Right there, on page 8, under the heading “Toughen the Lobbyists Registration Act,” was a promise to “require ministers and senior government officials to record their contacts with lobbyists.”
The Tories won that election, but alas, the registry never was toughened up — at least not in the ways that would have placed the responsibility for reporting lobbying activity squarely on the shoulders of those being lobbied. And neither the 2008 nor 2011 platforms dwelled much on accountability as far as lobby registries are concerned.
So it’s not a huge surprise to Guy Giorno that Ottawa city councillors balked at the original proposal that would have required them to register every time they’d been lobbied.
“I wish they’d shown courage and leadership, but I must note — since I follow these laws everywhere — that no other politician anywhere else has shown that courage,” said Giorno in an interview Wednesday.
Giorno, who worked on that 2006 campaign and was Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s chief of staff, as well as lobby registry expert, from 2008 to 2011, still believes in the principle that those representing the public have a responsibility to disclose lobbying.
But it continues to prove difficult to convince politicians to regulate themselves.
“(Councillors) probably looked around and said, ‘Who else is doing this? Nobody. Why should we?’” said Giorno. “It would have been nice for them to show leadership on this issue, but it would have been precedent-setting. It’s a good precedent to set, somebody should start it. Ottawa’s a good place to start it. It’s unfortunate they didn’t.”
Unfortunate indeed. And a little spineless, too.
Giorno still applauds the fact that Ottawa is going ahead with a registry at all, as it’s only the second Canadian municipality to do so. (And, unlike Toronto, it didn’t take a massive scandal to spur our registry’s creation.) But there are some shortfalls with the city’s proposed registry, which will be debated at a special joint-committee meeting on Friday.
While the Ottawa-based lawyer is pleased that the revamped registry exempts community associations, Giorno fears that city staff has inadvertently created a “big loophole for private interests” with its definition of “advocacy.”
It’s something of a technicality, but here’s the dilemma in a nutshell.
The original draft for the registry included community associations, which are almost always run by volunteers, as lobbyists, but only when they were actually lobbying. Which isn’t very often. Mostly, these community groups advocate for or against a city policy or proposals.
So way back in November, when the draft registry was first tabled, councillors moved a motion that staff should look at exempting volunteer community associations and to define advocacy — which doesn’t have to be registered — as opposed to lobbying.
Well, the city did both. In the updated registry, the volunteer groups are excluded. And city staff included a provision that advocacy doesn’t have to be reported.
What’s advocacy? “Communication for or against a policy or program that state a position where the primary focus is a broad community benefit or detriment,” according to the draft registry bylaw. (The definition is even underlined!)
But that could be a problem.
Pulling a hypothetical federal government example out of the air, Giorno argues that no one would consider discussions on environmental regulations between a manufacturer that produces emissions and the government to be advocacy.
“We would want that (communication) to be transparent and disclosed,” said Giorno. “We wouldn’t say, ‘well this isn’t a matter for this company, this is just a matter of public policy for the good of the country.’
“And yet, this language actually allows a lot of what businesses and private interests do to go undisclosed.
For a more city-based premise, consider this theoretical scenario.
A private company argues to councillors and a couple of senior city staffers for an expedited business permit process.
Would speeding up that procedure benefit the entire community? Maybe.
Would it benefit individual businesses who want a permit? Definitely.
So is urging a faster permit process advocating for a broad community benefit or financial benefit to specific companies? Likely both. So it is lobbying? Under the terms of the advocacy exemption, it’s not entirely clear. What’s fairly obvious is that we’d like whatever communications took place between the company and public officials to be disclosed.
So Giorno is right. Let’s drop the advocacy wording.
The whole reason behind defining advocacy was to protect community groups. It’s debatable whether non-profit groups really need to be shielded from the lobbyist registry, but as the current plan exempts these associations altogether, then there’s no reason to address advocacy.
By including the term in the bylaw, it simply creates more wiggle room for those who’d really rather not register their activities. And providing more excuses why people shouldn’t have to disclose who they’re talking to and why isn’t something we really need.
Politicians — and the folks they deal with — are happy to come up with reasons for that all on their own.
Original Article
Source: ottawa citizen
Author: Joanne Chianello
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