Canada has, once again, slipped down an international ranking for corruption, standing at 13th in the world and well back of world leaders, such as Denmark, New Zealand and Singapore.

Since 2015, the year Liberal leader Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister, Canada has fallen nine points, to a score of 74 out of 100 on the Transparency International’s 2021 Corruption Perceptions Index. No country has seen a bigger drop in ratings since 2017 than Canada.

While the latest ranking is Canada’s worst in a decade, the country remained at the top of the rankings in the Americas, where progress on stamping out corruption has “ground to a halt” and democracies like Chile and the United States rank even lower.

Transparency International, a non-profit non-government organization dedicated to sunshine laws, specifically cited ethical breaches by former Finance Minister Bill Morneau for awarding the administration of a $900 million grants program to WE Charity, which has a history of paying politicians and family members, including the Trudeaus, for speaking events.

Also cited is the SNC-Lavalin “foreign bribery case that spiralled into a political crisis” when Trudeau breached conflict of interest rules by improperly pressuring then-Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould to defer prosecution of the construction company.

Transparency International notes how “top-scoring countries,” such as Canada, “have proven too weak to meet the challenge of increasingly globalised, networked corruption – which is not measured by the Index…read more.