Harper's Breaches His Own "Ethics"....Yes...Again.

Ex-Tory staffers lobby despite Harper's vow

CAMPBELL CLARK

From Wednesday's Globe and Mail

OTTAWA — Two Conservative staffers have already left jobs working for cabinet ministers to lobby the federal government, despite Prime Minister Stephen Harper's pledge to bar former ministerial staffers from lobbying for five years.

The two, Kevin Macintosh and David Salvatore, left their government jobs this month and started signing up private clients, but the Tories say they broke no rules because they worked as parliamentary aides, rather than ministerial aides, for cabinet members Rob Nicholson and Monte Solberg.

A number of staffers who served the Tories in opposition have become lobbyists.

Several of them were on Mr. Harper's staff.

Mr. Harper came to power promising to enact strict ethics rules, including a five-year cooling-off period before ministers, ministerial staffers and senior officials can start lobbying the government. Last November, he pledged that a new Accountability Act will be his government's first legislation.

"If there are Hill staffers who dream of making it rich trying to lobby a future Conservative government, if that's true of any of you, you had better make different plans, or leave," Mr. Harper said then.

Those restrictions apply only to minister's aides, however, and not to aides to backbench MPs, so those who worked for the Tories in opposition are not hampered by them.

And according to government spokesmen, the restrictions do not apply to the staff working in a minister's parliamentary office rather than at the department the minister leads.

"He was not on the ministerial staff. He was on the staff of an MP who happened to become a minister," Geneviève Breton, a spokesman for Mr. Nicholson, said of Mr. Macintosh. "Working in the member of Parliament's office, he would not be privy to government information."

Duff Conacher, co-ordinator for the ethics watchdog Democracy Watch, said the cooling-off period should apply to a minister's parliamentary staff -- and one should be added for aides to all MPs.

"It's a gaping loophole. There are no rules for MPs' staff, and there should be, because of this phenomena of governments changing," he said.

Mr. Macintosh, a former executive assistant to Mr. Nicholson, who said he worked only on parliamentary matters before he left this month to join Fleishman-Hillard Canada Inc., has registered to lobby MPs and departments, including the Privy Council Office, the central department that supports the House Leader, the Intergovernmental Affairs Minister, and the Prime Minister.

His clients include oil and mining firms, a firm that bids for billion-dollar government relocation contracts, and the Canadian Payday Lenders Association, which wants Ottawa to change the Criminal Code prohibition on charging high interest rates.

Five of Mr. Macintosh's eight registered clients were previously represented by Sandra Buckler, who left Fleishman-Hillard in February to become Mr. Harper's communications director -- something Mr. Conacher called an example of the "revolving door" between lobbying firms and political staffs.

Mr. Salvatore, who left Mr. Solberg's staff this month to work for Prospectus Associates, has registered two clients, Wal-Mart Stores Inc. and Porsche Cars North America Inc. He has registered to lobby many departments, including on labour matters such as employment and training, but not the Immigration Department where Mr. Solberg is now minister.

"I've followed the rules, and that's important," he said. "I'm not lobbying my former boss, either."

But other former Conservative opposition staffers have registered to lobby departments headed by their former bosses.

Tara Baran, legislative assistant to MP Vic Toews for five years, left his office when he became justice minister, and is now a Strategy Corp. consultant registered to lobby several departments, including Justice Canada.

She is one of several Conservative opposition aides who became lobbyists after the Tories took power.

Kristin Anderson, a public-affairs officer in Mr. Harper's office until last summer, started registering lobbying clients on Feb. 15 and now has 19, including oil firms such as Petro Canada, on her roster at Global Public Affairs.

Aides with older party ties, such as former Preston Manning aide Lisa Samson, have also started lobbying.

Ms. Baran also worked in the Tory election campaign headquarters, as did her husband, Yaroslav Baran, who left the Mr. Harper's office last year to join Tactix Government Consulting, and Ken Boessenkool, who left Mr. Harper's office in 2004 to work for Hill & Knowlton.

More than two dozen lobbyists who were once Tory staffers but worked as lobbyists before the Conservatives took power have signed up new clients since, including Mr. Baran, Mr. Boessenkool, and several of the Tory's election-campaign TV "spinners:" Mr. Harper's former communications director, Geoff Norquay; Tim Powers, a long-time Conservative whose new clients include Bell Globemedia, owner of CTV and The Globe and Mail; Bill Pristanski, a Brian Mulroney PMO staffer; and Goldy Hyder, a former chief of staff to Joe Clark.

The silence is deafening.......

I think the minister in charge of this should resign. Ummm...that'd be Harper.

Not Silence....Shock...disbelief...discust!

I'm not impressed.

I hope that Harper can shut everyone up though, once Parliament starts.

This looks like a job for the ethics minister... :-)

Perhaps it requires a full investigation by an impartial judge.

Let's find one not appointed by the Libs......

Well I sure as hell don't want one appointed by the Conservatives. Besides, all the friends of the Conservative Party seem to be too busy lobbying to run an enquiry.

I really wish Ed Broadbent had accepted Harper's offer to become ethics commissioner: He would have been perfect.

Maybe we should have an ethics committee comprised of a half dozen bright fifth graders or would they be too honest. [huh]

Nice try VC, too bad you didn't bother to read the article before passing judgement. If you'd done that, you would have noticed that:

1. Until the Tory's "Accountability Act" is passed by Parliament there is no rule or law to prevent Ministerial staff or senior bureaucrats from becoming lobbyists. The fact that some former-Parliamentary staffers have joined lobbying firms now, in an attempt to beat the passage of the "Accountability Act" does not reflect in any way on PM Harper. If you were to question the scruples of those staffers you might be on to something. But the fact you are attempting fan the flames of a non-existent scandal leaves you on thin ice when it comes to questioning other's ethical behavior.

2. The "Accountability Act" will prescribe a cooling-off period of five years before a Minister, ministerial staff or senior bureaucrat can register to become a federal lobbyist. However, the two persons cited in the article were none of the above. They were Parliamentary staff for Members of Parliament. Further, they resigned their positions as Parliamentary staffers before the MP's they worked for were appointed as Ministers. So in fact, their actions were not a breach of existing rules and, would not be a violation of the "Accountability Act" (when it passes).

Oh and by the way. I don't know if you noticed but we've had one party running (screwing) Parliament for the last 13 years. The members of that party and their staff are the only ones who would have knowledge of the government and Ministries that could give them an unfair (illegal?) advantage when lobbying the government on behalf of a client. Isn't interesting how many former Liberal Ministers and/or their staffers have signed-up with lobbying firms.

Doubly interesting that the Liberal's are the only federal political party threatening to vote against the "Accountability Act".

Nice try GunPlumber, but these Conservative lobbiests have access, influence and contacts in the new government. Even if this isn't technically illegal yet or they found a loophole, it does directly contradict Harper's campaign promise to stop this kind of thing and these guys were part of that campaign. That's massive, unethical, and hypocritical.

Suppose Harper and Martin were twins separated at birth?