This story about professional lobbyist Walter Robinson campaigning for Ottawa-Orléans Conservative Royal Galipeau has been bugging me since I read it early this morning:
Robinson's decision to actively participate in the election campaign comes despite an advisory sent out last Monday by lobbyist commissioner Karen Shepherd, warning she will consider lobbyists working on a candidate's election campaign as advancing the private interests of a public office holder.
The controversy centres on Rule 8 of the Conflict of Interest guidelines for lobbyists. In February, Shepherd found two lobbyists -Will Stewart and Michael McSweeney -violated that section by helping organize a fundraising dinner for Conservative cabinet minister Lisa Raitt in September 2009.
While Shepherd issued a clarification about the rules governing political activity in August 2010, lobbyists have complained the rules weren't clear enough.
Last Monday, Shepherd moved to further clarify the rules.
"Working on a political campaign to support the election of a public office holder is, in my opinion, advancing the private interest of that public office holder," Shepherd wrote in an e-mail to lobbyists that was obtained by iPolitics.ca.
This is essentially a regulatory ruling, not quite with the force of law; it sounds like a judge will have to sort this out. But on the face of it, it does seem to me that actively campaigning for a politician trying to get or keep a job does fit into the category of lobbyist activities there's a public interest in regulating — it's the sort of thing that's likely to create a sense of obligation on the part of the officeholder. Walter Robinson is, in my experience, a decent guy, and his motives here are probably purer than others' might be. He's a Tory, everybody knows he's a Tory, he ran for the Tories, and here he is campaigning for a Tory, which is the sort of thing Tories do because they want Tories to win. If bleeds-blue Conservative Walter Robinson were out banging in signs for, e.g., Liberal David McGuinty in Ottawa South in an election expected to deliver the Liberals a majority, the whole thing might seem more mercenary.
But that mercenary element is the basic problem here, that we have people whose actual paid job is to try to influence officeholders to use their power over the treasury and public policy for the benefit of the lobbyists' paymasters. (There's an argument to be made that amateurs sometimes need help approaching the government to tell it things it really needs to know, but Robinson's six registered clients are Pratt & Whitney, Canadian Helicopters Ltd., the Geomatics Industry Alliance, something called Landmark Global, the Association of Equipment Manufacturers and Dow Agrosciences, not a group of neighbourhood charities or anything.) Anything these people do is suspect. In the interests of good public policy, we'd probably prefer it if those lobbyists were forbidden to do anything but speak to politicians. Or, better, communicate with them in writing, mediated by the office of the lobbying commissioner, like prisoners.
This being a free country, that's undesirable for other reasons. Which leaves us distinctly in a bind when it comes to regulating how public officials deal with lobbyists who genuinely like and/or support them.
degree in architecture architecture and construction architecture computer programs web development architecture green architecture design
No comments:
Post a Comment