Alberta's new lobbyist and conflict of interest legislation.

Alberta is poised to become the sixth Canadian jurisdiction to implement a lobbyist registry, to date the Federal Government, British Columbia, Ontario, Quebec Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador have registries. The Government of Manitoba has recently adopted a law along these lines. This article outlines provisions of the Lobbyists Act and the Conflicts of Interest Act.

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The recommendations for a lobbyist registry and changes to conflict of interest legislation were contained in a May 2006 report of an all party committee of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta which reviewed the Conflicts of Interest Act.

Bill 1, the Lobbyists Act, sponsored by Ed Stelmach, Premier of Alberta was passed during the autumn session of 2007. Proclamation of the Act has been delayed in order to create the software and implementation policies and the registry is currently expected to be up and running by 2009.

Like other Canadian lobbyist registries, the legislation aims to create transparency by requiring lobbyists to make public disclosure of their lobbying activities. The Lobbyists Act will require any person or entity to register as a lobbyist if they meet the criteria of either a "consultant lobbyist" or an "organization lobbyist". Consultant lobbyists are persons and their employees who for payment, undertake to lobby in respect of an undertaking. An organization lobbyist is someone who receives a payment for performance of their functions, who lobbies at least 100 hours annually on behalf of their organization or who collectively with other persons in the same organization spends a total of at least 100 hours annually lobbying.

Introduction of the bill implementing the Lobbyists Act met with widespread public concerns that the work of charities and community oriented non-profit organizations might be impeded by requirements to register their lobbying activities and that it might impact recruitment of volunteers. As a result, ...