An executive of Exel Canada Ltd., a leading bidder to privatize B.C.’s liquor distribution and warehousing, is denying suggestions that he has lobbied provincial officials since the request for proposals was published in April.
According to the August edition of the B.C. Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists’ Who’s Lobbying Who in B.C.?: “Scott Lyons, an in-house lobbyist with Exel Canada Ltd., is lobbying several ministers and MLAs to develop a new liquor distribution system for the province.”
Lyons, a Mississauga-based Exel vice-president, was registered as a lobbyist from January 6 to August 9. His form shows he re-registered August 23 for a term ending March 27, 2013. Lyons said the registration lapsed because he was on holiday.
“The registration is an annual event. I updated it saying this is my annual update,” Lyons told Business in Vancouver. “That’s what I have done, so I am in compliance with the lobbyist registry. I can’t talk to anybody since the RFP was dropped.”
However, the Lobbyists Registration Act makes no reference to annual filings. It says lobbyists must file within 10 days of entering into an undertaking on behalf of a client. Any change to lobbying targets, outcomes or subject matters must be reported within 30 days, but lobbyists aren’t required to report each contact made with a politician or bureaucrat. According to the Statement of Disclosure for Liquor Distribution Branch bidders, the province may use its sole discretion to disqualify any bidder that “engages in conduct directly or indirectly, that may give it an unfair advantage” such as “communicating with any person with a view to influencing preferred treatment in the [tendering] process.”
The lobbying targets on Lyons’ registration include minister responsible for liquor Rich Coleman and Ben Stewart, who became Citizens’ Services minister on September 5. Recently resigned finance minister Kevin Falcon and education minister George Abbott and MLAs Colin Hansen and John Les are also listed. The form doesn’t list whether any targets were contacted by Lyons, who chose not to elaborate on his statement to BIV that there has been no contact since the RFP. Bell, Coleman, Hansen, Les and Stewart are members of the Treasury Board, the cabinet spending committee that is expected to approve the winning bidder in mid-October. The contract is supposed to be in place by March 2013. Only Hansen and Stewart responded to interview requests.
Hansen said he had coffee with Lyons “in June or July of last year. Stewart, whose interest in Kelowna’s Quails’ Gate Estate Winery is held in a blind trust, told BIV he has not “spoken to Scott in well over a year.” Stewart now oversees government procurement, but new Finance Minister Mike de Jong is responsible for the LDB privatization. NDP liquor critic Maurine Karagianis called the timing of Lyons’ filing “very peculiar and very suspicious.”
Meanwhile, Mike Bailey of Western Policy Consultants amended his registration on behalf of LDB bidder ContainerWorld.
ContainerWorld hired Bailey to lobby the government to keep the “current policy and methodology” of liquor logistics on August 15, 2011. His registration now explains that he is providing “ongoing advice to ContainerWorld should the firm be invited to enter into negotiations” to privatize LDB. Bailey did not respond to an interview request. His target contacts include Coleman, ex-Citizens’ Services Minister Margaret MacDiarmid and Richmond East MLA Linda Reid, along with LDB, the Office of the Premier and Liquor Licensing and Control Board general manager Karen Ayers.
