Canada鈥檚 weak environmental legislation, the Senate expense scandal and the government鈥檚 resistance to evidence-based policymaking is causing the country to slip in a global sustainable governance ranking.
The report by Germany鈥檚 Bertelsmann Foundation, released Thursday, states that Canada has traditionally had high-quality government structures and policies, but the actions of the Conservative government since winning a majority in 2011 鈥渕ay have jeopardized this situation.鈥�
A team of Canadian experts compiled country鈥檚 scores and analyzed its policies for the (SGI) 2014 report.
The report states the Senate expense scandal and the cover-up of a $90,000 payment Prime Minister Stephen Harper鈥檚 former chief of staff Nigel Wright made to Sen. Mike Duffy had a 鈥渟ignificant negative impact鈥� on the government鈥檚 reputation.
The report also noted that the tensions between former parliamentary budget officer Kevin Page, who was often critical of the government鈥檚 spending decisions, developed into an 鈥渙pen hostility over time鈥� and damaged Ottawa鈥檚 commitment to greater accountability.
The Conservative鈥檚 鈥渢ough on crime鈥� agenda is used to exemplify a lack of commitment to evidence-based decision making, as the crime rate in Canada continues to drop.
But the 鈥渕ost egregious鈥� example of this is the government鈥檚 decision to replace the mandatory long-form census with a voluntary survey, which led to the resignation of Canada鈥檚 chief statistician.
鈥淐anada鈥檚 reputation in the international statistical community, which was once very high, suffered greatly from this decision,鈥� the report said. The researchers noted that the response rate plunge from 94 per cent with the mandatory long-form census to 68 per cent with the voluntary survey.
鈥淚n a staggering one-fourth of Canadian communities, the data was unusable due to the lack of sufficient response,鈥� the study noted.
Canada placed 20th out of 41 developed countries in overall policy performance, 17th in the quality of its democracy and 10th in governance in the 2014 rankings.
The worst ranking was on its environmental policies, where Canada ranked 38th out of 41 countries.
Environmental policy has tarnished government's reputation
The report says it鈥檚 Canada鈥檚 environmental policies that have done the most damage to the government鈥檚 reputation, both domestically and internationally.
Major environmental legislation changes introduced in the government鈥檚 omnibus budget bill, Bill C-35, didn鈥檛 allow for the measures to be properly debated or analysed, according to the report.
鈥淎 case can be made that the biggest challenge lies in finding the appropriate balance between environmental protection and resource development,鈥� the report states, pointing to the proposed Gateway pipeline and the government鈥檚 failure to adopt a carbon tax.
But it wasn鈥檛 all bad news for Canada鈥檚 government.
The report noted that Canada鈥檚 2013 federal budget included good economic initiatives in venture capital financing and in connecting Canadians with jobs.
Andrew Sharpe of the Centre for the Study of Living Standards, Simon Fraser University economics professor Anke Kessler and political science researcher Martin Thunert of Heidelberg University served as the SGI Canada experts.
