Declines among higher-scoring countries are part of a recent trend, Transparency International says.Adrian Wyld/The Canadian Press
Canada’s score in a global ranking of perceived levels of public sector corruption has been steadily declining over the past decade, according to a new report from Transparency International.
The annual report from the Berlin-headquartered anti-corruption organization rates the perceived levels of public sector corruption in 182 countries and territories based on more than a dozen independent data sources, ranking them on a scale of 0 for very corrupt to 100 for very clean.
Canada scored at 75, flat from a year earlier but down from 84 in 2012, according to the report published Tuesday. The United States, meanwhile, was ranked at 64, down one point from a year earlier and significantly below its 2015 baseline of 76.
Transparency International said the declines are part of a recent trend among higher-scoring countries, such as Sweden, Britain, New Zealand and France, which still find themselves near the top of the index but have slipped considerably from their initial baselines.
The organization says that in many of these countries, corruption has increased as independent checks and balances have been weakened, enforcement has declined and gaps in legislation have not been addressed.
“If all of these countries that are our peers, in some sense, are slipping as well, I would be concerned that it speaks to an erosion of trust that’s happening across many societies,” said Salvator Cusimano, executive director of Transparency International Canada.
Mr. Cusimano said allegations such as those emerging as part of a massive police corruption probe in the Greater Toronto Area can have a detrimental impact on public trust.
“What’s encouraging is that this is a case where some really serious allegations came to light, and where it probably took some really determined investigators really working through a difficult institutional situation,” Mr. Cusimano said, referring to the police probe.
“I think it’s really a testament to the strong capacity we have in Canada to identify corruption and prosecute it. Now the downside is that it comes back to the issue of trust, because I think what’s been alleged is linked to some really long-standing concerns that Canadians and Torontonians have about their personal security,” he added.
Ottawa has been looking to clamp down on financial crime, creating a new federal agency and introducing legislation that proposes to exponentially increase the penalties that the Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis Centre of Canada can levy.
Canada’s anti-money-laundering regime is in the midst of a review by the Financial Action Task Force, an intergovernmental body that sets standards to combat money laundering and terrorist financing.