Tory-Linked Lobbying Firm Hires Former CLC President, BC NDP Minister - by D Climenhaga
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2015/06/tory-linked-lobbyin...
Canadian Strategy Group buys Georgetti and Sihota as 'strategic counsel', aka lobbyists.
As noted previously in this space, one of the oddities of the PC dynasty that ran Alberta for 43 years, seven months and 25 days until Notley was elected as premier on May 5, was that it actively discouraged professional and amateur lobbyists alike from even talking to opposition parties.
Canadian Stalinism at its finest. Just not on the political left.
Yet another illustration why 'Socialism' had to go from the NDP Constitution...
The Alberta NDP government will not, I think, have the ability to influence "professional and amateur lobbyists alike" to refrain even from talking to opposition parties. And that hints at the un-level playing field that they still face.
Make no mistake, even a milquetoast NPD government will be in the crosshairs of business interests used to having their way in an Alberta fiefdom. The most interesting part of the story, however, is how smoothly former labour and NDP leaders can slide over so effortlessly to such a role. Those who claim some "fundamental" difference between NDP members/supporters and the supporters of the other dominant parties will be amusing to watch, as they carry out backflips making it all seem so ordinary and common sensical. If you want to play the game of "bourgeois" government, you have to use all the tools at your disposal - the ones your rivals use - to win.
Supplemental: That, of course, begs the question as to what happens even if you "win" and then lose 4 or 8 or X years later. Irrevocable change requires mass movements - something the NDP in power has a predictable history of de-mobilizing.
Canadian Strategy Group buys Georgetti and Sihota as 'strategic counsel', aka lobbyists.
I guessed the names as soon as I saw the thread title.
Yeah, well Glen Clark's working for the right-wing billionaire Jimmy Pattison and wasn't available.
The Annals of Government Relations: BC Lobbyists With Faint Dipper Links Keep Turning Up in Alberta - by David Climenhaga
http://rabble.ca/blogs/bloggers/djclimenhaga/2015/06/annals-government-r...
"...The new arrival sounds like it will be Vancouver-based Wazuku Advisory Group headed by 'political navigator' Brad Zubyk, late of New Democratic Party circles in British Columbia.
Very late, as a matter of fact.
For the past three election cycles, Zubyk confirmed yesterday, he has been an active BC Liberal, which is more akin to being a Conservative in the Alberta context, and is also a member of the federal Liberal Party - which in NDP terms can be a bigger no-no than being a Tory."
Like flies to honey. Or whatever...
