The Town of The Blue Mountains should have its own lobbyist registry in place by the end of 2024.
At its committee of the whole meeting on March 18, council approved a staff report that called for the clerk’s department to work with the town’s newly constituted accountability and transparency committee to bring forward a lobbyist registry for council’s consideration.
The town has been working on establishing its own lobbyist registry for the past couple of years and has consulted with the Town of Collingwood on the matter. One of the town’s goals is to have a registry similar to the one in place in Collingwood.
The newly formed accountability and transparency committee will take on the job of working out the details of the registry.
“This is a great opportunity to move forward with that being a task of the accountability and transparency committee,” said CAO Shawn Everitt. “I don’t see any problem with this being put in place by the end of 2024.”
Members of council were pleased to see the project progressing.
“We really welcome this. We’re happy about this,” said Coun. June Porter, who has been selected the chair of the accountability and transparency committee. “It’s great to be able to move this forward.”
Coun. Gail Ardiel is also a member of the committee and said they will be getting to work on the project immediately.
“We know it’s very important,” said Ardiel.
A public meeting in 2023 on the concept of the lobbyist registry indicated support in the community for the project.
