The lobbyist registry returns tomorrow to a council embarrassed by its February attempt to quietly bury it and subsequent treatment of the citizen volunteers who helped in the seven-year drafting process. Some councillors say they are confused by the transparency tool and others think it will harm Hamilton’s efforts to attract new businesses, but there has been little discussion about the accumulated evidence that unethical activities are widespread at the city.
That includes one councillor revealing he gets numerous luncheon invitations from those who want to influence his vote, while another has recounted repeatedly receiving gifts which she refuses or donates to charity. Even though acceptance clearly violates council’s own code of conduct, presumably such gratuities would not be offered at all if everyone were turning them down.
In the recent past, we know a ‘tradition’ prevailed of twice-yearly private dinners provided by the Hamilton Halton Home Builders Association (HHHBA) to committee chairs and senior managers. Other instances of backroom lobbying that got public attention were Enbridge’s private meetings with five councillors in late 2012 to avoid making a public presentation to council.
In the same direction questions persist about unnecessary airport land purchases from speculators at inflated prices. Unrevealed lobbying factor could also be a factor in the hundreds of million of city dollars spent every year on outside contractors, suppliers, consultants, etc.
A voluntary lobbyist registry set up a decade ago has been almost entirely ignored, so citizens usually only learn about the lobbying activity if someone on council publicly refuses to participate. And that inevitably generates unanswered questions.
“Why would anyone want relations with corporate partners to be cloaked in secrecy?” a citizen publicly queried councillors in late 2012. “What is it about your meetings with representatives from corporations like Enbridge that you feel the need to hide?”
We know that the majority of campaign donations come from businesses whose profits partly depend on city council decisions. Whether such gifts open the doors of city hall decision-makers is also not currently visible to citizens.
Even past council decisions to hire lobbyists on behalf of the city have been cloaked in secrecy, and in at least one instance had the taxpayers unknowingly paying the wife of the mayor’s executive assistant.
The council decision to consider a lobbyist registry was made in 2007 and assigned to the Accountability and Transparency subcommittee which intermittently stopped meeting before finally approving a ‘made in Hamilton’ compromise proposal last fall. Registries already exist and are heavily used in Toronto and Ottawa, as well as at Queen’s Park, but those models have been rejected by councillors who say they are too expensive, too complicated, unfair or unsuitable for Hamilton’s unique situation.
Council required that funding be found for the compromise within this year’s budget, but then dropped it without even holding a vote. This was aggravated by failing to inform a citizen member of the Accountability and Transparency subcommittee of this ‘decision’ when he addressed council three weeks later urging approval. Public embarrassment over this treatment pushed council to resurrect the draft bylaw, provide a 45-day public comment period, and call a special meeting for 4 pm Wednesday.
The current draft proposal exempts lobbying done by a councillor’s constituents, and won’t apply to backroom negotiations if following the bylaw is “expected to prejudice the economic interests … or the competitive position of the city.” It also skips Toronto’s rules requiring reporting of each instance of lobbying, and doesn’t establish a lobbyist code of conduct.
The consultation period drew 37 submissions about the registry, more than 30 in favour of establishing it with about half of those arguing for improvements. Three groups argue the registry should not be put in place – the Hamilton Burlington Realtors Association, the Hamilton Halton Home Builders Association and the Hamilton Chamber of Commerce.