A report in the National Post notes that existing senate rules permit serious potential conflicts of interest between the official public duties of senators and their private business dealings:
While ministers in the House of Commons must put their business assets in a blind trust, senators, who can stall, alter or even quash proposed laws, are under no such obligation. The scrupulous ones try to segregate their personal business from their political power. But in many cases, drawing a hard line between the two spheres of interest is not as simple as recusing oneself from a Senate discussion, committee or vote.
This raises the question: can a public representative serve two masters, particularly when work for one could seriously affect work for the other?
“It’s shocking” senators are allowed to join corporate boards, says Richard Leblanc, associate professor of law, governance and ethics at York University in Toronto. “I think a reasonable person would conclude that this doesn’t make sense. That a politician that makes laws can sit on the board of a company that is affected by laws. I think this has fallen through the cracks.”
The report also notes that “at least 34 of the current 96 Senators (the Senate count includes the suspended Senators) also sit on the boards of public and private companies.”
