Business and Government in Canada

Chapter Two: Lobbying

CHAPTER TWO LOBBYING INTRODUCTION The previous chapter examined the emergence of corporate governance as a unique but also increasingly shared set of themes across business and government with respect to how organizations are held to account in terms of both conformance and performance. Beyond the converging challenge of establishing good governance within each sectoral realm, businesses and governments often engage in direct and indirect efforts to influence one another. Accordingly, this chapter probes the influence-laden dynamic of lobbying as the private sector, and other organized interests such as non-governmental organizations, undertake to shape the decisions and outcomes within the politicaland policy arenas ofthe publicsector.I discuss the key rationales for lobbying and compare the structures and styles of lobbying in the Canadian parliamentary model and the US congressional model. Whilemuchoftraditional lobbyingispredicated on managing and exploiting the separation of business and government, not unlikeJacobs' sectoralpresentation and explicitlyadopted assuch by Stanbury, this cannot be the entire story. It is also important to consider the evolution of lobbying in a context of stakeholder governance that creates pressures for systemic learning and the co-evolutionary dynamics endorsed by Paquet. Here, then, 47 Business and Governmentin Canada greater demands for direct forms of engagement coupled with heightened transparency are challenging the traditional orderof lobbying as influence, emphasizing instead the role of lobbying as a basis for learning. TWO SOLITUDES In 1987,John Sawatsky's influential book TheInsiders: Government, Business, and the Lobbyists, exposed the growing importance of professional intermediaries in Ottawa assisting the private sector with its efforts to influence the federal government. The term "lobbyist"was rarelyused initiallyin suchcircles,however, as the insiders whom Sawatsky refers to emerged during the 1970s and early 1980s as a group of consultants with political backgrounds and an eye for commercial opportunity—by providing a new type of professional service to clients. Theservicewasnot lobbying per se (atermtypically denoting an attempt to influence some aspect of public sector decision making)but government relations expertise,essentially educating business leaders about the nuts and bolts of how government works and how best to engage governments to pursue specific interests and outcomes. There was nothing unethical about this initial forte, since the professional intermediaries played alargely educational role in advising business on options and avenues for legitimately partaking in what Stanbury would term the "policy arena" in the most enlightened manner possible. Two points are noteworthy with respect to the relationship between this initial government relations service and Jacobs' two syndromes. First, the professional consultants developing this new government relations specialization are in many ways examples of the integration or at least the bridging ofcommercial and guardian syndromes: leveraging political experience into a commercial pursuit. Their ability to do so supports Jacobs7 notion that ultimately human beings should be able to transcend the commercial/guardian boundary, though it also suggests that the nature of these activitiescould prove contentious (for reasons 48 Lobbying explored below). Second, this opportunity to commercialize knowledge of guardian (i.e., government) institutions reflected a gap between the private and public sectors, an underdeveloped appreciation of one another that led to the situation where companies would seek counsel to intervene effectively. A more recent study undertaken by the Ottawa-based Public Policy Forum (PPF) in 2002 reinforced this point, albeit with one important caveat. The report, Bridging TwoSolitudes:A Discussion Paper on Federal Industry-Government Relations, provides a quantifiable portrait of the poor state of relations between industry and government, for each side felt misunderstood by and disillusioned with the performance of the other side: Government respondents see themselves as open and responsive to industry representations, and see these representations as having an impact on government decisions. They are less certain that industry understands the government's decisionmaking process or offers policy proposals that respond to the need of the public the government serves as well as the corporation's self-interest. Corporate respondents, on the other hand, believe they understand how government works. They believe their proposals are balanced. However, they do not believe they are adequately consulted by government. Nor do they believe their respondents have a real impact on government decisions. Such are the two solitudes. This characterization helps to explain why those involved in the initially indirect activity of government relations (i.e., advising industry clients on how best to approach government) soon faced pressure to expand the scope of their service toward more outcome-based lobbying practices. Looking for results...