The MPs on the House of Commons standing committee on access to information, privacy and ethics showed a callous indifference to the health of Canada’s democracy last month when they endorsed the gutting of Ottawa’s lobbying rules.
The MPs, including Greg Fergus, parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, and Michael Barrett, the Conservative shadow minister for ethics and accountable government, are officially on board with reforms that will make it easier for people who work on election campaigns, or raise funds for a candidate or a party, to lobby the governments they help get into office.
The lone NDP MP on the committee was the only member to object to a drastic reduction in the length of the postelection cooling-off period for lobbyists proposed by lobbying commissioner Nancy Bélanger.
All of this can be seen in a letter to Ms. Bélanger that the committee endorsed at a closed-door meeting on March 21 – a letter that reeks of catering to the needs of lobbyists and MPs while ignoring the interests of the public.
The MPs and Ms. Bélanger are undermining the raison d’être of the Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct – to preserve public faith in Canada’s democracy by fighting against the perception that money buys unfair access to decision makers.
The current rules, which should remain, prohibit people who have done “higher risk” political work on an election campaign from lobbying their elected candidate for “a full election cycle,” generally considered to be four years.
Under the proposed changes, the four-year cooling-off period would be reduced to a maximum of two years for people who directly run a campaign or work for a party, and to just one year for those who do a loosely defined amount of work on “a full-time or near-full-time basis.”
That leaves a lot of room for lobbyists who could contribute to a campaign in a significant way and never have to go through any cooling-off period at all. That’s something that would be of interest to MPs, because lobbyists are experienced campaigners and fundraisers.
It’s also conceivable under the proposed change that a registered lobbyist could hold a fundraiser for a sitting MP or election candidate, deliver a cheque worth tens of thousands of dollars by hand a week later and, while they’re at it, lobby the recipient.
That’s the opinion of a group of lawyers and law professors who wrote to the ethics committee in early March. And it’s the position of Democracy Watch, a non-profit organization that has been gamely trying to alert the public to what’s going on.
So far, there has been little outcry. But there ought to be.
Ms. Bélanger argues that she wants to reduce the cooling-off period out of a concern for the ability of lobbyists to exercise their Charter right to participate in Canadian elections.
But as this space has argued before, that is not a contention that has been tested in court. In fact, Canadian courts, including the Supreme Court, have ruled in the past that equality of access to decision makers and the appearance of integrity and independence in politicians are critical to the health of democracy and deserve protection.
As well, there is nothing in the rules that would prevent a lobbyist, or someone who works for a company or union that lobbies the government, from doing routine volunteer work on a campaign, putting up a lawn sign, and donating to a candidate or party.
Ms. Bélanger’s insistence to the contrary – that the right of lobbyists to fully participate in elections is more important than the need to preserve the public’s faith in the system – is wrong-headed. It defies common sense: No reasonable person would believe that a lobbyist ought to be able to raise five-figure sums for a politician and knock on their office door in Parliament a month or less later.
And yet that is something the MPs on the ethics committee, with the exception of one, are perfectly comfortable with. It’s no coincidence that, in the same letter, they unanimously encouraged the lobbying commissioner to raise the dollar value of gifts and hospitality they can receive from lobbyists, and to preserve their ability to enjoy lobbyist-paid travel junkets for themselves and their families.
They quite like the entitlements to which they are entitled, and they don’t care that their desire for them undermines Canadians’ faith in democracy.