Loopholes for lobbyists

CBC News Online | April 12, 2006

When it comes to lobbyists, those supposedly murky customers who sneak around Parliament Hill twisting the arms of unsuspecting cabinet ministers, Stephen Harper clearly has a love-hate relationship.

On the love side, two of the prime minister's closest political allies are former lobbyists. They would be:

• Defence Minister Gordon O'Conner, a retired brigadier-general who was a registered lobbyist between 2001 and 2004 for, among other defence contractors, Airbus Military, one of several possible contenders for the proposed purchase of new search-and-rescue planes;
• And Sandra Buckler, an impressive party spin doctor who wiped the floor with her counterparts from the Liberals and NDP during the election campaign and, for her pains, was named Harper's newest communications director.

Before that she had been an Ottawa-based PR woman and lobbyist representing such blue-chip clients as De Beers Canada, Rogers Wireless, Power Corp. and Coca Cola Canada – testament, one would think, to the fact that even diehard Conservatives can make a good living lobbying government sorts in what was then Liberal Ottawa.

Yet Harper clearly has something of a hate-on for lobbyists. How else to explain the fact that the massive new federal accountability act unveiled this week, the centrepiece of the Conservative campaign, singles out the government lobbying business for such special treatment.

Under the act, lobbyists would be barred from working for contingency fees; have much more stringent monthly reporting requirements (including listing all contacts and meetings that month with senior civil servants, ministers or their staff); and would face double the current criminal and financial penalties for violating any terms of the Lobbyist Registration Act. The big, high-profile reform of course is the much promised five-year ban on former ministers, their senior staff and top civil servants crossing the street to work as lobbyists, to take advantage of their inside-the-system contacts.

A five-year cooling off period is a pretty strong deterrent. You'd think it was lobbyists and not greedy Quebec ad men who were at the root of the sponsorship scandal.

You'd also think such a ban will clearly stop any kind of political insider trading. But you might be wrong about that, too.

What cooling off?

OK, loopholes may be a tad strong. It's hard to say for sure at this early juncture. But this new accountability law is more than a little confusing on the subject of cooling-off periods.

The five-year ban on interacting with the federal government only applies to former ministers, their top staff or senior civil servants who would consider formally registering as lobbyists in order to press a client's case for legislative change, grants or contracts.

It would also appear to apply to those senior people who might consider a private sector job as a VP in charge of government relations.

But for those who would just cross the street to, say, a defence firm they've had regular dealings with for a few years and take a job that is not directly in the government relations/lobbying field – maybe just pass on their accumulated Ottawa wisdom to others – only the less stringent conflict-of-interest rules, which are found in this same bill, seem to apply.

These require a one-year cooling-off period for civil servants above a certain rank; two years for former cabinet ministers, just what they have been for some time now.

The campaign loophole

If the purpose of the accountability bill is to do away with any hint of favouritism based on whom you know, it's hard to see why Harper didn't try to implement what might be called the John Reynolds rule (or the Frank Moores rule for those with long memories).

Reynolds is as former Reform/Alliance/Conservative MP who ran Harper's leadership bid and also managed the Conservative election campaign. (As Moores, the former premier of Newfoundland and one of the consummate Ottawa lobbyists of his day, did for former Conservative prime minister Brian Mulroney.)

A well-regarded guy, Reynolds decided a year ago not to run again, though he would have surely made it into cabinet if he had. Instead, he took a job after the election with the big law firm Lang Michener, which represents a number of clients in their dealings with Ottawa.

Reynolds told CBC when he joined Lang Michener that he had no intention of lobbying the new government on anyone's behalf. His job, he said, is to advise the firm's juniors and clients on how to make their case to government and who, broadly speaking, to approach. Which, some might say, is a fine distinction.

In any event, if the Conservatives are truly keen on stopping insider connections, it is hard to see why they didn't incorporate a formal cooling off clause for senior campaign managers, because that is the position where real personal relationships are formed.

What's also not in the accountability act

The bill does nothing to prevent partisan lobbyists from de-registering their commissions, as many (such as Sandra Buckler) do, to take on a campaign job. And then go back to the trenches with a fatter BlackBerry.

Nor does it prevent lobbyists or PR people from working directly or indirectly for ministers on specific contracts.

This last is a trick the Liberals employed for many years. Savvy Ottawa consultants, often representing firms that had both PR and lobbying arms, would be hired to work closely with ministerial staff. They would then come up with more PR or polling jobs that only they could fill.

These consultants may well have been right about their worth. Making a cumbersome system work is not something to be sneezed at.

They may have even saved taxpayer money. But they certainly came to represent the kind of insider cycle that even this huge accountability act will do little to change.

[an error occurred while processing this directive]