WITH the help of the Green Party, the NDP on Thursday ensured their friends and insiders can continue to lobby government with no restrictions.
“We wanted to make sure that the NDP and their Green partners are being transparent with British Columbians,” said Chilliwack-Kent MLA Laurie Throness. “But together they blocked a BC Liberal proposal to have NDP and Green insiders fall under the Lobbyists Registration Act, allowing them to influence government policy without restriction. We don’t think that’s right.”
The NDP were amending a law to prohibit former cabinet ministers, their political staff, parliamentary secretaries and senior public servants from lobbying government for two years after leaving their jobs, but they refused to add Green Party members, who have full access to insider information through their Supply and Confidence Agreement, and members of the Premier’s elite NDP Transition Team.
“The NDP Government stated that they intended to target those with inside government information, but they neglected to include some of their closest insider friends – their transition advisors,” said Throness, even though they patterned the bill after the federal Lobbying Act, which includes transition teams. “I am particularly surprised that the Green Party voted to exclude themselves from the lobbying prohibition. I thought they were more idealistic than that.”