Not My Fault: Ministerial Responsibility and the Sponsorship Scandal By Shawn M. McCleery, B.A. A thesis submitted to The Faculty of Graduate Studies and Research in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts Department of Political Science Carleton University Ottawa, Ontario Canada © Shawn M. McCleery 2007 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 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Abstract This thesis will examine the improper contracting practices engaged in by Canada’s federal government during the late 1990s and into the new millennium, most of which occurred within the Department of Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) and have collectively become known as the “sponsorship scandal”. It will be argued that these events were caused by a breakdown or erosion in adherence to the doctrine of ministerial responsibility. Furthermore it will be argued that the proper response to this incident is an attitudinal shift towards a greater respect for this doctrine, and that recent proposals, such as those put forth by Justice John Gomery’s report and those found in the new Federal Accountability Act,to address this situation through more formal changes are misguided. Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 1 Table of Contents Introduction 1 The Events in Question 6 The Doctrine of Ministerial Responsibility 24 The Sponsorship Scandal and the Breakdown of Ministerial Responsibility 42 The Recommendations of the Gomery Report 88 The Conservative Government’s Federal Accountability Act 110 Conclusion 122 Works Cited 128 Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 2 Introduction One of the quickest and most effective ways for a government to lose the confidence and trust of its citizens is to mishandle their money. For several years in the late 1990s and into the new millennium, Canada’s Liberal government engaged in the gross misuse of millions of taxpayers’ dollars. Under the guise of promoting federalism in Quebec, the “sponsorship program” distributed excessively lucrative advertising contracts to firms run by or connected to friends of the Liberal Party. This shameful affair is most commonly known as the “sponsorship scandal”. The impetus for the sponsorship program was the recurring thorn in the side of the federal government since before Confederation, Quebec nationalism. On October 30, 1995, the Quebec population voted “no” in a province-wide referendum asking whether the provincial government should enter negotiations with the federal government to formulate a sovereignty arrangement for Quebec. The federalist camp won the vote by the slimmest of margins, taking 50.6 percent of the vote to the “yes” side’s 49.4 percent.1 While the proponents of a united Canada, most notably the federal government, were pleased and relieved that Quebec had decided to remain part of the country, the narrow margin by which the “no” side had emerged victorious was a troubling sign that the referendum result did not signify that all was well on the national unity front. In addition to the narrow victory, federalists were also troubled by the pledge of Lucien Bouchard, Quebec’s new sovereignist Premier, to hold another referendum as soon as “winning conditions” were present.2 Having clearly been told that Quebec was just barely still in favour of remaining a Canadian province and that it had not done enough during the referendum campaign, the Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. federal government, led by Prime Minister Jean Chretien, believed that it was necessary to build more of a Canadian, as opposed to a purely Quebecois, identity among the citizenry of Quebec. To do this, Chretien and his government sought to increase the profile of the federal government in Quebec. Chretien would later explain, “I was determined that there would be no winning conditions for the proponents of separation. I had a personal commitment as a Canadian to the country I love and a duty as prime minister to keep it united. I was not prepared to be guilty of inaction.” The government’s initiatives to this end were undertaken as part of what became known as the sponsorship program, run out of the department of Public Works and Government Services Canada (PWGSC) along with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO). What followed over the next several years would be the egregious and deliberate mishandling of public money, part of what Peter MacKay, then an opposition member of parliament, would term “the biggest financial scandal in the history of this country.”4 This thesis will examine the events of the sponsorship scandal in an attempt to determine how such a dubious scam was allowed to go on for so long, and to evaluate proposed measures designed to prevent similar events from occurring in the future. Some of the initiatives undertaken by the government since the scandal will be analyzed, as will be The Report of the Commission of Inquiry into the Sponsorship Program and Advertising Activities, more commonly referred to as the Gomery Report. This publication documented the findings of the public inquiry into the sponsorship program conducted by Justice John Gomery. It will be argued that it was a breakdown or erosion in the respect for and adherence to the doctrine of ministerial responsibility that allowed the scandal to occur Reproduced with permission of the copyright owner. Further reproduction prohibited without permission. 4 and to continue for so long. The ministers associated with the sponsorship program, including the prime minister himself, did not fulfill the duties bestowed upon them by this important constitutional principle, one of the most fundamental elements of Canada’s system of responsible government. Even after the scandal became public knowledge, all of the political actors involved claimed to have known nothing about the misuse of the public funds, and all had a plentiful supply of reasons why it was not their fault. Significant portions of this thesis will be devoted to evaluating the conclusions reached by the Gomery Report. It will be argued that although Gomery claimed to have a strong respect for the doctrine of ministerial responsibility and its importance to responsible government, his findings indicated that he did not fully understand the concept and did not take it as seriously as he would have his readers believe. Furthermore, the phase of his report in which he recommended changes to avoid a similar event in the future was quite misguided. He relied far too heavily on formal changes, many of which would not strengthen Canada’s accountability regime and would actually have negative effects on the process of government in Canada. The argument here is that the sponsorship scandal was caused by improper and unscrupulous behaviour by certain individuals in key positions in the Liberal Party and the civil service, and thus should not be seen as a call for drastic and sweeping changes to Canada’s accountability regime or process of government. A breakdown within the Liberal Party in the adherence to the concept of ministerial responsibility was instrumental in allowing the sponsorship scandal to operate undetected for so many years, and it will therefore be argued that a stricter adherence to this important doctrine is the major change that should result from this unfortunate event.