In one of his recent musings on the pre-election stump, Stephen Harper referred to the current parliament as being “dysfunctional” — a dubious assertion by most objective measures such as the number of bills passed and so on, but perhaps one that’s not altogether without credence as illustrated by a story reported by the Canadian Press today about a serious flaw in government’s vaunted “Accountability Act” that became law at the beginning of July.
According to the CP, it’s just now come to light that the federal Lobbying Act has a “trucksize” loophole in a clause involving the reporting of arranged meetings that would effectively allow for an owner or director of a private firm to lobby the government without ever having to report it. Incredibly, this loophole passed completely unnoticed at every stage on its way to becoming legislation by those responsible for vetting it; namely, Opposition MPs and the Senate. What makes that totally inexcusable is that the loophole is made completely obvious in a government interpretation bulletin and is actually being used as one of the five examples in materials explaining the new law to the industry.
The exception to the rule seriously undercuts the “transparency” that the government purports to be striving for and could easily be subject to abuse. If the CP’s report that the loophole “took even lobbyists by surprise” is to be taken seriously, then would it be fair to suggest that this is yet another example of poorly drafted legislation being put forward by the Harper government? If that’s the case, the parliament truly is “dysfunctional” because everyone responsible will have dropped the ball here from start to finish.
According to NDP MP Pat Martin “any reasonable person” would consider the example in question be a reportable activity, adding that he couldn’t remember it being discussed “because who could conceive of something so ridiculous?” Good question. Who indeed?