
Kelowna city council will be asked to approve some updates to the lobbyist registry it adopted a little more than a year ago.
Recommended tweaks were first presented to council in December and are coming back in the form of a bylaw for council to consider when it returns from a five-week hiatus Monday.
The registry, adopted in November 2023 was designed to identify those individuals or groups who planned to meet with council members to try and “influence” a decision on a specific item coming before council.
Those individuals or groups are required to register their intentions with that registry available to members of the public.
The proposed changes would “give the policy an enhanced focus on paid lobbying and lobbying with a personal financial interest at stake while also streamlining the registration process and promoting greater ease of compliance.”
The term lobbyist is now defined as an individual paid to lobby on behalf of a business or organization, or who lobbies regarding a matter in which the individual has a direct or indirect financial interest.
A lobbying registration will be active for one year instead of the previous six months.
Since the registry became active in late 2023, 46 registrations were accepted by the city. More than half (60 per cent) were developers while 20 per cent were made up of community groups.
“The proposed amendments will strengthen the policy’s focus on its fundamental purpose of promoting transparency and accountability, while simplifying its administrative aspects,” staff concluded in its report.
Only Kelowna and Surrey have lobbyist registry bylaws on the books.