Ottawa

Idea alert

Ethics commissioner Mary Dawson wonders whether we might need a code of conduct for MPs.

Dawson said she regularly gets complaints from people who think politicians are abusing their positions or behaving inappropriately.

“Misleading statements, personal attacks and the like that come with the partisan nature of political life are often distasteful to many Canadians,” Dawson wrote in her reports on both the Conflict of Interest Code for MPs and the Conflict of Interest Code Act. “Some assume that this sort of behaviour must be covered by one or another of the various accountability regimes in force. In fact, there is no comprehensive regime that governs political conduct in general.”

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