Report Card on Democratic Reform Platforms of Federal Parties

Green Party receives B- best grade of bad overall grades in Report Card on Federal Parties' Good Government Platforms, Bloc second with C-, Conservatives, Liberals and NDP all receive F.

Despite high voter concern about democracy and trust, most parties fail to promise many needed changes to have effective democracy, government ethics and accountability.

"When all is said and done, more is said than done" - Anonymous

TO SEE the full Report Card news release with links etc., go to:
http://www.dwatch.ca/camp/RelsApr2811.html

OTTAWA - Today, Democracy Watch released its Report Card on the 2011 Good Government Election Platforms of the five main federal
political parties, the only election report card on these issues.

The Green Party received the best overall grade of B-, with the Bloc second with C-, and the Conservatives, Liberals and NDP all
receiving F (See summary of grades in each of five categories further below).  A Dishonesty Downgrade of one full grade is also
shown in the Report Card results -- usually only half of all promises are kept because of the lack of an honesty-in-politics law
which is needed to effectively penalize promise-breakers and misleaders.

"All the federal parties except the Green Party have failed to respond to high voter concern about democracy and trust issues, but
voters focused on these issues should still come to the polls and at least mark their ballot none of the above to show their concern.
One can only hope that the parties will actually address these concerns when Parliament opens again so that everyone in federal
politics will finally be effectively required to act honestly, ethically, openly, representatively and to prevent waste," said Duff
Conacher, Coordinator of Democracy Watch and Organizer of the CoffeeParty.ca movement.

The Report Card grades the five main parties' platform pledges based upon 16 sets of key changes in five areas that Democracy Watch and its coalitions believe are the changes that will most effectively require everyone in the federal government to act honestly,
ethically, openly, efficiently, representatively and, if they don't act in these democratic ways, easily and thoroughly held accountable.  In total, the 16 sets of changes add up to 100 key changes needed to the federal government's democracy, ethics and accountability system.

The measures are a compilation of the proposals of the five nation-wide coalitions Democracy Watch coordinates (Government
Ethics Coalition, Money in Politics Coalition, Open Government Coalition, Corporate Responsibility Coalition, Canadian Community
Reinvestment Coalition).  A combined total of more than 140 citizen groups with a total membership of more than 3 million Canadians
belong to the coalitions, groups that work on anti-poverty, bank accountability, community economic development, consumer, corporate responsibility, environment, labour, social justice, women and youth issues.

Many national surveys over the past several years have shown that a large majority of Canadians support the democracy, ethics and
government accountability reforms set out in the Report Card, as do many commentators on democratic reform.

The 16 sets of changes, divided into five areas, all reflect the following five key elements for ensuring that large, powerful government institutions act responsibly and follow rules:

 

1. strong laws with no loopholes; 2. requirement to disclose details of operations and violations; 3. fully independent, fully empowered watchdog agencies to enforce laws; 4. penalties that are high enough to encourage compliance; and 5. empowerment of citizens to hold governments and watchdog agencies accountable.

The parties were given a grade ranging from A (Platform makes clear promise to implement proposal) to I (Platform does not mention
proposal), with grades B for a vague or partial promise to implement the proposal, C and D for clear to vague promises to explore the
proposal, E for mentioning proposal and F for mentioning the theme of the proposal.  Grades were averaged for each of the five
sections, and the averages of section grades were used to calculate the overall grade for each party.

The highlights of the Report Card are as follows:

* The Green Party had the best overall grade of B- (mainly because they made many specific pledges), and the best grade in three of the five areas (the Efficient Government area, the Representative, Citizen-Driven Government area, and the General Government
Accountability area);

* The Bloc had the best grade in two of the five areas (the Honest, Ethical Government area, and the Open Government area);

 

* The Liberals had the worst results, with an overall F grade, and the worst grades in all five areas, and the Conservatives were
almost as bad;

 

* The NDP had the most surprising result with an F grade, given that they have actually pushed for many democratic, ethics and government accountability reforms in the past (but they didn't include them in their election platform for some bizarre reason, especially given that a focus of their campaign is to "Fix Ottawa");

* The strongest overall area grades for all the parties were in the Open Government area, with the Bloc the best with a A- grade
(although, again, the NDP made no promises in this area);

 

* The worst overall area grades for all the parties were in the Honest, Ethical Government area, in which none of the parties had
better than a D- grade (which the Bloc received);

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Thursday, April 28, 2011

NEWS RELEASE