Government Relations Presentation at CPRS Vancouver event - Summary

Government Relations (aka Lobbying)


I attended a very fascinating CPRS (Canadian Public Relations Society) Vancouver’s lunch session this week. The topic was communicating with government aka lobbying. With lobbying having so many negative associations, the presenters did a good job dispelling misperceptions and positioning lobbying as an important mechanism of the public interacting with government.


Karen Shepherd, Commissioner of Lobbying, spoke first about the federal legislation and interpretations of lobbying, with the definition (long one – see below), types of lobbyists (consultant, in-house corporations, in-house organizations/non-profit) and designated public office holders.


Federal definiatoin of Lobbying: Lobbying is communicating with a public office holder, for payment in respect of:
• The development of any legislative proposal,
• Introduction, defeat or amendment of any Bill or resolution,
• Development or amendment of any policy or program,
• Awarding of any grant, contribution or other financial benefit,
• Awarding of any contract,
• Arranging a meeting between a public office holder and any other person.


Registration can now be done online and consultant lobbyists have 10 days from undertaking (agreeing) to carry out a lobbying activity while in-house lobbyists have two months. It was a bit confusing when Karen talked about monthly disclosures and when it is required. Many grey areas for interpretation for sure!


Mary Elizabeth Carlson, Executive Director, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists, spoke about lobbying in BC and started with a slide that said “Lobbying is not a crime”. The provincial definition of lobbying is essentially “communicating with public office holder in an attempt to influence” (different and shorter than the federal definition). Right now there is a Bill before the house to pass a new Lobbying Act which should have positive changes in BC. The Ken Dobell incident seems to have prompted many of the proposed changes. It will be interesting to see what the outcome is. Another positive is that they are working on a new registration system that is expected to be live in April 2010. Here’s a link to the current registration system which by the way requires you to pay $150 per registration (that is going away with the new system)


Here’s a quote from a Vancouver Sun article about the negative associations with lobbying:


“It's a profession that often dares not speak its name. Or, at least, does so reluctantly. Just ask the embattled Ken Dobell, who told reporters recently that he was reluctant to register as a lobbyist because the job description has a connotation "that none of us particularly like."


There was a comment by an audience member “then many charities in this country are lobbying and not declaring it”. The response by Karen Shepherd is that her mandate is to educate across the country about lobbying and more non-profits are registering as lobbyists.


Perhaps what needs to happen is that we should get rid of the word lobbying and replace with government relations to help build up credibility and overcome the long-tail negative perceptions associated with lobbying?

Learnings from National PR Conference

I attended this week PR National Conference here in Vancouver, BC at the Westin Bayshore hotel. I attended many sessions and helped organize the 80 fabulous volunteers.Highlights for me were ...

Brian Solis talking about social media and the new world of PR.

“Social Media is bigger than simply integrating a Blogger Relations branch to your PR strategy. It’s an opportunity to engage directly customers and peers who either purchase or recommend the decisions of others. ... The new world of influence demands customer empathy, evangelism, passion, expertise, and knowledge – everything else is disposable and takes away from your focus and potential.”

• Download his entire post related to his presentation The State of PR, Marketing, and Communications: You are the Future.

Maple Leaf Food’s VP Communications Jeanette Jones had a good presentation about their listeria crisis last year. I wonder if they would have had such a positive rebound in customer purchases and reputation if they didn’t have such a great CEO spokesperson.

Lessons learned:

• Accept responsibility. Have CEO face of company.
• Lead with facts and be open. http://www.mapleleafaction.com/
• Have communication vehicles in place such as CEO weekly note, employee conference calls, external blogs (this one decreases reliance on media to disseminate info)
• Use social media such as YouTube as well as TV
• Use research to improve communications such as consumer polling
• Don’t over think communications and act immediately
• Ensure bilingual capabilities
• Leverage external experts and have relationships built now
• Maintain communication post crisis – consumers don’t want to forget and nor should the company

Three members from PR Global Alliance, Dan Tisch (Cdn), Paul Mylrea (UK) and John Paluszek (US) talked about the future of PR.

Dan’s points were that PR professionals need to:

• elevate the profession raising standards, sharing knowledge
• dig deeper in the what, why, how of mass culture and
• build business literacy
• co-create messages and content with citizens now; interact 2-way

Dan said in another panel that Canada on the global stage has reputation of the ability to listen and adapt and not do the one campaign worldwide approach (like the US has a reputation to do).

5 step plan for Social media with Maggie Fox. Her presentation style is very conversational and she has a great sense of humour. I would have liked to see more case studies but she did provide some good information about social media.

1. Listen – research the online communities and find out what they are talking about
2. Content – what content gets shared in the community and what doesn’t
3. Technology – what are they using, where are they, monitor conversations
4. Metrics – unique monthly visits to website, etc.
5. Managing risks – create a risk management plan and assign a likelihood ranking

And lastly make sure you share results formally and informally with internal teams. Common misconception that social media is free. It is not free when you consider the time needed to make it work.