A Calgary-based conservative lobby group is spending up to $20,000 for a two-week radio advertising campaign that alleges new Canadian Wheat Board legislation has a clause which condones bribery and corruption to sell grain.
“What (wheat board minister Ralph) Goodale and the government of Canada are doing is sanctioning and rewarding corruption,” National Citizens’ Coalition president David Somerville said in a Sept. 25 interview.
Goodale reacted sharply.
“I certainly don’t agree with the NCC allegations,” he told a Sept. 25 news conference after unveiling the new legislation. “While I’m no longer in the business of practising law, the NCC might want to get legal advice because who knows, they might well have subjected themselves to allegations of slander or whatever.”
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The NCC, which campaigned against Goodale in his Regina riding during the last election and opposes the board monopoly, last week began a radio ad campaign across the Prairies and in Ottawa.
It was titled “ban corruption” and implied the board refuses to ban bribery and corruption among wheat board employees.
“Goodale’s bill required the wheat board to pay the fines of any of its employees convicted of crimes committed on behalf of the board,” said the text of the 60-second advertisement.
Pay for lawsuits
At issue is a section of the CWB legislation which commits the board to cover the costs of lawsuits against employees, officers or agents if they are charged because of an action they took on behalf of the board, assuming they acted “honestly and in good faith” for the best interests of the board and believed they were acting legally.
Goodale says that protection is simply copied from the legislation which governs federally incorporated private corporations.
Somerville’s group is spending between $15,000 and $20,000 to buy ads.
Civil not criminal acts
He said protection offered to officers of private corporations is limited to civil actions, not criminal charges.
The NCC president offered an example of how he thinks the wheat board bill could be used.
“The wheat board is doing one of their billion-dollar deals with a corrupt Third World country,” he speculated.
“Someone acting on behalf of the wheat board pays a $100,000 or $1 million bribe to a foreign official to get the contract. That government subsequently finds out about it and prosecutes both their own person who received the bribe and also charges the wheat board agent involved and he’s convicted. The wheat board is then required to pay any fine or legal costs of the wheat board employee or agent who engaged in corrupt practices.”
Goodale dismissed that kind of speculation as “over the top.” And he accused the NCC of “deliberately distorting” the bill. He pointed to protections offered to officials of private corporations.
Section 124 of the Canada Business Corporations Act offers protection for corporate representatives facing costs “in respect of any civil, criminal or administrative action or proceeding” created by their corporate actions.
Section 3.13 of the new Canadian Wheat Board Act contains the same words.
