Featur e The Art and Science of
Public Affairs May 4, 2011 By Stephen Andrews
fairs professionals from across Ontario. This year’s sessions focused on the following themes: • Trends in lobbying law and compliance • Social media and new tools for effective advocacy • NIMBYism and the challenges of energy project development • Ontario election issues • The “Art” in public affairs.
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The first session opened with a lively discussion of the Canadian Lobbyist Code of Conduct surrounding recent restrictions on the political activities of federal lobbyists. Kerri Froc of the Canadian Bar Association outlined how the rules restricting the political activities of lobbyists vio- lates the freedom of expression provisions in the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. Keri argued that the vagueness of the rulings about what constitutes “political activities” from the Commissioner of Lobbying guidelines, and re- cent case law decisions involving federal civil servants provide a strong case for challenging the Commissioner’s guidelines. Robin Sears of Navigator Limited provided his criti-
cal perspective on this issue. He argued that it does no one any good to “make an ass of the law”, that is, to draft
n May 4th, 2011, the Public Affairs Association of Canada (PAAC) held its annual conference in Toronto attracting over 70 senior public af-
the rules to be so vague and unenforceable that it brings into question the very basis of regulating lobbying activity. Robin called on the lobbying community to continue to advocate for the right to be politically involved in election campaigns.
The second session of the day involved two social me-
dia and technology experts Stefan Baranski of Counsel Public Affairs and Brett Bell of Grassroots Online. They discuss the impact social media is having on all forms of public affairs. The explosive growth of social networking sites, such as Facebook, Twitter and YouTube, and the use of these sites by business, now requires any public affairs campaign to embrace a digital component. Both Brett and Stefan provided compelling case studies on the use of social media to deliver timely messages as part of a broader public affairs campaign. This year’s key note address was delivered by Guy Gior-
no, Partner at the national law firm Fasken Martineau and chair of the recent and winning Conservative Party elec- tion campaign. Guy gave a provocative speech about the role of lawyers and lobbying and how the lobbying pro- fession needs to establish a level playing field among all players to ensure compliance with the law. Through his analysis of the statistics of federal and provincial lobbyist registrations, and the number of lawyer/lobbyists regis- tered, he made it clear that more education is required to
48 Campaigns & Elections | Canadian Edition
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