Defection from Harper Office to Air Canada is Latest Evidence of Revolving Door at Top of Government
The media is understandably perturbed that Stephen Harper’s deputy chief of staff, Derek Vanstone, has been hired as a new executive and lobbyist by Air Canada. Vanstone and Air Canada will be using a loophole in the current lobbying regulations to get around a legal requirement that senior political staffers wait five years before becoming lobbyists. There are many such loopholes in the legislation, but the one they will use, I expect, is the one that says that anyone who spends less than 20% of their paid time meeting with government isn’t a “real” lobbyist and therefore doesn’t have to wait five years.
However, what you may not take away from reading about the Vanstone affair in the news media is that this is precisely the way this government works. Why would we expect an apology, or an ethics inquiry, or anything of that sort, when this is standard operating procedure for the Harper regime?
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