Why Federal Executive Interchange Program Participants Should Deregister as Lobbyists During their Appointment
22 October 2010 | Lobbying
There is a story on the CBC website today about the potential for conflicts of interest in the federal Executive Interchange Program.
Under the Executive Interchange Program, the federal government can loan executives from the private sector to work in executive roles in the public service. When the loan is up the executive returns to their position in the private sector.
The CBC story focuses on Ian Scott, an executive at Telus Corp. who was appointed as the chief policy advisor for the Chair of the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission (the "CRTC") for a year.
While the story begins to address the nuanced conflict of interest issues that arise with the Executive Interchange Program, it is the fact that Mr. Scott was registered as a lobbyist while he was at the CRTC that landed his name in the story.
Prior to accepting this position, Mr. Scott was registered to lobby the CTRC as an in-house lobbyist for Telus. Mr. Scott did not deregister as a lobbyist while he worked at the CRTC. By remaining on the lobbyist registry, it appeared that Mr. Scott was lobbying the CRTC on behalf of Telus, at the same time as he was working as the senior policy advisor for the CRTC.
According to Mr. Scott, he did not remove himself from the lobbyist registry as he was still an employee of Telus (officially, as he was on loan), and he didn't want to be accused of hiding that fact.
While Mr. Scott's desire to be as transparent as possible is laudable, staying on the lobbyist registry was inaccurate and it got him in the news.
Lobbyists often face a difficult decision when it is not absolutely clear whether they are required to register as a lobbyist or not. Some lobbyists try to arrange their affairs to avoid registering, on the grounds that lobbying has become stigmatized and parties adverse in interest will use the knowledge that they are registered lobbyists against them. Other lobbyists are overly cautious about failing to register, and therefore file overly broad and therefore inaccurate lobbyist returns.
Given the potential for negative publicity for failing to file a lobbyist return when required, or filing an inaccurate lobbyist return, the proper course of action is to ensure that your lobbyist return is both strictly accurate and constantly up to date.
In the case of Mr. Scott, he should have been removed from the lobbyist registry while he was at the CRTC.
According to section 7(1) of the Lobbying Act (Canada), in-house lobbyists must be registered if any part of their duties are to communicate with public office holders on behalf of their employer.
While Mr. Scott may have technically still been employed by Telus, he no longer met the definition of a lobbyist while he worked at the CRTC as he did no longer was employed to communicate with public office holders on behalf of Telus. As he no longer met the definition of an in-house lobbyist, he should have been removed.