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14 Tuesday June 16 2015 POLITICS TERRITORIAL The Syncrude Project is a joint venture undertaking among Canadian Oil Sands Partnership 1 Imperial Oil Resources Mocal Energy Limited Murphy Oil Company Ltd. Nexen Oil Sands Partnership Sinopec Oil Sands Partnership and Suncor Energy Ventures Partnership. Thank you for many years of shared success. Before Syncrude put a shovel in the ground we promised to share the opportunities created by our operations with the Wood Buffalo regions Aboriginal people. Little did we know that you would share so much with us. Your rich traditions inspiring culture insightful perspectives and entrepreneurial success have not only made you valued neighbours and partners but also respected friends. June 21 is National Aboriginal Dayour opportunity to thank you for helping us build our business as well as strengthen and brighten our shared communities. Learn more at syncrude.ca G N W T stand-in for lob b yist registry lacking expert No pl ac e too smal l f or transparenc y argues l aw yer G uy G i orno B y M E AG AN W O H L B E R G Newmeasurestakenbythe territorial government to in- crease transparency around lobbying are a positive first step but not an adequate re- placement for a robust lob- byist registry according to a leading ex pert on lobbying transparency and ethics in Canada. The GNWT recently re- spondedtoamotiontoinvesti- gatethebestwaytoimplement an online lobbyist registry by committingtomakequarterly reports on ministers ex ter- nal meetings available to the public despite emphasizing that information is already available on request. The reports will record all meetings with outside par- ties including other govern- mentsindustryspecialinter- est groups public events and conferencesthefirstofwhich will be posted to the GNWT website in July. Lawyer Guy Giorno who is routinely consulted by provinces across Canada on lobbying law acknowledged thataquarterlyreportisastep toward greater openness but said a truly transparent re- porting system should apply to more than the seven min- isters who make up cabinet. Typicallyalobbyistindus- try applies to the lobbying of everybody in the ex ecutive and legislative branches of government so that would mean MLAs ministers staff members deputy ministers everybody in the department - everybody he said. This is talkingabouttransparencyfor the lobbying of seven people. FurtherGiornosaidlobby- ist registries tend to cover all forumsforlobbyingincluding meetingsphonecallsemails tex ts letters and so on. Itstruethatmostlobbying is through meetings but this is only about meetings and it ex cludes any other form of contacthesaidoftheGNWT response. Across the country Giorno said most jurisdictions ap- point an ex isting statutory officer who is independent of government like the In- formation and P rivacy Com- missionerorConflictof nter- est Commissioner to enforce the registry. The GNWTs solution has nosimilarmechanismGiorno noted instead leaving it up to the ministers to decide how much they are going to disclose. At the same time he said that puts all the onus on the ministers to keep track of lobbying. The people doing the lob- bying bear no responsibility and Ive always said that its a shared responsibility for transparency Giorno said. Why would the government take it all on itself Though the reports are goingtobeonlineGiornosaid reportingjustfourtimesayear is too infrequent to support true access to information. While a new law would have to be drafted and a new website located Giorno said the ex istence of lobbyist registries across the coun- try should make the estab- lishment of one in the NWT quite simple. Nine of 1 0 Canadian prov- inces and several Canadian municipalities have adopted lobbyist registry laws. P rince Edward Island and Canadas three territories are the only jurisdictions without. In 20 1 5 creating a new web portal should not be in- surmountable Giorno said. NWTP remierBobMcLeod hasdownplayedtheneedfora lobbyist registry in the NWT stating that the public can al- ready access information on who ministers are meeting and why. That information is avail- able now upon request he said in response to the mo- tion made earlier this year by Range Lake MLA Daryl Dolynny. There is nothing to hide. To date we have not received any such requests. Ministersmeetregularlywith representatives of all sectors. I can state with certainty that we meet with representatives of Aboriginal governments and 3 9 non-government or- ganizations far more fre- quently than we do with paid lobbyists. McLeod accused MLAs backingtheregistryofmaking a mountain out of a molehill. But Giorno believes there is no jurisdiction too small for such a registry. I think that kind of misses the point. Too small to be transparent Too small for people to want to know what the governments up to Too small to know whos being paid to influence government officials he said. Ithinknoplaceistoosmall for transparency. PhotocourtesyofFaskenMartineau G uy G iorno a leading ex - pert on lob b ying ethics.