“Conservatives used to howl like banshees when it was all those Liberal operatives in the revolving door. Where are those lofty principles now?
‘Who you know in the PMO’ is not supposed to be a marketable commodity,” NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.) told The Hill Times last week.
Kevin McCarthy recently left Finance Minister Jim Flaherty’s (Whitby-Oshawa, Ont.) office as his chief of staff and The Toronto Star reported last week that he will join Scotiabank in November as a director.
Last month, former PMO Quebec adviser André Bachand joined Earnscliffe Strategy Group as a principal and strategic adviser.
Both are designated public office holders and subject to the Federal Accountability Act’s five-year ban on lobbying the government.
Mr. Martin said they are “showing a distinct lack of respect” for the spirit of the Federal Accountability Act, which tightened lobbying, rules, blurring the lines of the “cooling-off period guidelines.”
“That’s why it’s important to respect the cooling-off provisions in the lobbyist registration act—so that people don’t dine out and trade on the contacts they made while in public office,” Mr. Martin said.
But Jim Patrick, president of the Government Relations Institute of Canada, and vice-president of the Canadian Wireless Telecommunications Association, said last week that the law does not preclude senior political public office holders from finding employment after working in the public service.
“The current framework allows someone who worked in certain jobs in government to go work in the private sector; as long as they follow the law that says they can’t do certain things that meet the definition of lobbying for a certain period of time. GRIC has long recommended that the rules should treat all types of lobbyists equally and we’ve made some specific representations to the Ethics Committee about that,” Mr. Patrick said.
“But the law was never intended to prevent people who spend a few years in public service from ever working in the private sector. Whether it’s working as a lawyer giving advice to clients, or an in-house executive or a consultant providing analysis, it makes for a stronger relationship between business and government when the public and private sectors understand how each other thinks and operates,” Mr. Patrick said.
Democracy Watch spokesperson Duff Conacher told The Toronto Star last week, however, that these are just more examples of how the Lobbying Act is “a bit of a joke” because there are loopholes to get around the five-year ban.
“They’ve spun it well. Most people think there is a five-year ban on lobbying, but there isn’t; you can lobby the day you leave government as long as it just takes less than 20 per cent of your time, or one day a week,” he said, noting the law also does not preclude designated public office holders (former senior staffers, MPs, ministers, deputy ministers and senior ranks of the federal bureaucracy) from advising clients using their insider knowledge and doing everything except literally picking up the phone themselves and calling the government to lobby on an issue. “That’s why they’re hired, to give that kind of insider’s look to the entity that hires them.”
John Capobianco, president of the Public Affairs Association of Canada and a vice-president of Fleishman-Hillard, disagreed that the law is weak, however, saying that the “rules are tough enough and tight enough.”
As long as people are following the law, there is no problem, he said.
Mr. Flaherty’s office told The Star that Mr. McCarthy consulted the Ethics Commissioner’s Office before taking the job and that it “approved his new position.”
“You know what, this does not mean that if you’ve worked for a Cabinet minister or if you’ve worked as a political staffer, that your whole livelihood is going to be jeopardized by the fact that you worked for political office,” Mr. Capobianco said.
“There is no loophole there. I think if you get to a situation where somebody’s worked in a minister’s office who can’t work in any capacity at all, you know, in any way possible, and then who will ever work for a federal Cabinet minister again? You need bright people to work at ministers’ offices and those bright people will eventually want to go back into the private sector,” said Mr. Capobianco.
“My PAAC position is that the five-year ban is way too long and it should be reduced, but the rules are the rules and we abide by the rules and Kevin will not be lobbying and he’s not in government relations, which is absolutely fair. If anybody thinks that because Kevin McCarthy or anybody goes to the private sector that automatically means they’re going to get insider access, they’re fooling themselves,” said Mr. Capobianco.
Tim Powers, chair of Summa Strategies, agreed, saying that people shouldn’t be penalized for acquiring skills and knowledge gained in the public service.
“I think the act should always be reviewed, but I think it also needs to be reasonable. Part of the reason there may be a view there are loopholes is because some of the original provisions are just a little too outlandish like five-year bans from lobbying,” Mr. Powers said.
“Sometimes when you do that, you create an underground industry. I’m not saying strategic advice is that, there’ve always been people providing strategic advice in all sorts of different sectors, but, in general, I think the act should be reviewed and there are different parts of it that should be looked at. We’ve done the five-year review, but where there are issues, by all means, review them,” said Mr. Powers.
Last year, the House Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics Committee conducted a mandatory five-year review of the Lobbying Act and made 11 recommendations.
In its response to the committee report, the government said that it supports two recommendations: making sure people who meet with DPOHs are listed on monthly communications reports, rather than only the most senior person in charge regardless if they met the DPOH or not; and maintaining the five-year ban on lobbying activities for DPOHs after leaving office while consolidating post-employment restrictions under a single authority.
Treasury Board President Tony Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.), who’s responsible for the Lobbying Act, said in the response that the first proposal would increase the monthly communications’ reports accuracy and transparency and would not increase an administrative burden on lobbyists.
Mr. Clement also noted in his response that the second proposal would bring “further clarity to the post-employment regime for public office holders” and that “the government will consider this matter further, taking into account any associated recommendations from the required Parliamentary-led legislative review of the Conflict of Interest Act.”
The Ethics Committee completed its study on the Conflict of Interest Act in the spring before the House adjourned and was in the middle of writing a report. With Parliament prorogued, it’s unclear when and if the committee will get back to completing it.
Mr. Clement’s spokesperson, Matthew Conway, told The Hill Times last week: “Our government is committed to ensuring lobbying activities are undertaken in an ethical and transparent way. The Ethics Committee is currently studying changes to the Conflict of Interest Act. The government awaits the committee’s recommendations in order to best coordinate changes to the Lobbying Act.”
Original Article
Source: hilltimes.com
Author: BEA VONGDOUANGCHANH
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