Ottawa Besieged by Foreign Money, Billionaire Non-Socialists
It’s interesting to chart the official outrage over environmental groups that have taken money from foreign donors and now oppose a Canadian pipeline as part of an international anti-Canadian conspiracy (don’t ask me, ask Minister Joe Oliver). It’s even more interesting to see their studious unconcern about a more routine way in which foreigners, billionaires (but not billionaire socialists, an obvious non-entity), and others try to influence our government: the professional lobbying sector in Ottawa.
According to the Lobbying Commissioner, in the first week of this year, there were 47 new lobbying registrations. About 40% of lobbying came from foreigners, ranging from Chevron to Siemens. Fully 81% were from corporations.
The government claims it is very disturbed that some money from rich foreigners might influence the pipeline hearings. Judging from the Harper regime’s failure to institute any meaningful reforms to the lobbying sector since 2008, it would seem that they are not concerned that rich foreigners might influence government on other topics.
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