Committee even ignores Attorney General’s commitment to close “astro-turf” lobbying loophole in the law

Even worse, Committee calls for new loopholes to be added to the law – the loopholes also make secret foreign interference in B.C. politics easy

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:
Tuesday, June 23, 2026

TORONTO – Today, Democracy Watch called on the B.C. NDP government to ignore the report of the Special Committee on the Lobbyists Transparency Act because it failed to recommend closing the many loopholes that allow for secret, unethical lobbying at the provincial and municipal level across B.C., and it actually called for new loopholes to be added to the lobbying law.

Last September, Democracy Watch filed a 26-page submission with the Special Committee during its public consultation phase that detailed all the loopholes in B.C.’s lobbying law, and set out 30 key measures needed to stop secret, unethical lobbying.

A national survey that Democracy Watch commissioned from Nanos Research in January 2025 showed more than 80% of Canadians want to know about all lobbying activities, and are concerned about the corrupting effects of secret, unethical lobbying on politicians’ policy-making decisions.

The Special Committee released its report on April 22nd, and failed to recommend closing even one of many secret, unethical lobbying loopholes in the law.

The Special Committee even ignored the commitment by B.C. Attorney General Niki Sharma made in October 2024 to close the loophole in the law that does not require registration and disclosure of campaigns that appeal to voters to contact provincial politicians to call for the changes the lobbyist wants, campaigns that often pretend to be grassroots and citizen-driven but are actually “astro-turf” campaigns backed by businesses. The commitment was made after CBC and the Investigative Journalism Foundation jointly revealed such an astro-turf campaign in B.C.The federal government and Alberta, Newfoundland and Labrador, Nova Scotia, Ontario, P.E.I., Quebec, Saskatchewan and, for in-house organization lobbying only, the Yukon Territory all have rules that require disclosure of such “grassroots” campaigns.

Even worse, the Committee recommended the following changes to the law that will increase the size of several secret, unethical lobbying loopholes in the law:

• allow staff at any organization to lobby up to 50 hours without disclosing their lobbying (Recs. 1-2 — currently only small organizations that do not primarily lobby for their members/supporters interests are allowed to lobby in secret for up to 50 hours);
• allow secret lobbying re: contracts with government institutions (Recs. 5-6);
• remove the requirement to report details of each lobbying communication and instead only require summaries of the number and topics of communications (Rec. 11);
• extend the deadline for registering lobbying from 10 days after the lobbying activity to 60 days (Rec. 9), and change monthly reporting to quarterly (Rec. 10) and change monthly reporting of gifts given to office holders to quarterly reporting (Rec. 15);
• remove the requirement to register if you arrange meetings with office holders (Rec. 13);
• remove the requirement to report gifts promised to office holders (Rec. 14 — only gifts given would be required to be reported);
• remove the limit on wining and dining politicians (Rec. 18 — meaning remove the limit on the gift of hospitality).

“B.C.’s lobbying law allows for secret, unethical lobbying and legalized bribery that corrupts policy-making by the provincial government and municipal councils and leads to decisions that protect private interests, ignore voters’ concerns, waste the public’s money, and harm the environment and cities and towns across the province, and facilitates secret foreign interference in B.C. politics” said Duff Conacher, PhD and Co-founder of Democracy Watch.

“The committee’s recommendations ignore huge loopholes in the law that allow for secret, unethical lobbying that corrupts government decision-making processes and, even worse, the committee calls for changes that will increase the size of the loopholes which will increase the amount of unethical, secretive favour-trading and deals between lobbyists and the provincial government, and also facilitate more secret foreign interference in B.C. politics,” said Conacher.

“The committee also ignored the ongoing problem of secret, unethical lobbying of municipal governments across B.C., and made no recommendations about extending the law to cover local government lobbying,” said Conacher.

B.C.’s lobbying law has the following huge loopholes that allow for secret, unethical lobbying at the provincial and municipal levels (and these loopholes also allow for secret foreign interference in B.C. politics):

1. The law only applies to lobbying of provincial politicians and government officials. Surrey and Kelowna have set up lobbying registries, but other municipalities in the province haven’t.  The province should establish a province-wide municipal registry to ensure best-practice lobbying disclosure and ethics requirements across the province.
2. Lobbyists are allowed to fundraise and campaign for, and assist in other ways, politicians they are lobbying (which is essentially legalized bribery), because B.C.’s lobbying law does not prohibit this (lobbyists are only required to comply with some non-governmental organization’s code of conduct);
3. While lobbyists can only give gifts worth $100 annually to provincial politicians and officials, they can give unlimited gifts to nomination contestants, and to political party officials and party leadership contestants who are not an MLA (which is also essentially legalized bribery);
4. Unpaid lobbying is not required to be disclosed;
5. Lobbying in response to a written request from a politician, political staff person or government official is not required to be disclosed;
6. Lobbying by a business or organization with fewer than six employees who collectively lobby less than 50 hours a year is not required to be disclosed (unless the organization’s primary purpose is advocacy, and then it is required to register all of its lobbying);
7. Lobbying of provincial political party officials (who can easily pass on the lobbyist’s message to party leaders) is not required to be disclosed;
8. Lobbying of an enforcement agency that oversees a business or organization is not required to be disclosed;
9. “Grassroots” appeals to voters to contact politicians to call for changes the lobbyist wants do not have to be registered to disclose who is backing the appeal;
10. The amount spent on a lobbying effort (including the amount paid to “hired gun” consultant lobbyists) is not required to be disclosed;
11. Only donations of $1,000 or more to a lobby group are required to be disclosed;
12. The loopholes that allow for secret lobbying mean that the limits on gifts do not apply to lobbyists who are not required to register, and there is not actually a prohibition on Cabinet ministers and top government officials lobbying for 2 years after they leave office (it is only a prohibition on doing registrable lobbying – also, the prohibition should be for at least 5 years).

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FOR MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:
Duff Conacher, Co-founder of Democracy Watch
Tel: (613) 241-5179
Cell: 416-546-3443
Email: [email protected]

Democracy Watch’s Stop Secret Unethical Lobbying Campaign and World’s Best Democracy Fund