Democracy Watch (Canada)
Democracy Watch, established in 1993, is a Canadian organization that advocates on democratic reform, government accountability and corporate responsibility issues.[2] Democracy Watch provides information and support, and works in conjunction with, good government and corporate responsibility organizations from other countries.[Notes 1] A 2018 iPolitics article said that Democracy Watch, an "advocacy group for government accountability", recommended that Canada follow the lead of other countries with "parliamentary democracies", such as the U.K., Australia, and New Zealand, to develop "written rules for a minority government scenario" to replace the existing unwritten, traditional rules, which are "constitutional conventions".[3] Huffington Post cited Conacher and Democracy Watch in their report on an ethics investigation launched by Canada's conflict of interest and ethics commissioner, Mario Dion, related to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's potential conflict of interest in the awarding of a $900M contract We Charity 2020 contract with the federal government."[7] In her ruling Trussler said, "It does stretch credibility that Mr. Allan did not consider whether or not there may possibly be a conflict of interest in his engaging of Dentons as counsel for the inquiry, given that, for all intents and purposes, the firm gave him free office space and both his close friend (although that alone is not significant) and his son were partners at the firm...[However], [n]either the minister, his children, nor his direct associates had any personal or particular interest in, or anything to gain from, the appointment of Mr. Allan as inquiry commissioner".