Relationship between government, Facebook under scrutiny

OTTAWA – The federal heritage committee will study the seemingly “cosy” relationship between Facebook and Canadian Heritage after records show the company trying to recruit policy workers from the department co-leading efforts to regulate Internet giants.

“To find out that Facebook appears to have a very intimate relationship with the government’s offices is hugely problematic for us,” said the NDP’s deputy heritage critic Heather McPherson.

Last week, McPherson brought forward a motion to the federal heritage committee requesting it to “study the relations between Facebook and the federal government.” It was adopted Monday during an in-camera meeting, meaning it was not in public.

The Alberta MP says the need for the study stems from emails obtained by the NDP and first published by The Toronto Star that show what has been described by critics as a “cozy” and “unacceptable” relationship between the government and Facebook.

Earlier this year, Facebook’s Canadian Head of Policy Kevin Chan emailed a senior official at Canadian Heritage inquiring about a “promising senior analyst” within the public service that Facebook could hire, according to the emails obtained via access to information.

In his message to Owen Ripley, Chan, who previously held top senior advisory roles in the federal government, says that the web giant is offering a “challenging,” “fascinating” and lucrative job within Facebook’s public policy team.

Chan added that he was open to hiring public servants who took a temporary leave of absence from their department to come work for Facebook. That means that they could later return to their public sector jobs if the department allowed it.

“I am happy to circulate to a few people who might be good candidates,” replied Ripley, who is director general, broadcasting, copyright and creative marketplace at Canadian Heritage.

McPherson said that reading such emails at a time when Canadian Heritage is co-leading the Liberal government’s efforts to regulate web giants makes her “sick to her stomach.”

“To think that a head of Facebook Canada is in fact basically posting a job with the government that is meant to be regulating them. It doesn’t feel good,” the MP said.