This lobbying proposal is bananas
One candidate for mayor identifies a real problem he fails to solve.
Ottawa mayoral candidate Alex Lawson released a video recently showing him inexplicably (to me, anyway) holding a banana while talking about the need to tighten lobbying rules. He calls this the Influence Firewall, which is neat and catchy, and says it’s time to “change whose voices are heard at City Hall,” which is a worthy goal a lot of people can get behind. Other than the banana, this is bound to be a popular idea. Except it can’t work.
Lawson gets points for promising to be transparent about his supporters and to abide by tougher rules, even if they don’t get adopted. But we need to note two things. First, he owns a home building business and used to work as a lobbyist on construction issues. This doesn’t make him any less honourable than other lobbyists who work honourably. The bigger problem is that we lack the means to enforce lobbying rules as it is, and no amount of tightening rules will change anything unless we also invest heavily into monitoring, tracking and investigating, which Lawson promises not to do.
The Municipal Act allows municipalities to define what lobbying means, to create a lobbying registry and enact regulations related to lobbying, including penalties for breaches, but it doesn’t mandate any of it. The Integrity Commissioner is charged with enforcing Ottawa’s lobbying by-law. A first offence gets you a one-month ban from communicating with public office holders. A second offence gets you three months and if you offend a third time, the commissioner shall determine what appropriate sanction you deserve. I went looking for examples of people sanctioned under the by-law and only found one case of a one-month ban.
Critically, the Integrity Commissioner who is tasked with overseeing the lobbying registry and lobbying in general, works part-time (a grand total of 544.5 hours for 2025, or just over 10 hours a week on average). Not sure how many miscreants she can track and catch, seeing as she’s also responsible for administering the municipal code of conduct, conflict of interest act and acting as the meetings investigator, whatever that is.
According to her 2025 report, there were six complaints related to lobbying last year. I did not see mention of anyone being sanctioned.
Sure, we could tighten rules and get tougher, for instance with monetary fines. But if you don’t have monitoring resources to document cases, you can’t fine people tens of thousands of dollars. They’ll complain the process is flawed, unfair and unreliable, and will win in court.
Lawson promises his Influence Firewall will not cost Ottawa taxpayer a cent more because “the office already exists.” I will never claim to be good at math, but how can someone who works 10 hours a week enforce the rules on hundreds of lobbying activities?
Also, and I’m sorry if this is a shock to you, but in politics, people don’t arrive in office as virgins. Everyone has history, experiences, and connections. Otherwise they would not have found their way to a ballot. Those connections are useful and can serve the public good when used properly. Or they could be used improperly by elected officials to enrich themselves.
And then there’s all the stuff in-between. Is it OK for a business that has a pre-existing connection with the mayor to be involved in a project that’s beneficial to society even if they happen to make a small profit along the way? If I polled 1,000 people on this, I’d probably get 1,000 different answers. But generally speaking, up to a point, I’d venture to guess most voters are happy enough to tolerate a certain amount of coziness if their lives are significantly improved.
One last thing. Last week, Lawson filed a formal complaint with the part-time Integrity Commissioner, asking her to investigate what he called unregistered lobbying of Mayor Mark Sutcliffe and his staff. Both the mayor and the firm involved pushed back, hard. Personally, I think the investigation won’t reveal much of anything. Asking the mayor to come speak at the opening of a hotel is hardly the stuff of lobbying legend.
Maybe the voters of Ottawa would like lobbying rules tightened. Maybe they should be. Lawson gets credit for identifying an issue that is a problem for many people. But his proposed solution is bananas.