No time for lobbyist registry, Port Moody council decides

This story has been corrected. The final vote on Tuesday was 4-3, not 4-2. A vote held in November 2023 was 6-1, not 5-1.

Any form of lobbyist registry is off the table for Port Moody.

Council rejected pursuing the idea any further by a 4-3 vote on May 21, after staff presented best practices lobbying around the region, and ways the municipality could define the practice.

“We have way bigger fish to fry,” Mayor Meghan Lahti said. “We have a lot of things on our (strategic) plan right now, and I’m not prepared to take any of those off to make this a higher priority at this time.”

An official registry for individuals or organizations attempting to influence council decisions has been a contentious subject among some councillors since it was first pitched in late November 2023 and Tuesday night’s discussion was no different.

Lahti had to pause proceedings on several occasions to stop councillors from taking personal jabs at each other.

An official lobbyist registry was first proposed by Coun. Haven Lurbiecki following allegations that an illegal meeting took place between Coronation Park developers and a majority of council in October 2023.

That motion was rejected by a 6-1 vote, but a broader policy was not ruled out and staff were directed to report back to the Strategic Priorities Committee.

On Tuesday, Lurbiecki introduced a motion to have staff report back on the costs, staffing resources, and a timeline to implement a registry in Port Moody, using the Surrey’s lobbyist registry as a general model.

She said imposing a lobbyist registry was a way to ensure transparency to the public, allowing them to see who councillors were meeting with, and what decisions these financial or business interests were attempting to influence.

“I’m often hearing (from the public) that it seems like some members of council are advocating for the needs of developers over the needs of the community,” Lurbiecki said.

While Couns. Samanatha Agtarap and Amy Lubik said they were not opposed to having staff investigate what it would take to set a registry up, the rest of council argued the city could not spare the staffing resources.

Coun. Diana Dilworth said she didn’t think a registry fit within council’s strategic plan, adding there wouldn’t be much benefit because it’s a voluntary program.

“Unless we’re willing to commit both staff and financial resources to the establishment and the ongoing monitoring of such a registry, I don’t see that there is value in it,” Dilworth said. “If anyone wants to ask me who I’m meeting with, I would certainly respond.”

Coun. Callan Morrison said the city already has rules in place regarding meeting with a quorum of council, and all their decisions are always recorded with minutes taken.

Although he said he valued transparency, he claimed a lobbyist registry would come off as a “list of enemies” to the public, and make councillors who meet take meetings appear to be up to doing something against the rules.

“I just don’t really love the framing of this at all,” Morrison said. “It kind of brings us way back to when there were character challenges in regards to honesty.”

Coun. Kyla Knowles agreed, stating the manner in which Lurbiecki raised the motion was “really off-putting.”

She added that while a few municipalities have implemented registries, thousands of others have not.

“This isn’t about casting aspersions. This is about what is best for Port Moody. That is our job,” she said. “Do we really want to go down this road? . . . Because we’re gonna go down this road. we’ll have to go down all the way.”

While provincial legislation around lobbying activities does not extend to the local government level, staff said municipalities do have the ability to implement a registry under the Community Charter.

Other provinces like Ontario and Quebec, on the other hand, have more robust legislation to regulate the practice.

Surrey and Kelowna are the only two B.C. cities with lobbyist registries, both of which are voluntary and have few or no enforcement measures.

Lobbyists in both cities are supposed to register within five to 10 days after attempting to sway a council member; registration is active for six months per topic in Kelowna, with no expiration date or topic limitations for the Surrey registry.

Typical publicly accessible information in the registry would be a name, business or organization’s name, an address, date, and lobbying topic, according to staff.

Staff note there are various definitions for lobbying and lobbyists in different municipal jurisdictions, and council would need to establish its own definition.

Considerations include whether the definition captures both paid and volunteer lobbyists; who is being lobbied (council, committee members, staff); communication methods; types of decisions being influenced; and potential exemptions.

Staff said it was important to make clear who, and what activity, noting that community groups wishing to address a specific issue may not fit in traditional definitions.

Council would also need to establish staffing responsibilities for administration, reporting parameters and enforcement options, staff said.

Staff note that enforcement options are limited under the Community Charter. For instance, Surrey has no policy for applying sanctions or penalties for non-compliance; and while Kelowna can refuse to consider a development application until a party is registered, there are no financial penalties.

Lahti said the city now has the necessary background information to create a lobbyist registry, and council can refer back to it if they decide to set it up in the future.