The lobbyists won't stop whining

By listening to them since the Canadian election writ was dropped at the end of March, you would think that zillionaire lobbyist assholes are the most put-upon people in all of Christendom. They want you to know that they're wounded and bleeding to the point that even their giant piles of money can't help them sleep at night. It's an almost spiritual ache that they feel, and they won't be satisfied until you're annoyed into feeling it too.

This is because Prime Minister Stephen Harper - a guy not famous for doing things I approve of - placed a number of restrictions on the political activities of registered lobbyists in the federal Accountability Act.

As much as I detest the Liberal-lite governance of the Harper Conservatives and their inability to hold on to a dollar, I mightily approve of his lobbying reforms. If I were to make any complaint about them at all, it would be that they don't go far enough. The role of lobbyists in government and politics is one of the single greatest drivers of the Great American Death Spiral and I would prefer to avoid that in my country, if at all possible.

In fairness, I should be more specific. It isn't lobbyists generally that I take issue with. It's folks who go from either government or political campaigns into lobbying. If it were up to me, that would be ended immediately and forever. I would pass - and strictly enforce - a law that disallowed entirely a former Member of Parliament, their staffs - both governmental and political - and anyone from a political campaign or the civil service from registering as a lobbyist for at least twenty years.

Registered lobbyists would continue to have their public political activities curtailed, meaning that they couldn't contribute to or work for political campaigns or transition teams, even as volunteers (which I would define to be an illegal corporate contribution in kind), and the law would probably be extended to include their spouses. They would only be allowed to serve in government if they managed to get themselves elected. If a lobbyist de-registers to engage in political activity of any kind, they would be prohibited from re-registering for twenty years.

Violations would be punished with actual jail terms, let's say exactly the same ones that the Tories are proposing for drug offenders or white collar criminals in their omnibus crime bill..

As a general rule, I oppose and all campaign finance laws for the simple reason that the bad acts that they are designed to prevent, such as bribery and influence peddling, are already illegal under the criminal law. What campaign finance proponents will tell you is that these extra laws are supposed to preclude the appearance of impropriety.

All right, then. Since I'm not probably not going to live to see the entirely sensible repeal of campaign finance laws, then it's entirely appropriate to extend "the protection of appearances" to lobbying. If anything, the potential of lobbying abuse is more insidious than is the act of giving money to a politician because lobbying serves no other purpose than to shape the way our laws are enacted and our tax dollars are spent.

During the campaign, Liberal and Conservative lobbyists alike bitched endlessly about what they believed to the unconstitutional curtailment of their political speech. And you know what? My heart bleeds for them. It really does.

Having said that, there are any number of legal curtailments in political speech these days. Ask anyone in the military or the civil service. Corporations and unions can no longer contribute to campaigns.You and I can't spend our own money to promote or oppose a candidate during an election campaign. Political speech in this country is limited all the time and the courts have found it constitutional, making my philosophical objections to those limits quaint and immaterial. The arguments cut both ways.

Amazingly enough, you don't see politically connected lobbyists frequently complain about the speech restrictions placed on any other Canadian, just themselves. This is because, as is not the case for everybody else, partisan activity furthers their careers, maximizes their profits and serves the interests of their past, present and future clients.

Again, I'm not speaking about lobbying in and of itself. I'm specifically referring to the revolving door between politics, government and lobbying. Yes, you absolutely have the right to seek redress from the government. However, you do not necessarily have the right to trade on access. There are any number of other careers for former political hacks to pursue, particularly if they're as bright as they say they are. There is no shortage of honourable career lawyers that can take up the work that washed-up politicians, campaign slugs and political appointees to the bureaucracy do now. God knows, they'd almost certainly be cheaper.

There is no reason for clients to hire politically connected lobbyists other than their political connections. Period. The real scandal isn't what's alleged in the Rahim Jaffer and Bruce Carson affairs, but what is actually considered "business as usual." More importantly, the only reason the Jaffer and Carson stories got any media juice at all was that both abounded with the tits and asses of women of loose virtue, not because of the conflicts related to lobbying.

While there is a right to lobby, there is no specific right to be a lobbyist. And no one is telling them that they cannot engage in political activity, as is true of the military and civil service. They're just being told that they can't do both. Like everyone else, they're free to choose.

I've spent the last five years bitching about Stephen Harper in the most forceful language imaginable, going so far as to even suggest that he be deported to Chad. But this is one thing that I can congratulate him on. It's far from perfect, but it's a hell of a good start and far preferable to way things in Ottawa used to work.

The fact that lobbyists won't stop whining about the law means that the law is actually accomplishing something.