Last week witnessed a rare occurrence when a government watchdog called out the current attorney general, David Eby, about a giant loophole in the Lobbyist Registration Act.
This particular piece of legislation was passed in a hurry last fall and supposedly introduced a two-year “cooling off” period that would prevent “former public office holders” and their staff from improper use of insider knowledge in lobbying.
The Lobbyist Registration Act was intended to put an end to former MLAs and senior staffers from using party connections to unduly influence government policy. However, the government watchdog, Registrar of Lobbyists Michael McEvoy, issued a press release and pointed out a rather “significant loophole” in the act that only covered former public office holders, not current ones.
In other words, a current government minister can be lobbied by a former NDP staff member without having to do what other lobbyists are required by law.
McEvoy investigated several cases where former NDP staffers were not disclosing party connections – or even observing the two-year cooling off period – because they were lobbying current ministers, not former ones.
One example involved a former senior staff member to Jinny Sims, the current minister of citizens’ services. McEvoy wrote to Eby and explained that “I was compelled to find the individual was not subject to the cooling off period. In fact, there is nothing to prevent her, in fact from lobbying the very Minister who employed her.” Minister Eby, a lawyer and former executive director of the BC Civil Liberties Association should have recognized this glaring hole in his own legislation. Now we are stuck with a situation where NDP party insiders are free to influence cabinet ministers without restriction or legal consequence.
According to Eby, there is nothing he can do until new legislation is passed in the coming session of the Legislature. Until then, welcome to the wild west of NDP government.
Donna Barnett is the Liberal MLA for the Cariboo-Chilcotin.