A Real Plan to Restore Public Trust

Ontario Liberal Leadership Candidate Yasir Naqvi Sets the Bar for Ethical Governance

In response to the alarming breaches of ethics uncovered by two independent officers of the Ontario legislature, Yasir Naqvi, former Attorney General of Ontario and leadership candidate for the Ontario Liberal Party, has unveiled a comprehensive plan to address corruption, ensure accountability, and protect the public interest.

“Doug Ford has eroded public trust and raised serious concerns about the influence of special interests. With both the Auditor General and the Integrity Commissioner independently identifying multiple instances of unethical conduct by Doug Ford’s government, Ontarians have reason to be gravely concerned. My plan will restore public trust by taking simple steps that are crucial to ensuring special interests do not have undue influence in Ontario's decision-making processes.”

Yasir Naqvi

A Yasir Naqvi-led government will replace the status quo with a concrete plan to restore public confidence in Ontario's governance and prevent the misconduct exercised by the Ford government from happening again.

Key components of Yasir’s plan include:

1. Introduce an Ontario Accountability Act to make it clear to all Ontarians what public office holders can and cannot do. The Act would:

  • Establish new cooling off periods and lobbying bans for former public office holders, including Mayors and municipal officials. 
  • Mandate the registration of all communications between lobbyists and make this data publicly available under the lobbyist registry.  
  • Eliminate current lobbying loopholes, like those exposed in the Greenbelt scandal.
  • Explicitly ban the practice of bundling large political donations from multiple related donors. 
  • Require the proactive publication of Ministerial mandate letters.
  • Place strict limits on the gifts public office holders, including Mayors, receive. 

2. Establish an Ontario Anti Corruption Force (OACF) to investigate potential corruption in Ontario. 

  • Similar to Quebec’s Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC,) the OACF will be specialized, independent and act with a clear mandate to investigate all matters pertaining to potential corruption in the Ontario public sector, broader public sector and municipal government.

3. Clean up municipal lobbying practices and Ministerial planning powers.

  • Yasir Naqvi will clean up municipal lobbying practices and Ministerial zoning powers. This includes mandating municipal lobbyists and gift registries across all cities and towns in Ontario, including large cities like Mississauga which have to date resisted putting this layer of transparency in place. Additionally, Ministerial Zoning Orders will be required to be published along with supporting public service advice to ensure transparency and scrutiny.

 

Policy Backgrounder

A Real Plan to Clean Up Doug Ford’s Greenbelt Mess, Fight Corruption and Restore Public Trust

A Real Plan to Clean Up Doug Ford’s Greenbelt Mess, Fight Corruption and Restore Public Trust

Two independent officers of the Ontario legislature, the Auditor-General and the Integrity Commissioner, have separately found several major breaches of ethics in how Doug Ford’s government carved up the Greenbelt to benefit their friends and donors.

This is not simply a bad process, it is intentional self-dealing and the RCMP is now investigating to determine whether criminal acts have occurred. This brazen behaviour reflects a government that does not respect its basic obligations to the citizens who elected them and loopholes in law that led them to believe they could get away with it.

The RCMP must continue its investigation and in the interim Doug Ford needs to reverse the corrupt Greenbelt giveaway and restore all these lands to protected status. But doing so alone, won’t fix the problems.

As the former Attorney General of Ontario, Yasir Naqvi knows what needs to be done. Yasir led the adoption of political finance reforms in 2016, reforms Ford promptly abandoned, and will lead this important work again. Yasir was also the first Ontario Liberal leadership candidate to call for an independent police investigation into this mess,1 and today he is the first candidate to present a real plan to make sure scandals like this never happen again.

Ontario Liberals cannot equivocate on this point. Our party needs a leader whose history of accountability and ethics is clear and unimpeachable. We cannot win with a Ford-like approach to political fundraising, especially not while drawing from the same Doug Ford donor pool.

A Yasir Naqvi-led government will challenge the status quo so Ontarians can be assured that special interests do not have special access, and so that the public interest and the public’s voice are what counts.

To achieve this, Yasir will do three things:

1)    Introduce an Ontario Accountability Act that will make sweeping changes to the rules governing lobbyists and public office holders. This new Act will create a common set of rules for provincial, municipal and broader public sector executives, their political staff, and those lobbyists interacting with these office holders. It will, among other things:

  • Establish new and stringent cooling off periods and lobbying bans for former public office holders. This will extend to municipal officials, including Mayors. 
  • Mandate the registration of all communications between lobbyists, both in-house and external consultants, and senior public office holders, and make this data publicly available under the lobbyist registry. Currently in Ontario lobbyists are only required to register the intention to lobby,2 shrouding the extent of interactions between government bodies and lobbyists in secrecy. This new requirement will bring Ontario into line with federal lobbying standards where specific communications must be registered and reported in the lobbyist registry.3
  • Eliminate current loopholes, like those exposed in the Greenbelt scandal, which allow in-house representatives to avoid registering as lobbyists if they assert they lobby less than 50 hours a year. 
  • Explicitly ban the practice of bundling large political donations from multiple related donors. When every individual executive of a company with business before the government, and numerous members of each of their families, all contribute the maximum personal amount, it is clear the spirit of the existing ban on corporate donations is not being followed. 
  • Require the proactive publication of Ministerial mandate letters and the agendas and meeting logs for the Premier, Ministers, senior political staff, and Mayors of large cities. 
  • Place strict limits on the gifts public office holders, including Mayors, receive. As we have seen with the separate allegations involving trips to Las Vegas between Premier Ford’s principal secretary and developers who have won a number of concessions from the government, there is a critical need for greater transparency in this area. 

2)    Establish an Ontario Anti Corruption Force (OACF) similar to Quebec’s Permanent Anti-Corruption Unit (UPAC) which will act with a broad and specialized mandate to investigate all matters pertaining to potential corruption in the Ontario public sector, broader public sector and municipal government. 

Staffed with professional police resources trained exclusively in how to investigate financial, administrative, public integrity and public trust related criminal offences, this force will be independent of the Ontario Provincial Police (OPP) and enable a more seamless and effective investigation of matters without concern for potential interference or conflict of interest. 

The OACF would be the policing agency of jurisdiction for all matters related to public corruption in Ontario involving a provincial or municipal body. In addition to investigating matters it initiates on its own, it would also be able to handle matters referred to it by the Auditor General of Ontario and the Integrity Commissioner, among others. 

3)    Clean up municipal lobbying practices and Ministerial planning powers. This will include mandating that all cities and towns must immediately institute local municipal lobbyist and gift registries which follow the principles set out in the Ontario Accountability Act. While cities like Ottawa and Toronto have already taken similar steps, a municipal lobbyist registry is not mandatory in Ontario. Cities like Mississauga, for example, have resisted this practice and that discretion must end.4

Ministerial Zoning Orders will also be required to be published along with the supporting public service advice which was used in making the MZO decision. 

As demonstrated by the Integrity Commissioner’s recent investigation into the Greenbelt, the alleged “Mr. X.” was not just someone involved in this one episode; there are reports he advertised he was the most successful lobbyist in getting the Minister to issue MZOs for select developers.5 If there is an ability to create billions of dollars of value for a friendly developer at the stroke of a pen, these decisions must stand up to greater scrutiny and justification. 

In an Ontario led by Yasir Naqvi, they will.

 

 

Notes:

1. Moscrop, David (2023). “Yes, someone should investigate Doug Ford’s cellphone use”. TVO Today. August 16, 2023. https://www.tvo.org/article/yes-someone-should-investigate-doug-fords-cellphone-use. Accessed: September 3, 2023.

2. Office of the Integrity Commissioner (2016). A Guide to the Lobbyist Registration Act. Toronto: Office of the Integrity Commissioner. Available at: https://www.oico.on.ca/web/default/files/guide-to-the-lobbyists-registration-act.pdf.

3. Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada (2023). “Verification of monthly communication reports”. January 3, 2023. https://lobbycanada.gc.ca/en/registration-and-compliance/verification-of-monthly-communication-reports/. Accessed: September 3, 2023.

4. Wideman, Alex (2023). “Municipal lobbyist and gift registries are optional in Ontario”. Open Council. August 24, 2023. https://opencouncil.ca/lobbyist-registries-ontario/. Accessed: September 3, 2023.

5. Wake, David (2023). Report Re: The Honourable Steve Clark, Minister of Municipal Affairs and Housing and Member of Provincial Parliament for Leeds– Grenville–Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. Toronto: Office of the Integrity Commissioner. P. 81-85.