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Submission to the Standing Committee on Government Services, Bill 1, the Lobbyists Act 2007
Carol Wodak, September 28, 2007

1. My primary concern is the fundamental right of citizens to know which organizations and individuals
are influencing public policies, and to have the opportunity to discuss and debate the principles and
priorities of those issues. I note that I seem to be the only person making a presentation to you who
does not have some organization affiliation.

2. My concerns with respect to lobbying arise from a dozen years of trying to understand why and
how Government policy about long term care has developed the way it has. What I've learned is that
the decision-making has been highly selective, with little meaningful public reporting, and an
astonishing absence of public discussion or debate.

3. Let me describe an actual situation: two organizations which we know have lobbied for policy and
legislative changes in long term care.

Both provide residential care services; the majority of their revenue comes from public
funding sources, with some from resident fees. Both show significant growth in revenue and
capital assets, and both show healthy excess of revenue over expenses.

Both use paid staff to provide services, with a limited number of volunteers to assist with
supplementary services. Both accept gifts and donations, although these are a tiny portion of
revenue; both get Government grants to off-set as much as half the capital costs of facilities,
and other Government grants and Lottery Fund grants for renovations. Both have had
Executive Officers appointed to Government Committees to review policy or legislation.

Both are executive members of the long term care operators' non-profit association, which
lobbies Government and MLAs for policy, regulation, and legislative changes. The
association also has received funding from Government. It has an impressive list of
Corporate Members, including construction, power, pharmaceutical and service providers
(including subsidiary or partner companies of some of its members), who are also entitled to
access facility information and "government liaison" services1.

One is a not-for-profit service provider and a registered charity. The other is a private
business, which pays dividends to shareholders and also funds and staffs a Charitable
Foundation.

A third organization, which is a wholly-owned subsidiary of a health authority, operates in the same
way ­ and belongs to the same trade association. The health region itself, which controls this
organization, will probably be exempt from the lobby registry.

All 3 "types" of organizations lobbied, separately and collectively, for the same changes to resident
fees; they may have had different motives ­ public interest, reducing public expenditure, or increasing
shareholder profits ­ but they had the same goal, and there is certainly not agreement in the public
that the goal was in the public interest.

In fact, the primary stakeholders (the residents and their families, and the public) were not consulted.


1 ALTCA website, 2005.

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