Province considers changes to rules governing lobbying
The Saskatchewan government is walking back its suggestion that closing a legislative loophole that allows corporate executives to lobby elected officials and civil servants without leaving a paper trail could be “workable.”
The government now says it is mulling a “fairly significant drop” to the 100-hour threshold in-house lobbyists must exceed before the law requires them to register and publicly disclose their lobbying activities.
Conflict of Interest Commissioner and Registrar of Lobbyists Ron Barclay has been recommending the government eliminate the threshold, which he maintains is outdated and “undermines transparency,” since 2017.
In an interview this week, Minister of Justice and Attorney General Don Morgan acknowledged that 100 hours is too high, but said he does not support getting rid of the threshold entirely.
“We’re not supportive of reducing it to zero because that gets into casual conversations or small groups that might lobby for one cause for one or two meetings or something like that,” Morgan said.
“We want to go back and have some conversations as to what a reasonable number is,” added Morgan, who declined to commit to introducing amendments to the three-year-old Lobbyists Act in 2019.
Barclay said while he would still prefer the government to completely eliminate any threshold, a significant reduction, to around 30 hours, would nevertheless constitute a “huge improvement” to the legislation.
Saskatchewan’s Lobbyists Act defines lobbying as any attempt to influence legislation, regulations, programs, policy or procurement, as well as attempts to arrange meetings between “public office holders” and third parties.
Under the act, third-party lobbyists hired to advance a cause must register and disclose their work in a public database. Corporate executives, however, must only do so after lobbying for more than 100 hours per year.
According to Morgan, it is common for cabinet ministers — lobbyists’ most frequent targets — to have “casual conversations” that might veer into political matters but not necessarily constitute lobbying. “I don’t want to put everybody in the position of having to define every conversation that they have. So I think there’s got to be a common-sense balance, and I think we’ll get there,” he said.
Asked about the opinion of Barclay and others that all lobbying should be transparent, Morgan said, “I agree with where they’re coming from but I’m just not there. There has to be an element of practicality.”
The Saskatchewan Party government did not initially support Barclay’s recommendation that the loophole be closed, which has the support of at least one prominent expert who said the current law means “not all lobbying is transparent.”
That appeared to change last year when Barclay said that conversations with Morgan and deputy premier Gord Wyant left him “cautiously optimistic” the amendments would be introduced that fall. Morgan said at the time that while no decisions had been made, there did not appear to be serious opposition to a “workable” proposal. The province did not, however, introduce legislation during the fall session. Speaking to a legislative committee late last year, Barclay reiterated his sentiment, saying he was hopeful the government would introduce the amendment in the next legislative session, which begins March 4.
Barclay said Wednesday he remains “cautiously optimistic” the government will introduce “significant changes” to the bill this spring.