PARLIAMENT HILL—An exclusive reception Conservative Cabinet ministers and MPs are hosting on behalf of a high-end private club connected to the Conservative Party in Toronto is an example of “disturbing” informal lobbying that has grown under Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s government, says NDP MP Charlie Angus.Mr. Angus (Timmins James Bay, Ont.) and Democracy Watch founding director Duff Conacher told The Hill Times on Tuesday the reception to be held Dec. 1, featuring invitations sent to all Conservative MPs and Senators through Parliament’s internal email service, contradicts accountability promises Mr. Harper (Calgary Southwest, Alta.) made when he first won power an a clean-up-government platform in 2006.
“I think the problem is we’re seeing a whole new kind of lobbying going under the radar, where people know people, people happen to be there,” Mr. Angus told The Hill Times.
“They’re not technically lobbying, but when you have ministers drumming up support for a private [club], that private club has key lobbyists on the board, if we didn’t ask questions, would those lobbyists have all shown up in the course of meeting all these new prospective members who are Conservative Cabinet ministers and MPs? Most probably, because it makes sense,” he said.
Labour Minister Lisa Raitt (Halton, Ont.) and senior Conservative Senators Hugh Segal and Consiglio Di Nino, along with MPs Chris Alexander (Ajax-Pickering, Ont.) and Kellie Leitch (Simcoe-Grey, Ont.), emailed the invitations last week to invite the Tory MPs and Senators to meet members of the board of directors of the Albany Club in Toronto behind the brass-plaqued closed doors of the historic Senate Banking, Trade and Commerce committee adjacent to the Hall of Honour in Parliament’s Centre Block.
But Mr. Conacher and opposition MPs raised questions about the gathering, saying the Cabinet ministers, Senators and MPs are putting themselves into a conflict of interest because four of the directors of the club, a Conservative enclave founded in 1882 that has tributes to every Conservative prime minister of Canada since Confederation on its wood-paneled walls, are registered lobbyists.
Two of the lobbyists, former Conservative candidate John Capobianco and Ian Anderson, once a top aide to former prime minister Brian Mulroney, are registered to lobby either Mr. Clement as president of the Treasury Board committee of Cabinet or Treasury Board’s secretariat. Mr. Capobianco told The Hill Times his registrations are new, and he has not lobbied Mr. Clement, who is also a director of the Albany Club.
Mr. Clement told the House of Commons this week, after an NDP question about the reception during Question Period, that he would ask federal Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson to look into the complaints. But—in a reflection of comments about the failings of the monitoring and reporting complaints about conflict of interest or contravention of the Code of Conduct for MPs—Ms. Dawson’s office told The Hill Times on Tuesday it was not responsible for lobbyist monitoring, and suggested the Albany Club event does not fall under Ms. Dawson’s responsibility for policing the Code of Conduct on behalf of Parliamentarians.
“The Conflict of Interest Act and the Conflict of Interest Code for Members of the House of Commons do not regulate the conduct of lobbyists, but rather the activities of public office holders,” Ms. Dawson’s communications officer, Jocelyn Brisebois, told The Hill Times in an email. “There is no section in the Conflict of Interest Act that deals specifically with relations between registered lobbyists and Members of Parliament.”
While Cabinet ministers are classified as public office holders under the Conflict of Interest Act, along with Parliamentary secretaries to ministers and top public servants, MPs and Senators are not. Ms. Brisebois did not address a Hill Times question about whether Mr. Clement had referred the opposition complaints to Ms. Dawson.
Mr. Angus said the Albany Club reception is an example of the kind of informal lobbying, through cozy relationships, that has grown under Mr. Harper’s watch.
“My concern with lobbying isn’t the person who comes and knocks on the door of an MP’s office and dutifully records, it’s the people who have access to power, it’s the people who have access to the back rooms and the private clubs, those are the people who can be much more effective as lobbyists and they’re technically not even lobbying, by just opening doors, and that’s the disturbing part.”
Mr. Conacher, long a thorn in the side of successive governments over lobbying and conflict of interest transgressions, said existing rules, despite Mr. Harper’s flagship Federal Accountability Act of 2006, do not prevent the kind of informal lobbying Mr. Angus mentioned.
“The only thing that has to be disclosed are oral pre-arranged communications,” Mr. Conacher said, adding that any Albany Club director-lobbyists who attend the reception would not likely have to report conversations with any of the MPs and Senators they might meet there.
“The invitation doesn’t say specifically that so-and-so will be there,” he said.
Mr. Conacher said even at a social event, lobbying opportunities arise that, as Mr. Angus said, fall under the radar of the Conflict Act, as well as legislation and rules that cover lobbying.
“Every conversation is an opportunity to lobby,” he said.
Origin
Source: Hill Times
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