A mandatory review is underway of Alberta’s Lobbyists Act, as is required to happen every five years. But given the absence of any changes following the last review, some wonder if this year’s effort will be an exercise in futility.
One expert says the provincial legislation is already woefully out of date, particularly in how much information is shared with the public.
“It’s stuck in the past by a decade-and-a-half,” Ian Stedman, a Canadian ethics expert and associate professor at York University, said in a recent interview with CBC News.
Alberta’s legislation contains a provision that the act must be reviewed every five years but there is nothing that compels the government to adopt any resulting recommendations.
It hasn’t been updated since 2018.
During the last review in 2021-22, then-ethics commissioner Marguerite Trussler and opposition MLAs cited issues including the lack of detail in the lobbyist registry and a very high number of annual hours that a lobbyist can work before having to register.
Stedman said those issues are still a concern. “The threshold for registration is so high and the amount of information that needs to be disclosed is so non-existent and low.”
In the last review, Trussler told the committee that “it is time for a change.”
Registry information comes from when a lobbyist first registers to speak to government officials and when they file updates. Companies that have their own employees lobbying government have to update their registration every six months.
Descriptions of topics up for discussion are often vague. Who lobbyists meet with and when they meet is not disclosed.
Trussler’s report to the committee included what she called her most important recommendation: the creation of a communication registry, which would be updated every 30 days to show the dates of meetings, names of the lobbyists and the names and titles of which government officials they met with. Trussler wanted the subject matter of each interaction to be disclosed.
“Having a lobbyist registry by itself does not indicate the lobbyist’s true lobbying activity,” Trussler told the committee.
“Not having one gives rise to people asking: What do you have to hide?”
Opposition MLAs weighed in
The committee’s final report, submitted to the legislature in May 2022, had only two recommendations: that the committee send written submissions to the justice minister responsible for the legislation, and that any possible amendments “take into account the importance of public transparency with respect to the practice of lobbying.”
Opposition members on the committee added minority opinions to the report, including 13 recommendations proposed by former MLA Drew Barnes, then sitting as an independent member.
His proposals included a call for lobbyists to provide more details about their meetings with government officials; extending the cooling-off period for former ministers and government officials longer to one year; public disclosure of gifts, favours or benefits offered by lobbyists; and monthly public updates of lobbying activities.
All but one of Barnes’s resolutions were rejected by the UCP MLAs who made up the majority of the committee. A UCP spokesman said at the time many of the recommendations were “unclear” and “would create mountains of burdensome red tape.”
In their minority report, the four NDP members said they were disappointed most of Barnes’s resolutions weren’t endorsed by the committee.
A provincial spokesperson said last week that the government will look at recommendations that result from the current review but offered no commitment to change the legislation.
Not hopeful for change
Edmonton-Manning MLA Heather Sweet, who was a member of the 2022 committee said she isn’t optimistic about any changes being adopted this time around.
In an interview with CBC News, the veteran MLA said her biggest concern is how the government has changed legislation administered by independent officers of the legislative assembly to work in its favour.
“We tend to go backwards with this government on anything that has to do with accountability or transparency,” Sweet said
“It’s not necessarily the lobbyists asking for that. It’s the government just not wanting to be held accountable or have any transparency about the work that’s being done.”
Stedman cited the lack of information in Alberta’s lobbyist registry, noting it needs to change so the public can see who is trying to influence the government.
“The information about who’s lobbying is helpful because you can cross-reference it with who has prior relationships and who has ongoing relationships,” Stedman said.
“The more information you get on a lobbyist filing, the better.”
In the 2022 review, Barnes made a resolution asking that the annual number of lobbying hours before registering be lowered from 50 to 20, echoing one of Trussler’s recommendations. The resolution was defeated, so the threshold remains the same.
The higher number leads to concerns that lobbyists can engage in a large amount of lobbying out of the public eye.
Stedman said the federal threshold dropped to eight hours in January 2026. The federal lobbying commissioner is now arguing the threshold should be zero.
Stedman said majority governments don’t usually want to rock the boat because oftentimes people who lobby government also contribute financially to election campaigns.
He said lobbying rules change only when a government is involved in a scandal or during a federal election. Stedman gave the example of Stephen Harper, who introduced the Federal Accountability Act when he became prime minister in 2006, in the aftermath of the Liberal sponsorship scandal.
Generally, majority governments tend not to rock the boat, he said.
“What we see in the ethics and accountability world is that unless something blows up, we don’t fix it,” Stedman said.
Lobbyists not pushing for change
Lobbyists themselves aren’t expected to propose substantial changes to the legislation.
Graham Sucha is a former NDP MLA who is the past-president of the Alberta chapter of the Public Affairs Association of Canada. He is currently the executive director of the Graduate Students Association at the University of Alberta.
Sucha said PAAC plans to make a submission to the committee after asking for feedback from its members.
Sucha said PAAC likely won’t push for significant changes to the current legislation. He said they will also ask that discussion doesn’t try to overcorrect concerns coming from the public.
“We recognize that there’s always those broader discourse conversations and elements of feedback and concerns the public might be bringing to the lawmakers there,” he said.
“The biggest fear is that they may be going a bit too far to correct or solve problems that don’t exist.”
Stedman said public expectations have changed since Canadian and provincial lobbying laws were first set up 20years ago.
He said the current iteration of the lobbyist act is “window dressing.”
“It’s there because someone said we need one, but it’s not there because someone said we need a good one,” Stedman said. “So it’s time to make it a good one.”
