City Hall is taking integrity seriously
Councillors are calling ahead to stay within rules
For someone who’s often referred to as the “czar of transparency,” Ottawa’s first integrity commissioner does much of his work behind closed doors.
Robert Marleau recognizes the irony but insists that confidentiality is necessary to protect everyone from councillors’ seeking advice to members of the public who call with a complaint.
Take, for example, Marleau’s recent exemption to the lobby registry rules, where he allowed councillors to attend the 25th anniversary celebrations of DCR Phoenix. The developer has some ongoing lobbying with the city, and councillors are forbidden to accept any gifts from lobbyists.
But when councillors started calling Marleau to ask if they were allowed to go, the integrity commissioner started looking at the file more closely. Because the issues DCR was lobbying on were “minor” and the party was “a one-time event only,” Marleau decided that he would grant an exemption: councillors would be allowed to go, as long as they disclosed the hospitality in the gift registry.
“I look at the political relationship with the community as a triangle between the good corporate citizen, the citizen and the councillor,” said Marleau in an interview after he tabled his first report to city council on Wednesday.
“The councillor can be a facilitator, a catalyst and sometime the object of ire,” said Marleau. “But to expect councillors never to participate in the celebrations of some of the successes, I don’t think is reasonable.”
That’s debatable — there’s certainly an argument for not allowing councillors to accept gifts from lobbyists ever. Period. And Marleau realizes not everyone will agree with his decision.
But no matter which side of the argument you’re on, there are a number of reasons to be heartened by the incident.
First of all, we know about it. While Marleau’s written advice to councillors was confidential — as is called for in the city’s lobbying rules — he would have included a description of the incident in next year’s annual report.
The reason we know about councillors’ attending the party now is because Coun. Diane Deans and Stephen Blais already disclosed their invitations on the gift registry in September, even though they weren’t required to record the hospitality until the party actually occurred. (It’s unclear how many councillors attended the party, but Deans and Blais weren’t the only ones there.)
When asked about the apparent breach of the lobby registry, Marleau was happy to explain that he granted an exemption and why.
So there’s plenty of transparency in sight.
But that doesn’t mean there isn’t room for improvement in the city’s lobby registry.
Allowing lobbyists 15 business days to register their activities appears too generous. It might have seemed like a reasonable time frame when the city was trying to get skeptical lobbyists and (some) councillors to buy into the program. But more than a year after it was launched, it’s clear that using the registry isn’t remotely burdensome.
It’s so easy that even in its first
ROBERT MARLEAU
Ottawa integrity commissioner ‘I look at the political relationship with the community as a triangle between the good corporate citizen, the citizen and the councillor.’
year, and with a couple of technical issues that prevented some from posting their activities on time, the lobby registry enjoyed a 93 per cent compliance rate. Marleau expects that to improve in the near future.
However, 15 business days (the equivalent of three weeks) sometimes means that lobbying efforts aren’t made public until well after council has made a decision.
That’s what happened last January, when councillors voted on a $250,000 grant for Great Canadian Theatre Co.
The theatre’s chair — whose husband was a key figure in Mayor Jim Watson’s 2010 campaign — had two meetings with the mayor’s office staff just days before a committee and council met on the issue. However, the lobbying didn’t show up on the registry until days later, still in compliance in the rules but too late for anyone to ask questions about the meetings.
Marleau pointed out that even a shorter registering period would not capture those last-minute lobby efforts.
But why not? We could require lobbyists to register any meeting within 24 hours — it only takes a few minutes — and still give them the 15 days to fill in any details, if required.
In fact, improving the “quality” of lobby registry incidents is one of Marleau’s goals for the next year. He’s already “personally intervened directly” a few times when he’s been dissatisfied with the depiction of the lobbying.
“For example, a description of a zoning-lobbying activity without identifying the address of the property is unacceptable,” said Marleau.
No one can be forced to play by the rules. After all, Toronto’s city council has a code of conduct and that hasn’t done much to curb the alarming behaviour of that city’s mayor.
But Ottawa’s new lobby and gift registries are leading to more discussions about what’s acceptable in the public realm. It’s cause for optimism that councillors called the integrity commissioner for advice.
When our municipal officials are actively thinking ahead about whether a gift is appropriate, or whether a conversation constitutes lobbying, then we’re on our way to a more accountable political culture.