In the wake of former Conservative MP Rahim Jaffer's alleged unregistered lobbying activities, the Commons voted unanimously last week that changes to the Lobbying Act are necessary, but some in the government relations industry say the move to extend the definition of a designated public office holder to Parliamentary secretaries, MPs and Senators is a "knee-jerk reaction."

"I think when the spotlight is on somebody who appears to have done something wrong, the political notion is to get all over it, react quickly and that's not a bad thing, but the point is make sure the reaction fits the alleged transgression and also make sure the reaction is not punitive to the whole public policy process," Tim Powers, a Tory pundit and vice-president of lobbying firm Summa Strategies, told The Hill Times last week.

In response to news that Mr. Jaffer and his business partner Patrick Glémaud, co-founders of Green Power Generation, lobbied Conservative MP Brian Jean (Fort McMurray-Athabasca, Alta.) while not registering to do so, the Liberal Party used its opposition day last Tuesday to introduce a motion stating that Parliamentary secretaries should be added to the list of designated public office holders.

Current designated public office holders include Cabinet ministers and ministers of state and their staff, deputy ministers, associate deputy ministers, assistant deputy ministers, chief executive officers and several other governor in council appointees. Mr. Jean is the Parliamentary secretary to Transport and Infrastructure Minister John Baird (Ottawa West-Nepean, Ont.) who had control of the $1-billion Green Infrastructure Fund, and opposition MPs say he should have been subject to the Lobbying Act, in which lobbyists would have to record any meetings or written communications with him. Mr. Jaffer has denied he lobbied anybody in the Conservative government, but rather made contact with several of his previous colleagues for information gathering.

Liberal MP Siobhan Coady (St. John's South-Mount Pearl, Nfld.) introduced the motion last week regarding Parliamentary secretaries and fellow Liberal MP Dominic LeBlanc (Beauséjour, N.B.) introduced an amendment which stated that designated public office holders should also be required to register their communications with lobbyists, just as lobbyists must do on a monthly basis. The motion, with the amendment, passed 284 to zero.

Self-employed consultant lobbyist Gord McIntosh said the government's move to support the changes is "sheer reflex" in order to appear as if they're taking care of the Jaffer situation. "It's to assure the public, send the public a signal, that everything's okay, that it's not Dodge City," he said last week. "Instead of taking a knee-jerk attitude of throwing in layers of regulations every time something happens, I think it should be a much more comprehensive approach."

Mr. McIntosh noted, for example, that the rule that in-house lobbyists only have to register if government relations takes up 20 per cent or more of their time needs to be addressed as well. "How do you continue to burden one side of the industry, the side that has to register, but meanwhile, the 20 percenters go on under the radar?"

Mr. Powers said the potential legislative changes won't necessarily make the lobbying system more transparent or accountable. He noted that honest and responsible lobbyists are already following the law and will continue to follow it, and that it's not those people the government should be worried about. It's the people who don't follow the rules to begin with, he said, adding that the government needs to be careful not to overregulate.

"Unfortunately, there will always be people, no matter how many effective pieces of legislation we have in there, who will find a way to skirt it," Mr. Powers said.

Charles King, president of the Government Relations Institute of Canada, agreed that a new layer of rules would not necessarily add transparency and accountability. "If the government puts in 15 more layers of regulations and rules and include everybody and their dog in terms of having to do monthly reporting I would argue it would not have changed what has transpired. This is overkill, and they're overreacting," he said, adding that there are other simple changes that could add more transparency and accountability.

For example, he said the reporting structure should be changed so that the person who actually meets with designated public office holders should be the one listed, rather than the CEO of an organization when it comes to in-house lobbyists. In addition, Mr. King also agreed that designated public office holders should also be required to publicly report monthly communications with lobbyists so that there can be a cross reference of meetings. This would allow the public "to compare apples to apples, otherwise it's he said, she said."

NDP MP Pat Martin (Winnipeg Centre, Man.), his party's critic on lobbying issues, told The Hill Times, however, that while critics of the changes are correct in saying legislation will not change unscrupulous behaviour, weak rules are also a major problem. Mr. Martin said the proposed changes to the Lobbying Act are not "knee-jerk" but rather "the straw that broke the camel's back because the system's been sick for a long, long time."

The Lobbying Act has loopholes "big enough to drive a truck through," Mr. Martin said, adding that Parliament should be addressing both the compliance issue and the weak rules issue immediately. "Rahim Jaffer simply shone a light on everything that's wrong with the lobbying regime as it exists today," he said. "If anything, we owe a debt of gratitude to Rahim for his wretched excesses because finally people won't tolerate this kind of thing anymore."

Treasury Board President Stockwell Day (Okanagan-Coquihalla, B.C.), the government's spokesperson on the issue, told reporters last week that although the lobbying regime is stronger because of the Conservative government's moves to create an independent lobbying commissioner with an office budget of $4.6-million to enforce the new rules enacted under the Federal Accountability Act, there's always room to improve.

"As we move along, as with any law, we can see where there might be improvements. We can see how the law could even work better," he said last Wednesday after the House voted on the motion to make changes.

Mr. Day said the government agrees with the proposed changes, but that "it's appropriate that if Members of Parliament on the government side are being required to report lobbying when it happens ... this should also apply to the leaders of the opposition, to their offices and to opposition members. Every day there are former Members of Parliament, former ministers who are in these hallways, who are in the opposition lobbies, who are in the opposition leaders' offices and those should be reported."

One lobbying insider, who did not want to be identified, said that lobbyists help in the public policy arena and the new rules could be a burden on that role in society. "We help government—not hinder it—by helping it consider issues from all sides and the real-life implications of their policies on each of us. Beefed up rules to address a few bad apples won't serve the Canadian public because it will lead to policies developed in silo without regard for how they would impact the citizens they are there to serve," the lobbyist said.

Geoff Norquay, a principal with government relations firm Earnscliffe Strategy Group, said last week that the Jaffer case has many lobbyists "concerned ... that the details of the case are potentially hurtful to the business of lobbying." He also said, however, that he would not be opposed to extending the Lobbying Act to Parliamentary secretaries, MPs and Senators, because "the vast majority of lobbyists follow the rules scrupulously because we recognize the importance, not only of following the law but also of ensuring that we are entirely transparent in what we do."

Mr. Norquay said it "makes a great deal of sense" to broaden the act. "I see no trouble with that at all. I mean, Parliamentary secretaries play very different roles, in some cases, they simply fill in for the minister for speeches and ribbon cuttings and meeting delegations, but even with that, that gets pretty close to registerable activity," he said. "I arranged a meeting this week for a delegation to meet with a Parliamentary secretary and their purpose is to lobby him. So if I have to set that up with the PS's office, that's a registerable activity. I don't see any problem with that."

For his part, Mr. King said that Lobbying Commissioner Karen Shepherd should be allowed to do her job before Parliament jumps to make changes to the law. "She has the authority to do an investigation and if she finds that the law has been broken, she can issue monetary penalties, and she can recommend jail time. This process hasn't happened yet," he said. "Let the system play out. Let the Commissioner do her job. But what we've got is a political witch hunt."

Mr. Powers agreed. "To me, the whole exercise is not really bringing in new regulations. If they bring them in that's fine, and they bring more transparency and that creates a sense of public legitimacy, but I think the challenge is using the tools that are there under the Accountability Act that Karen Shepherd possesses to actually punish somebody if there are punishable actions," he said.

Meanwhile, another consequence of the Jaffer case is a chill in lobbying in the nation's capital. Some lobbyists say government officials are being more cautious when meeting with lobbyists, and some say the Prime Minister's Office has said that it will not meet with consultant lobbyists to avoid the perception of undue influence.

Mr. Norquay disagreed that there was a chill, saying that he's had no difficulty arranging meetings for his clients. He said, as a consultant lobbyist, not being able to meet with the PMO doesn't affect his work, because he "takes the view that our clients are best equipped and indeed better equipped than we as lobbyists are to represent their view." Mr. Norquay told The Hill Times that his job is to help his clients present their case to the government by advising them on the government's agenda, priorities and timelines among several other strategies. "We do a number of things that help them situate where the government is on a particular issue or policy but none of that requires that I be at the meeting," he said.

Mr. McIntosh agreed that the ban on consultant lobbyists in the PMO is not significant, mostly because it's already difficult to get meetings with senior officials there to begin with. He said, "when it suits the government's purposes, they will find a way to talk to registered lobbyists" and that "registered lobbyists are generally welcomed in most offices they go into because they have information to trade. Information in this town is something to be bartered."

Mr. Norquay and Mr. McIntosh said that the Jaffer case was a "one-off" and a "localized infection that hasn't spread," but the biggest effect it's had on the government relations industry is the reputation of lobbyists being tarred unfairly.

An unintended consequence the proposed changes could have is they will prevent many people from joining the industry, Mr. Powers said. "Yes, you have to address the short term problems of the loophole," he said, "but in the rush to address the short term problems, think about the long term, and think about the overall process, because the last thing we need in the public arena related to MPs and electing people to represent Canadians is another disincentive to participate. Rahim Jaffer shouldn't be the reason that democracy suffers further."

Meanwhile, Conservatives questioned whether Liberal MP Derek Lee (Scarborough-Rouge River, Ont.) was breaking any rules by being listed as a lawyer for firm Sun and Partners. On his bio on the firm's website, it says that Mr. Lee, who's been an MP since 1988, is valuable to the firm's clients because of his role in "acting for foreign and offshore organizations in obtaining operating licenses, securing regulatory and governmental approvals for mergers and acquisitions ... advising government bodies on international issues regarding cross-border tax collection, anti-dumping issues, and lobbying government on policy issues as well as facilitating inter-governmental relationships."

Mr. Baird raised the issue in Question Period last week, and asked the Liberals who Mr. Lee was lobbying for and whether he was "fighting for his constituents or some foreign, well-paid interest?"

Mr. Lee issued a statement saying that he is "in full compliance with federal laws" and that he disclosed his relationship with the law firm to the Ethics and Conflict of Interest Commissioner.

bvongdou@hilltimes.com

The Hill Times

People Rahim Jaffer and Patrick Glémaud met or communicated with in their capacity as the heads of Green Power Generation:

Conservative MP Brian Jean, Parliamentary secretary to the Transport and Infrastructure Minister responsible for $1-billion Green Infrastructure fund, pictured

Informal meetings in June 2009 to discuss Green Infrastructure Fund, received three project summaries from Green Power Generation.

Email in August 2009 recommending preference for solar project "if there needs to be a choice between the two."

Kimberley Michelutti, special assistant to Brian Jean

Email from July 2009 as follow up to project summaries and eligibility for the Green Infrastructure Fund.

Doug Maley, assistant deputy minister with the Department of Western Economic Diversification

Phone call and emails in May and June 2009, regarding proposal "to carry out a full scale mercury capture test."

David Pierce, director of Parliamentary affairs to Industry Minister Tony Clement, pictured

Phone call on March 17, 2010 inquiring about Canada's Long Term Space Policy.

Andrew House, director of operations, office of the minister of state for science and technology Gary Goodyear, pictured, and France Lavergne, special assistant operations to Mr. Goodyear

Meeting regarding the eligibility criteria of Southern Ontario Development program, Nov. 13, 2009.

Sebastien Togneri, director of parliamentary affairs to then Public Works Minister Christian Paradis, pictured

Aug. 27, 2009 email regarding solar power panels on Government of Canada building rooftops.

Catherine Godbout, senior communications adviser to then minister of state for small business Diane Ablonczy, pictured, Rob Taylor, chief of staff to Ms. Ablonczy

Email on Sept. 1, 2009 regarding meeting on behalf of Reseau de Developpement Economique et de l'Employabilite.

Scott Wenger, constituency assistant to Environment Minister Jim Prentice, pictured

April 2009 meeting "discussions involved representations by Mr. Jaffer on behalf of a company."