Earlier this month, the British Columbia Business Council appointed former provincial Liberal candidate and deputy minister Virginia Greene as its president and chief executive. But wait a minute. Ms. Greene resigned as the province's deputy minister of intergovernmental relations on June 29. So won't it be difficult to fulfill her duties at the council when she is prohibited from lobbying "or otherwise make representations for any outside entity to any ministry or organization of the government in which you were employed at any time during the year immediately preceding the termination of your employment?" Not all, says Ms. Greene.

The reason: in an interview with Public Eye, she explained "in practical terms the business council and intergovernmental relations don't have a lot of interactions - one with the other. The relationship has tended to be - and certainly in my year in IGR we had no substantial dealings with one another at all - the dealings tend to be directly with line ministries rather than intergovernmental relations" - the one organization she can't lobby.

But wouldn't she need to speak with intergovernmental relations about deals like the Trade, Investment and Labour Mobility Agreement? "Well, the lead ministry in the case of TILMA is economic development. So we've tended, as I say, to deal directly with the ministries that have had the lead on various files. And if there were to be a circumstance like that, then I personally would not be involved in it until the one year time was up," responded Ms. Greene.