Harper's Lobbying Regulations Going to Far?

Should secret lobbying be allowed in the federal government or not? This is one topic which Harper's government is clearly against, but may be overreacting to. Harper's attempts to put regulations in place related to limiting secret lobbying have upset many lobbyists (As reported in the Ottawa Citizen article Accountability Act draws ire of lobbyists).

While Harper's government is trying to achieve one of their main campaign promises, which came about because of the Liberal sponsorship scandal, they could be taking this too far. Harper's government laid out "five options to define the type of communication needing to be reported," ranging from very liberal to very strict.

However, these options do not seem to coincide with Harper's campaign promises which "require ministers and senior government officials to report their contacts with lobbyists."

Harper's desire to apply strict regulations on secret lobbying has greatly upset many lobbyists. When contacted about Harper's intentions, many of the lobbyists responded negatively. The general response by those who opposed the proposed regulations was that they only wasted time and money, and that they would "hinder the free-flow of information between stake holders and the government."

While I do believe that there should be stricter regulations put in place to limit the amount of secret lobbying, Harper's government does seem to be going to far. The main question to ask when dealing with this topic is whether or not the benefits of these regulations are greater than the time and money they could waste.