Front Burner - Is lobbying corrupting Canadian governments?

Episode Date: May 9, 2024

On Friday, Conservative leader Pierre Poilievre published an op-ed criticizing Canadian businesses’ use of lobbyists. He’s also called out the Liberals for high-priced fundraisers and "undue handouts” to the business lobby.But since Poilievre became leader, dozens of federal lobbyists have also paid to attend the roughly 50 private fundraising events he’s spoken at.So despite all the critiques of big money and lobbying in politics, why do they still seem to be everywhere? How has lobbying shifted power in our democracy? And if parties are concerned, why haven’t any of them made bigger efforts to reform it? Duff Conacher has been pushing for MPs to close lobbying loopholes for almost three decades. He’s a co-founder of Democracy Watch, a non-profit advocating for government accountability. For transcripts of Front Burner, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts Transcripts of each episode will be made available by the next workday.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. Since last Friday, there has been a lot of chatter in Ottawa about an op-ed published in the National Post by Conservative leader Pierre Poliev. It starts with, memo to corporate Canada, fire your lobbyist. Then he calls lobbyists useless and overpaid.

And he argues that instead of trying to sway politicians through lobbying, businesses should try to convince the public why policies they want make sense. In the past, Polyev has called out the liberals for high-priced fundraisers. In his op-ed, he says they've given undue handouts, privileges, and protections to the business lobby. Back in December, he said this. This is an unusual scene for me. I almost never speak to crowds in downtown Toronto or anywhere close to Bay Street. But because there is a but here, an analysis from some of my colleagues shows that since last year, Polyev has actually

spoken at three conservative fundraisers directly on Bay Street and four more in downtown Toronto. Dozens of federal lobbyists paid to attend private events that Polyev spoke at. So despite all the critiques of big money and lobbying and politics, why do they still seem to be everywhere? How has lobbying shifted power in our democracy? And if parties are so concerned about it, why haven't any of them made bigger efforts to reform it? Duff Conacher is co-founder of Democracy Watch, a nonprofit advocating for government accountability, and which has launched numerous lawsuits over enforcing ethics rules. For almost three decades now, Duff has been speaking to MPs

and committees, trying to convince them to close lobbying loopholes. Duff, hi, thanks so much for coming on to FrontBurner. My pleasure. Thank you. So I think that we often treat lobbying like a bit of a dirty word, but if we take it to its most basic sort of political theory 101, what kind of role should we really think of lobbying playing in a democracy like ours? Well, everyone actually is a lobbyist. If you're a voter and you've ever expressed concerns to a politician or election candidate or a government official about anything, you're lobbying. Even if you've written a letter to the editor about public policy, that's lobbying as well.

So the question is not lobbying or no lobbying. You couldn't ban lobbying. It's a right under the Charter. The question is, do you allow for secret unethical lobbying, or do you require it to be transparent and ethical? And that's really where the regulation comes in. So how would you sum up how bad our current situation is with lobbying? We have loophole-filled laws, weak enforcement, and as a result, a system that essentially allows for secret, unethical lobbying and legalized bribery of politicians and government officials across the country at every level of government, municipal, provincial, territorial, and federal. And let's get into some of those loopholes now, right?

So on the ground, in reality, who and what are our current federal lobbying rules favoring and giving more power to? Yeah, so I said everyone's a lobbyist, but when it comes to the law, the law defines lobbying at the provincial level, municipal level, federal level across Canada. And all of the laws essentially have the same loopholes. Quebec has tightened things up a bit, Toronto as well, on the biggest loophole, which is that you have to be paid for your lobbying in order to have to register. And that makes it very easy for someone to do a contract saying, you're going to pay me for the advice I give you. Any lobbying that I do is free. And then the person doesn't have to register that lobbying. So that

generally favors the high powered consultant lobbyists who are working generally mostly for big businesses. The other loopholes that also favor big business are you don't have to register if you're lobbying an enforcement agency about the enforcement of a law that applies to you. If you're working at a big business and you lobby less than one day a week, then you don't have to be listed as a lobbyist in the business's registration. That hides big business lobbying. And it's not the same rule for citizen groups. With citizen groups, if you had five people lobbying each 4% of their time, adding up to collectively more than one day a week, then all five people have to be listed in the registration. And then also, you don't have to register if you're lobbying for tax credits. And citizen groups don't get tax credits. It's businesses that lobby for tax credits. So all the loopholes across the country are designed to hide big business lobbying.

And it's very unfortunate because it allows for secret deals. And given all of that secrecy and lack of transparency. I know obviously then you can't say how much lobbying is actually going on at the federal level, but how much do we know is going on at the federal level and who are the biggest players? Well, there's 7,000 to 8,000 registered lobbyists at the federal level at any one time on average over the last few years. one time on average over the last few years. About 70% of them are lobbying for big businesses, and then 30% for unions and other citizen groups that advocate for consumer, worker, environmental protection, things like that. So the resources for businesses are much greater because they all want to have lobbyists, lawyers defending them, and to run their advertising campaigns, which are also really lobbying because they're trying to convince us that everything they do is good

and they don't need to be regulated in any way. And so in terms of the amount that's spent by just the biggest 500 companies in Canada versus citizen groups, they're spending about 1,000 times more than all citizen groups on their lobbying efforts. And we pay for that as citizens through every product and service we buy because part of the price is paying for the cost of the businesses lobbying. Right. The businesses will pass that cost on to consumers. And not to belabor the point here, because I know we've just talked about it, but just to be clear, this is just what we can see. That's right. Often you'll see media stories saying, here's who lobbied whom on this issue because I know we've just talked about it, but just to be clear, this is just what we can see.

That's right. Often you'll see media stories saying, here's who lobbied whom on this issue over the last year. And all those articles should say, here's what is registered as lobbying, but actually you can easily do unregistered secret lobbying. And so this article is not the full picture. Now, you know, when we talk about the part that we can see, the registered lobbyists, you mentioned earlier that the other part of this is the ethics that surround them, right? The ethics like rules and regulations. And why do you think that we're letting businesses or wealthy people give too much in gifts and donations, for example? Well, in terms of donations, the parties want it. And we essentially have a legalized bribery system. Our donation system across the country, other than in Quebec, where the donation limit's

been set at $100, Everywhere else, you can donate $1,000 or more, up to $5,000 in some areas to a party. In Saskatchewan, Newfoundland, Labrador, and the Yukon, donations are unlimited, and businesses and unions are still allowed to donate unlimited amounts as well. What that makes it easy to do is you're a lobbyist, you're supporting a party with thousands of dollars of donations. You're not saying to the party, I'm giving you this money because I want you to do this thing, that would be bribery. But they know what you want, and you're giving thousands of dollars to them. Or you're doing a fundraising event where you're raising tens of thousands

or hundreds of thousands of dollars for them. It's a huge favor, and it's essentially legalized bribery as a result. And the only way to stop that from happening is to do what Quebec did, which is to lower the donation limit down to $100 and put in some public funding so that no individual can really be that important to a party in terms of supporting the party financially through donations or fundraising. And then unfortunately, the ethics rules don't exist in most jurisdictions for lobbyists, and they've just been gutted at the federal level over the past year. And at those levels, they only apply to the people that register, right?

That's right. I also wonder about conflicts of interest. There's been a lot of political fighting over how Jenny Byrne, a top advisor for the Conservatives, has a firm that lobbies for Loblaw in Ontario and shares an office with a federal lobbying firm. This is an issue. When he has stood up and pretended to care about food prices, when we hear the exact same talking points come out of Galen Weston's mouth as out of the leader of the opposition's mouth on some invented connection between the price on pollution and grocery prices, we know exactly who is behind the Conservative Party. You know, they say Byrne isn't involved, but do you think that we're treating these kinds of connections seriously enough? Yeah, well, first of all, just in terms of how the federal code was gutted, and in Ontario,

there's a similar rule, but the Integrity Commissioner Ontario just hasn't been enforcing the rule. The rule is you're not supposed to be putting a politician or public official in even the appearance of a conflict of interest by giving them a gift, doing them a favor, like campaigning for them, fundraising for them, advising them. But when it comes to political activity, the House of Commons Ethics Committee, made up of MPs from all parties, along with the Commissioner of Lobbying federally, created huge loopholes that say you can actually fundraise for a politician, raise an unlimited amount of money for their party or for the politician themselves. And just a few months later, you're allowed to lobby them. You can actually campaign up to nearly full time under one of the new loopholes for a politician or a party during an election and lobby them at the same time.

The commissioner's logic is that restrictions could violate a lobbyist's right to free speech. The House Ethics Committee is looking over the changes and heard much the same from registered lobbyists. A ban on lobbying public office holders because of political activity is a post facto limitation on the freedom of assembly to join like-minded individuals in a campaign. So that's really changed things and it's going to change possibly the ruling on what's happening with Jenny Byrne's situation and other similar situations with the liberals and the NDP, where she is saying, I'm not a registered lobbyist federally. I can advise

Pierre Polyev, but she has people working for her. Her partners in her firm set up another firm, and some of the same people work for both firms, share the same office, and they're lobbying Pierre Polyev's staff and a dozen or so of his shadow cabinet ministers in the conservative caucus of MPs, and trying to say that this is all fine under the lobbyist code. They've created a separate firm. They're in the same office. And even if she's not profiting from their lobbying, Polyev's staff knows that these are people who work with Jenny Byrne, and Jenny Byrne is advising Polyev and doing that favor for them. There's your appearance of a conflict of interest.

We'll see what the commissioner decides. And if she decides to let her off, we'll go to court and hope the courts will uphold this very important standard of preventing even the appearance of a conflict of interest. Because if you don't uphold that standard, you really, the Supreme Court of Canada said you don't have a democracy. Right. And just elaborate on that for me a little bit, even though I think it might seem like quite an obvious thing, but just, you know, why is it so bad for democracy? Well, clinical psychologists worldwide have tested people across the world in different

cultures, different countries, and they have all found that the most powerful way to influence someone's decisions is to give them a gift or do them a favor. It creates an unconscious sense of obligation to return that favor. The politicians always deny it, but these clinical studies have shown that if a politician says, oh, that gift, that favor, that donation, that fundraising, campaigning that helped me win the election, that doesn't influence me. Essentially, they're saying they're not human because every test of humans worldwide has shown that if you give someone a gift or a favor, you will influence their decisions, even small gifts. And that means they're going to return the favor consciously or unconsciously. And they can do that through inaction. going to return the favor consciously or unconsciously. And they can do that through inaction, right? If a corporation doesn't want to be regulated to protect the environment or consumers or workers, and citizen groups are lobbying for the regulation, and the corporate

lobbyist does a favor for the politician, the politician doesn't have to do anything to return that favor. All they do is not regulate the corporation in the way that the citizen groups want and the favor is done. And that's why it's so dangerous, which means all gifts that are larger than what an average person can give and all donations that are larger than an average person can afford to give, those all should be banned. And so should fundraising and other kinds of favors. And if you do it, you shouldn't be able to lobby until that politician's career is over. Because if you help someone get elected, they owe you forever.

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix.

I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you. Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo. 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money for Couples. The example that you just gave is kind of like a theoretical one, but I wonder if there's anything that's happened in recent years that you can point to where you would say that lobbying actually

really impacted federal policies? Well, again, it's really difficult to track because it can be through inaction. Yeah. So certainly you look at the power of the oil and gas lobby and the fact that they still have not really faced serious regulation that has to change their behavior in terms of fossil fuels. That's been well documented about how many meetings they were able to get, the fundraising that they've done for parties, and how outmatched environmental

groups are in terms of the size of the oil and gas lobby, and the interconnections and, you know, they often hire minister staff that have left or ex-ministers are working for them. So that's one example. Another one is the SNC-Lavalin scandal. The ethics commissioner determined Trudeau tried to unduly influence Wilson-Raybould and further the private interests of SNC. SNC-Lavalin did massive fundraising for the Liberal Party for years, including funneling money. After corporate donations were banned, they funneled money through their executives and their families. And a lot of it went to the liberals. And there were a lot of secret lobbying going on for SNC-Lavalin. And they were trying to stop the prosecution by the federal police and prosecutors of SNC's massive bribery of

foreign government officials. And ended up our Attorney General Jody Wilson-Raybould was pushed out. I think that is one of the prime examples where you see fundraising, donations, and lobbying all come together to have an unethical influence on a government's decisions. I was hoping that we could end this conversation by talking a bit about the op-ed Pierre Paglia published last week. His central point was that instead of businesses spending cash to directly lobby politicians, they should instead be trying to communicate to the Canadian public why the policies they want are good ones. Does he have a point? Like, would that model be better for democracy? It would be, definitely, if politicians did what voters expressed concern about, as opposed to what big business executives expressed concern about. Unless, of course, the executives are supported by the employees in the business who, you know, sometimes do join in and support their business,

calling for different changes. But it's just a bit difficult to believe that the spin by Pierre Pauliev is sincere, because he hasn't talked at all about closing the loopholes in the lobbying law, changing the political donation limit to limit donations that are any greater than what an average voter could afford, which would mean lowering the limit down to $100. And also he's been traveling the country. He's done 50 high priced fundraising events at private homes and exclusive clubs and the private homes are usually big business executives homes and the clubs are clubs that big business lobbyists belong to and then the lobbyists lots of lobbyists

on the national council of the conservative party and the jenny burns situation we talked about tied into lobbying of Polyov's staff. He has all the ties. He's doing all the same things that everyone in the past has done and hasn't talked about changing the system at all to prevent this unethical influence on himself as a politician. And so I just don't believe that he believes in that actual more democratic system of decision making. He's just not practicing what he preaches.

more democratic system of decision making. He's just not practicing what he preaches. Given everything that we've talked about today, all the issues with our rules that you have talked about, what do you think all this means for Canadians' trust in politicians, right? The appearance of what lobbying looks like in Canada and the perception that a lot of people have of it. Yeah, I could give you another 10 big reasons why it's justifiable for Canadians not to trust politicians. Because pretty much in every area of honest, ethical, transparent, representative, and waste-preventing government, politicians have supported loopholes, weak rules, weak enforcement, and weak penalties that allow for dishonest, unethical, secretive, unrepresentative, and wasteful behavior. But in this one, in the area of ethics and transparency,

the politicians know these loopholes. I've testified five times going back 25 years before committees about closing these loopholes in the lobbying law, federally, provincially, and none of the parties have shown any interest in closing them. And so you don't need much more evidence as a voter to say, politicians, why would I trust you when you're leaving loopholes open that essentially allow for legalized bribery? Benefits you, but doesn't seem to benefit the public. I'll give you one other example. The lobbying law is supposed to be reviewed every five years at the federal level. It was last reviewed in 2012. So MPs from all parties have violated the law twice in the last 10 years because they were supposed to review the

law in 2017, required by law to do this, and also in 2022, and they still haven't reviewed it. That's how little interest they've shown in strengthening this law and ending secret unethical lobbying. So there's lots of reasons not to trust politicians when you just look at how self-interested they are and how they maintain these systems that they benefit from that hurt the public. All right.

Duff, thank you very much for this. I learned a lot and it was really a pleasure talking with you. Thank you. Take care. All right. I am Jamie Poisson. Thanks so much for listening, and we'll talk to you tomorrow. For more CBC Podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.