PUBLIC ACCOUNTABILITY?
A Private Members Bill now before a Senate Committee in Canada’s Parliament seeks to enforce the same level of public financial disclosure upon labour organisations (trade unions) as is already imposed upon chariites. The Bill’s author Russ Hiebert MP explains why this is necessary
Mr Russ Hiebert, MP was first elected to Canada’s House of Commons in 2004. He is a four-term Member of Parliament, and was elected to seven consecutive terms as Canadian Branch Chairman of the CPA. He currently serves on the CPA EXCO. Mr Hiebert served as Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Defence, and has served terms on Commons Committees including Finance, International Trade, Natural Resources, Ethics, and International Human Rights.
Since coming to power in Canada in 2006, the Conservative Government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has passed a number of transparency and accountability initiatives into law.
The key legislation in this area was the Accountability Act – passed in 2006 in the months immediately after first forming the government. This was the fulfilment of a key election campaign promise made in response to a scandal embroiling the previous Liberal government. The Accountability Act created a new conflict of interest code for all public office holders, including cabinet ministers and their staff, and essentially banned lobbying by such officials for five years after leaving office.
Other elements of the Accountability Act included the creation of an Office of
42 | The Parliamentarian | 2015: Issue One
Mr Russ Hiebert, MP
Public Prosecutions and a Parliamentary Budget Officer, as well as strengthened protection for whistleblowers. The federal Access to Information Act, which allows any citizen to obtain internal government reports and correspondence, was also expanded to require public disclosure by several crown corporations. And, the class of recipients of grants,
contributions and loans into which the Auditor-General may inquire as to the use of public funds was also expanded. A more recent act of Parliament, the First Nations Financial Transparency Act, which passed into law in 2013, requires the publication of the audited financial statements of indigenous tribal bands on the internet, along with full disclosure of the salaries and expenses of elected band councillors. In Canada, a substantial portion of the funding for aboriginal reservations comes from the federal treasury.
Even before these measures came into force, Canada had for a long time required the public disclosure of the salaries, benefits and expenses of parliamentarians. And there was a broad Access to Information regime that
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