The Harper government has opened the door to a watering down of its vaunted strategy to crack down on lobbying, as it contemplates forcing lobbyists to only report their formal verbal communications with federal officials, documents show.Under proposals that are circulating in the government-relations industry in Ottawa, lobbyists would not have to report “spontaneous” verbal communications with government officials, nor would they have to disclose e-mail or other written exchanges.
The proposals stand in contrast to the Conservative Party's pledge in the 2006 election to “require ministers and senior government officials to record their contacts with lobbyists.”
At the time, the Conservative Party vowed to stop the back-and-forth between the worlds of politics and lobbying, which it said was corrupting government. In particular, a number of lobbyists were working for the government as well as for the Liberal leadership campaign or with Liberal ministers.
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