Parliament's ethics commissioner has dropped an investigation into allegations by a Liberal MP that the federal government used taxpayer dollars for advertising programs that were thinly disguised attempts to promote the Conservative party.
Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson concluded in a "discontinuance report" [PDF] released Wednesday that federal conflict-of-interest legislation did not apply in the context of a complaint made by Liberal MP Martha Hall Findlay.
"This decision flies in the face of the very purpose of the Conflict of Interest Act," Hall Findlay responded Wednesday.
"We are concerned that the ethics commissioner is constrained by the current atmosphere of intimidation by the Prime Minister's Office. The commissioner declined to pursue this matter based entirely on a technicality. She has not addressed any of the substance of the allegation."
Hall Findlay had complained to Dawson that a $60-million advertising campaign ostensibly designed by the federal government to tell Canadians about its economic action plan bore a too-similar design in terms of its presentation to advertising campaigns mounted over the past few years by the Conservative Party of Canada.
"The original ethics complaint will go down on the long list of Liberal stunts that generate media hysteria, but amount to nothing in the end," Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre said in an e-mailed statement.
"Prime Minister (Stephen) Harper's government has acted with the highest standards of ethics and today's report shows that these Liberal smears were false."
But non-partisan advocacy group Democracy Watch slammed Dawson's ruling.
"Very unfortunately, the ethics commissioner has used every possible technical loophole she can find to let the ruling party and cabinet ministers off the hook for what are fairly clear violations of federal ethics rules," said executive director Duff Conacher. "It's a fairly ridiculous ruling." [Read the rest of the story]
Tags: parliament, ethics, democracy watch