Briefly: Former BC United Surrey South MLA Sturko, who is seeking the seat in Surrey-Cloverdale, alleges that Parm Kahlon’s Core Firm was not registered to represent its client Renewal Development and that her brother, Minister Ravi Kahlon, has publicly promoted the company.
Bob Mackin
Conservative candidate Elenore Sturko has complained to the Registrar of Lobbyists, alleging a company co-founded by the NDP housing minister’s sister has broken the law.
In a Sept. 25 letter, Sturko wants registrar Michael Harvey to investigate the Kahlon siblings and Glyn Lewis, the founder of Renewal.
Ravi (right) and Parm Kahlon (Twitter)
Sturko’s complaint includes a clip from an April 2 report on Global News about Renewal’s work with developer Wesgroup Properties to relocate houses in Port Moody.
“This public endorsement of a client represented by his sibling’s firm warrants scrutiny, particularly to ensure compliance with the Lobbyist Transparency Act and to maintain public trust in the impartiality of government decision-making processes,” Sturko wrote.
Sturko’s letter said Harvey should investigate whether Ravi Kahlon has met or communicated with Renewal or Core Firm about Renewal, the terms of the contract between Renewal and Core, why Ravi Kahlon endorsed the company and whether he has ever referred companies he deals with in government to Core as potential clients.
Neither Ravi Kahlon nor Lewis have responded to theBreaker.news for comment.
Parm Kahlon did not return a phone message, but Core sent an email statement that said the Renewal work “did not involve government relations or interactions with the Government of B.C. The scope of the work was related to the private sector.”
“We value our personal and professional reputations as women who act with integrity. We will protect our reputations through all legal remedies available to us.”
On X, formerly Twitter, Ravi Kahlon called Sturko’s complaint “false and desperate.”
“The housing company in question does not do work with government,” Kahlon posted.
Responded Sturko: “This isn’t a minor technicality—it’s potentially a direct conflict of interest that Kahlon is trying to sweep under the rug.”
Parm Kahlon was registered as a lobbyist in B.C. for the United Food and Commercial Workers Local 1518 while working as executive director from 2019 to 2023. She previously spent four years as an aide to Alberta NDP Premier Rachel Notley.
Parm Kahlon formed Core in May with Nikki Hill, a former NDP campaign manager and veteran Earnscliffe Strategy Group lobbyist, and Opreet Kang, an NDP patronage appointee to the Fraser Health board and elected member of the Vancity Credit Union Board.
On its website, Renewal described its business to save single family houses from demolition, by relocating and repurposing them “for communities in need.”
“We do this in partnership with Nickel Bros., one of the largest and most reputable moving companies in North America,” the website said.
One of its higher-profile jobs was the 2023 relocation of the 1912-built Henry Hudson Elementary schoolhouse from Kitsilano to a Squamish Nation reserve in North Vancouver, where it became a Squamish language learning centre.
Sturko’s allegations, on the way to the Oct. 19 election day, could shine more light on the evolution of lobbying under the NDP.
Elenore Sturko (left) with fellow Conservative candidate Tim Thielmann (X/Sturko)
After the NDP came to power in 2017, Premier John Horgan’s government banned corporate and union donations and capped individuals to giving $1,200-a-year, a rate that has risen with inflation.
Then-Attorney-General, now-Premier David Eby imposed a two-year, post-employment ban on lobbying by former senior provincial public office holders. But the law does not cover junior officials or former party officials. Nor does the B.C. government have its own code of ethics for lobbyists.
“Federally, there’s an ethics code, you can’t do anything to place the public officeholder in a real or apparent conflict of interest,” DemocracyWatch co-founder Duff Conacher said in a 2022 interview. “So it doesn’t matter how the conflict of interest is generated, just can’t do it. One of the things that generates conflict of interest is helping someone get elected.”
Early on, the NDP’s corporate fundraiser, Rob Nagai, left the party office to join Bluestone Group, the firm run by veteran BC Liberal lobbyist Mark Jiles.
Horgan speechwriter Danielle Dalzell quit to join Earnscliffe Strategy Group in April 2020, but returned to government as executive director of cabinet priorities in February 2023.
In 2022, ex-NDP president Craig Keating joined former party executive directors Michael Gardiner and Raj Sihota at Strategies 360.
Veteran lobbyist Jeffrey Ferrier was the Ministry of Health’s executive director of communications for almost a year, but joined Hill and Knowlton in 2022. He co-founded Framepoint Public Affairs in 2023 with longtime federal Liberal lobbyist Brittney Kerr.
Amanda van Baarsen, who was Minister of Health Adrian Dix’s senior aide, joined Counsel Public Affairs in 2022 as the associate vice-president for Western Canada. She was reunited with Jean-Marc Prevost, Dr. Bonnie Henry’s scriptwriter until he quit in early 2021, under Counsel partner and longtime NDP insider Brad Lavigne.
Liam Iliffe was an aide in Premier John Horgan’s office and government communications from 2017 to 2022. The husband of Horgan’s press secretary, Sheena McConnell, went to work for TC Energy, the company behind the Coastal GasLink pipeline to feed the LNG Canada plant in Kitimat.
He resigned from TC Energy in June after the Narwhal reported on a leaked video in which Iliffe outlined tactics to influence government decision-making.
Conacher said the NDP reforms did not go far enough, because there are still more loopholes than solid rules.
“They need to be turned into solid rules that prohibit people from giving an advantage and essentially selling access and information that they learned while they were supposedly serving the public,” Conacher said.
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