TORONTO - The governing Liberals are vowing to stop public dollars from being spent on lobbyists.
Health Minister Deb Matthews says she'll introduce a bill that would ban the practice after the Ontario legislature comes back from a week-long break.
She wouldn't say whether the ban would apply just to hospitals, or all institutions that receive taxpayer money.
The proposed legislation comes after opposition parties hammered the government for two straight days on lobbyists.
After disclosing that 14 hospitals have hired lobbyists, the New Democrats revealed today that nine colleges and universities have been spending close to $1 million on lobbyists.
They include Laurentian University, which had a contract worth $102,000, and Toronto's York University, which had three contracts totalling close to $500,000.
The University of Ontario Institute of Technology also has a lobbyist contract worth up to $130,000, according to documents obtained by the NDP under freedom-of-information laws.
Colleges and Universities Minister John Milloy says the schools have no reason to hire lobbyists and that spending public funds on lobbyists is not acceptable.
