Irving Companies Join Former Premier On New List of Registered Lobbyists
There was a flurry of activity as the October 1st deadline for registering lobbyists of the provincial government approached, with entries from companies like Irving Oil Limited and J.D. Irving, Limited appearing in the last week of September.
The original deadline was July 1, but Integrity Commissioner Alexandre Deschênes extended it to the first of October.
“As our office is still in the process of improving the system to make it more easily accessible and meaningful, I will not be enforcing the statutory deadline of July 1 for lobbyists to file a return,” said Deschênes at the time. “In the meantime, however, we will continue to work with the lobbyists who are experiencing difficulties. Our focus at this early stage of the registry system is to get lobbyists to file their returns prior to Oct. 1.”
RELATED: Former New Brunswick Premier on New List of New Brunswick Lobbyists
The registry is skeletal, with little context about the lobbying activities being undertaken, apart from identifying the people doing the lobbying work and a bulleted list of general activities, departments being contacted, and communications methods.
You can view the full list of lobbyists here. There is also a search tool for finding specific companies.
Here are some of the lobbyists and the companies they work for:
- Justin Robichaud, Patrick Lacroix and Louis Bergeron: TransCanada Pipelines
- Dana Glendenning: Imperial Tobacco
- Shawn Graham: Fornebu Lumber Company Inc., Molson Coors, CP Homes and AKD International.
- Doug Tyler: Moosehead Breweries, Inversa Systems
- Gerald Wessen: Clean Power Northeast Development (Emera)
- Graham Little: Irving Oil Limited
- Karen Leeman: J.D. Irving, Limited
Graham, the former premier, and Doug Tyler, a minister in the cabinets of Frank McKenna and Camille Theriault, are the two former provincial politicians on the list.
There are also many people registered to lobby on behalf of energy interests in the province, notably Irving Oil Limited, TransCanada Pipelines and Emera.
TransCanada Pipelines is hoping to build the Energy East Pipeline through the province to Saint John. Emera is proposing to build a transmission line that will carry clean energy by underwater cable from Saint John to Massachusetts.
The federal government already has a lobbyist registry in place. Many of the names and companies on the New Brunswick list appear there as well.