Time to tighten B.C. laws on anonymous lobbying: attorney general
Niki Sharma says re-elected B.C. NDP government would introduce new rules on ‘grassroots’ campaigns
This story is a collaboration between the Investigative Journalism Foundation (IJF) and CBC Vancouver.
British Columbia's attorney general says she wants to amend provincial laws to unmask special interest groups behind anonymous lobbying campaigns.
Niki Sharma said she hopes to introduce legislation that would require the groups behind so-called "grassroots" campaigns to declare who they are and who they are working for.
Sharma made the comment while reacting to an IJF/CBC Vancouver investigation about an anonymous lobbying campaign that sought to influence local politicians' views on a North Vancouver chlorine plant.
The campaign was quietly financed by a rival chemical company, which later apologized for the covert nature of its advertisements.
"The story was troubling when I heard about it," Sharma said in an interview conducted before B.C.'s election campaign began.
"Our lobby transparency act is an important tool to make sure things are done in a transparent way and you don't have this hidden lobbying ... that is a conflict or problematic. And we need to constantly step up our laws to do that."
Sharma, a B.C. NDP candidate who is seeking re-election in the Oct. 19 election, said she would revise provincial lobbying laws to apply to such campaigns if her party forms government. The Lobbyist Transparency Act is set to be reviewed in 2025.
The Conservative Party of B.C., the NDP's main opposition in the election, did not respond to a request for comment on whether it would also change that law.
The IJF/CBC Vancouver investigation found that Ontario-based K2 Pure Solutions hired public relations firm Crestview Strategy to create a website and a suite of social media advertisements raising concerns about safety near the North Vancouver facility run by Chemtrade Logistics Inc.
It encouraged people to write directly to MLAs and district councillors, many of whom were alarmed that the campaign didn't identify a funder.
Normally, lobbyists who try to influence provincial officials in B.C. have to declare who they are and who they work for. But in B.C. those rules don't apply to "grassroots" campaigns, in which an interest group encourages members of the public to write to elected officials on a given issue.
"It's frustrating for the public, I'm guessing, to hear that there's groups trying to hide who is funding their campaigns," said District of North Vancouver Mayor Mike Little. "It helps us all to have full disclosure of who is lobbying our communities."
The phenomenon isn't specific to B.C. A separate IJF investigation found Crestview Strategy had also created other anonymous or opaque websites on topics ranging from the Israel-Hamas conflict to land leases for a Toronto airport.
Ontario and the federal government have adopted rules that require disclosure around such "grassroots" campaigns.
Ian Stedman, an associate professor of Canadian law and public governance at York University, said the goal of such laws is to compel special interests to disclose their activity without unduly limiting the ability of ordinary citizens and advocacy groups to communicate concerns to government officials.
"Lobbyist registration laws are not about prohibiting people from lobbying," Stedman said.
"They're about making sure the lobbying that happens is publicly disclosed so members of the public and interested parties can go online and find out who is trying to influence policy and policymakers."
Stedman, a former employee of Ontario's Integrity Commissioner, argued such laws are even more important "in an era where we have digital fakes, deepfakes and online misinformation campaigns."
He said if B.C. does modernize its laws, it should include clauses on how those technologies could be used in such campaigns and give powers to independent commissioners to investigate potential violations.
"Like many laws, [lobbying] laws probably didn't contemplate the insane digital world that we live in," Stedman said.
Concerns over municipal lobbying
Little also says it's time for the province to start regulating lobbying at the municipal level.
Currently, there is no requirement for lobbyists who want to influence local governments in B.C. to register via the provincial system.
The mayor argues that can allow large interests a lot of power in small towns. He pointed to Squamish, B.C., where a network of anonymous Facebook groups spent tens of thousands of dollars on advertisements targeting elected officials in the lead-up to a 2022 campaign.
"For municipalities, it's a little bit of a Wild West," Little said. "Not only can these groups lobby local governments, they can use their individuals to make donations to different campaigns and influence public policies in those ways.
"So, it's not like the federal and provincial governments where you have overt lobbying registrations, where you know who exactly is working for who."
Only the cities of Kelowna and Surrey maintain lobbyist registries in B.C., though Vancouver has also explored the idea.
Little argued a single, provincial system is needed, given smaller municipalities like his don't have the administrative resources to run their own registries.
In 2019, the Union of B.C. Municipalities endorsed a resolution asking the province to create a single, provincially administered lobbying registry. But the idea has yet to come to fruition.
Sharma said a municipal registry "was not a bad idea" but stopped short of any commitment.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
