Sue's Blog

Saturday, November 18, 2006

The Fibre Optic Deal and the Lobbyist Registration Act IV

The Fibre Optic Deal
Lobbyist or Not
Part IV

Part I Lobby or Not

Part II Lobbyist or Not

Part III Lobbyist or Not

As Sue's Blog pointed out in Part III - it is anticipated that the "boys" will come up with yet another excuse for not registering.
In Brian Tobin like fashion - MacDonald might suggest he was not representing Rogers or MTS Allstream as a "consultant lobbyist" or Persona as an "in-house" lobbyist because he was actually representing the CONSORTIUM (yet to be publicly identified by a name).
If MacDonald tries to pull this one - again he will run into difficulties.
You see if Dean says that he is in-house for the consortium - a consortium which has not yet begun to build anything - then he would have to admit that 20% of his duties as an employee (senior officer) of the consortium would have been spent lobbying. You see that's all apparently the consortium has done to date.

NOTE
Sue's Blog recommends that people refer to the Act and not the Guide or FAQ publications - as those documents tend to mislead the reader into believing that pay is the only prerequisite for being a "consultant lobbyist". In fact the Act says that you are a "consultant lobbyist" if you are a person who, for remuneration (pay) , or other gain, reward or benefit, undertakes to lobby on behalf of a client.

The Clients are clear - Rogers - MTS Allstream and the benefits are clear in that Dean MacDonald would gain at a minimum - a benefit as a shareholder in Persona - if the lobby was successful.

The other concern in this relationship is how one determines how many personal meetings might have taken place on the golf course - on vacation - or while visiting the home of a public official - when the parties involved are known to each other on a personal level.

In every sense - these individuals did everything they could to keep the public from knowing anything about this deal - until they had it in the bag - and found a "convenient" or "most opportune" time to reveal it. ( the phone black-out)

I hope the Commissioner of Lobbyists considers the entire Act if and when a review is done - not just those sections of the Act that MacDonald deems appropriate.

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