Corporations doing business with the City of Vancouver won’t be able to prematurely hire senior city staff if mayoral candidate Kennedy Stewart is elected.

Stewart plans to bring in new rules similar to those used at federal and provincial government levels to prevent the private sector business working with the City of Vancouver from hiring senior staff in a cooling-off period of 12 months following the staffer’s departure from city hall. These rules are part of plan to make dealings between private firms and senior city officials more transparent.

“Senior civil servants have valuable knowledge and relationships that can potentially create unfair and profitable advantage for their new private sector employers, simply because of the position they currently occupy with the city,” said Stewart.