Information & Ethics Committee on May 19th, 2022

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

I call this meeting to order.

Welcome to the 23rd meeting of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Pursuant to Standing Order 81(4), the committee is considering, from the main estimates 2022-23, vote 1 under the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, vote 1 under the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, vote 1 under the Office of the Senate Ethics Officer, and votes 1 and 5 under the Offices of the Information and Privacy Commissioners of Canada, referred to the committee on Tuesday, March 1, 2022.

Before I welcome our witness, I'll say a couple of words.

My apologies to Commissioner Bélanger for getting this meeting going a bit late. A colleague announced his intention to resign from the House of Commons and was making a statement in the House, and I wanted to give members an opportunity to be present for that. That's why we're starting late.

We do have some committee business that we need to attend to at the end of the meeting. We had scheduled half an hour, but I don't think we need that long. I'm going to play it by ear a bit and see how we make out with questions for Commissioner Bélanger. We'll see how many rounds we need to have to get out all the questions that members may have, and then we will proceed in camera to discuss committee business.

With that, I would now like to welcome our witness. From the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, we have Nancy Bélanger, Commissioner of Lobbying.

Ms. Bélanger, you have up to five minutes for your opening statement.

[Nancy Bélanger, Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members.

I am very pleased to be here today to meet many of you for the first time and to speak to you about the work of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

The Lobbying Act recognizes that lobbying is a legitimate activity that should be transparent.

The Lobbyists' Code of Conduct ensures that lobbyists meet the highest ethical standards. Together, they aim to foster public confidence in federal decision-making.

This past year was another busy one for the three areas of my mandate.

The first is to maintain the Registry of Lobbyists. As the main tool for enabling transparency, the registry provides information about who is communicating with public officials and about what subjects. When individual consultants, corporations, and organizations lobby federal organizations, they must file a public registration. In 2021-22, there were over 8,000 lobbyists registered.

A report of certain oral and arranged communications with designated public office holders must also be completed on a monthly basis. Last year, there were approximately 25,000 communications. The top subject matters for the year were health, economic development and the environment.

The second aspect of my mandate is to raise awareness of the lobbying regime. This past year, we gave about 80 virtual presentations reaching more than 1,300 stakeholders, who now understand better the requirements of the act and code.

The final aspect of my mandate is to ensure compliance. We investigate allegations of non-compliance with the act and the code. A preliminary assessment is undertaken to investigate the nature of the alleged contravention and to gather some information. If I determine that further action is required to ensure compliance, I continue the investigation. When I complete an investigation under the code, I must table a report to Parliament.

Non-compliance with obligations under the act is an offence. When I investigate and have reasonable grounds to believe that such an offence has occurred, I must refer the matter to the RCMP and suspend my investigation until it has completed its process. Once this has occurred, I can cease the investigation or complete it and report to Parliament.

Last year, in addition to the preliminary assessments that were carried over from the previous year, we initiated 22 and determined that no further action was required in 14. In addition, we finalized five investigations carried over from previous years, including one report to Parliament and one referral to the RCMP. At the beginning of this fiscal year, we had 32 ongoing files.

I also decide whether to grant former designated public office holders an exemption from the five-year prohibition on lobbying when they leave office. Of the nine applications, I granted two and denied three. Two were withdrawn and two remain to be reviewed. Once granted, the exemptions are published on the office's website.

All of this work and the necessary corporate functions are performed by a very small team of about 28 employees. I want this committee to know how very proud I am of all my staff as they continue to excel during a period that has undoubtedly been challenging to us all, demonstrating adaptability, resolve and compassion.

Last November, we received additional annual funding of approximately $590,000 to increase our personnel by five employees to ensure that the registry and other IM/IT systems remain modern, secure and accessible. We have recently staffed three of those five positions.

My total budget is now approximately $5.2 million, including employee benefit payments. About $4 million of this allocation goes to salaries and benefits, leaving an operating budget of $1.2 million. About $630,000 of that amount is spent to obtain services such as HR and financial from other government institutions.

Looking ahead, I remain available should a parliamentary review of the Lobbying Act be undertaken. As you may know, I submitted a report with 11 preliminary recommendations to improve the Lobbying Act.

I will also share with you a renewed Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct. The revised code will bring a new level of clarity to the standards of behaviour expected of lobbyists. I have undertaken two phases of consultations and I expect to do one more round in the near future, before finalizing the code for your review.

Mr. Chair and committee members, those are my opening remarks. I will now gladly answer your questions.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Thank you.

The first questions will come from Mr. Kurek, for up to six minutes.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you, Madam Commissioner, for your attendance here today. I appreciate it.

Let me just note how important it is, especially when it comes to trust in our institutions from the Canadian people, to ensure that there is a transparent, fulsome and understood lobbying regime in our country. I appreciate the role that you play in that.

I have a practical question first. I'm being mindful of the time. In terms of the workload over the course of the pandemic, was it something that you saw increased in lobbying efforts or challenges with reporting? In about a minute or so, could you outline what the ebbs and flows were during the course of COVID?

[Nancy Bélanger]

I could be very quick: It definitely increased.

Monthly communication reports before the pandemic were about 18,000 for the year—mind you, it was an election year. During the pandemic, there were 28,000 oral communications. That, in and of itself, was an increase. We saw an increase of active registrations.

Now, everything was done virtually. Of course, oral and arranged communications.... If it's arranged in advance and it's virtual, it must be reported, so automatically the virtual world increased those oral and arranged communications. You had to plan the Zoom call. It was not something that was spontaneous on the corner of the street, which, I think, had an impact as well. For sure, there was a lot of lobbying happening.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Did you notice any specific trends, outside of Zoom? Were there any specific trends in terms of—

[Nancy Bélanger]

Not in the oral communications.

With respect to the subject matter, health had never really been in the top two or three, and obviously it became the top two or three. Economic development was always in the top four or five, but it became the top one or two.

There was a trend in subject matter and a trend in, obviously, oral and arranged communications.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Thank you very much for that.

Madam Commissioner, in terms of helping to make sure that Canadians understand both your role and the role that the Lobbying Act has in ensuring that there is a high level of transparency, because of course, when there are incidents, as we have seen from time to time.... What efforts do you and your office undertake to ensure that Canadians are aware of your efforts and the work you do?

[Nancy Bélanger]

First of all, we deal with stakeholders on a daily basis, so those who want to register, or think they need to register, are calling us regularly. In the last year, I think we had 5,000 emails and phone calls to get help to register.

With respect to awareness, we're actually going to be working on a stakeholder engagement plan in this coming year. I find that because of the resources we have, we are much more reactive. We do go out. We speak to universities. We talk to organizations. We talk to public office holders. They understand our role. We're mainly talking to lobbyists, but we could do a lot better, and I do think that we need to start.... I don't want to say “travelling”, because it's not the right thing to say to do right now, but for sure we need to step up our engagement. Right now, it's a resource issue.

We've actually increased our international presence during the pandemic. I've done many presentations at the international level, which was really permitted because of the virtual world. We're continuing to work hard to increase our presence on social media, a little bit on our Twitter account and the Internet.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I appreciate that, but specifically.... Within Ottawa and the national capital region, those who are connected within policy and political circles will understand the work that you do, but in terms of somebody who has an intent to lobby the government, or who simply wants to learn about the process to ensure there is transparency, are there tools that you have provided, or steps? For someone who isn’t engaged in decision-making or the lobbying itself, or, say, who hasn't lobbied before but wants to engage in that process, what steps have you taken?

[Nancy Bélanger]

First of all, Canada is a big country. There is lobbying happening in all of your constituencies, so I'm relying on you to help me in that area. For sure, we do have work to do in getting out there in the community, but apart from the fact that we continue to.... We do issue products. We do have documents that we provide to people, but very often they reach out to us, or we see a lot of things going on in the media, so I can tell you that it's targeted outreach. When we see that someone is communicating with any of you and they're not on the registry, we follow up, so we do advise people, but unless I know what I don't know, it's difficult. The resources to start doing a full-blown outreach program....

It's difficult, but I'm working on that. That is my objective in the next year.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I appreciate that.

I think my time is almost done, but I would just note that in the report that was provided to us—which, after some clarification, you provided to the committee during the second session of the last Parliament—one of the recommendations was regarding foreign lobby efforts, and I certainly think.... That's something I would just note so that it's on the record, Mr. Chair. I know there's probably no time to answer the question, but it's an important thing.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

You're out of time, and if there was a question there, there's no time to answer it.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

I would simply note that.

[The Chair, Conservative, Pat Kelly]

Okay. You have done so.

Now we go to Ms. Hepfner.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Thank you very much to the witness for the testimony today, and thank you to my colleague for starting my clock for me.

I want to go back a bit. You talked a little bit about the pandemic and how you saw an increase in requests for service, and you saw different types of requests. I'm wondering if there's more to add about how your commission was able to respond. What were the challenges in terms of remote work and pivoting to meet the demands within your own department during the pandemic?

[Nancy Bélanger]

I have to say that I was extremely impressed by how our team responded. For the most part, it was because we were already equipped. We had just moved into a new location, in May 2019, fully “3.0”, I'll call it. As far as I'm concerned, we had all the tools to be able to do our work remotely. On that Friday, March 13, I just told people, “Bring your things home, because we don't know what's going to happen.” So they were really able to pivot and continue the work.

In terms of our client services team, we have a service standard where we respond to telephone calls within 30 seconds. Those who had kids at home really had to adjust, and they did it. We continued to meet our service standards. I'm in awe of them. We somehow functioned and we did it. We're all tired, but we all did it. Everybody's tired. I get that. People were able to adapt and they continued to work hard.

At the beginning, up until October, we weren't allowed to see anybody because of the bandwidth. Everything was by Zoom but without the camera. It became a little frustrating. We were eventually able to see each other at some point. The personal aspect was tough, because we're small. We're 25 people. Families are bigger than that. We get to know everyone.

So that was a bit of a challenge, but somehow we got it done.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

I can tell that you're very proud of your team.

[Nancy Bélanger]

I really am.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Where are you at now? Are people back in the office or are they still working remotely?

[Nancy Bélanger]

I asked everyone to come back one day a week as of the beginning of April. It's been wonderful. People are getting to connect. We had hired three people, I think, during the pandemic who were supervising others and had never met in person, so that's been a very good thing. I'm in the office pretty much every day. I'm here. I need to see people.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

Let me take you in a little bit of a different direction. You mentioned 11 recommendations you had for changes to the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct. Can you go over those for us a little bit, or over the most important ones? We have about four minutes left. I'd like to hear what you think are the most important changes that we need to see in the act.

[Nancy Bélanger]

There are 11 recommendations. I tabled a report to this committee in February 2021. Those 11 recommendations are preliminary. They're really to enhance transparency and fix the gaps. They're all important. I don't believe in band-aids. I think we need to have an integrated approach to changes to the Lobbying Act.

The biggest irritant—we have seen it in the media, and lobbyists agree with this—is the significant part of duty threshold before an organization needs to register.

The code of conduct is not the 11 recommendations. We're redoing the code of conduct. I've done two consultations, because I have to do consultations with stakeholders. A third consultation should go out next week. Then I have an obligation to submit that new code of conduct to you for your review, which I'm hoping to do in the near future.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Hamilton Mountain, ON]

What sorts of things are you hearing from stakeholders that we should hear about?

[Nancy Bélanger]

For certain, the significant part of duty threshold is difficult for organizations and corporations to figure out. It's about 30 hours in a month, cumulative, of all their employees who do lobbying. It's hard for them, especially for organizations that are spread across the country. Sometimes they will register even if they don't meet the threshold, just to ensure that they don't run afoul of the law, because it is an offence.

It's difficult for me to then enforce as to whether or not somebody really did 30 hours in a month. It's a lot of work to figure that out. There really should be transparency by default, as far as I'm concerned. That's one of the biggest irritants for the community that I think this committee needs to be aware of. It needs to be a priority when there's a Lobbying Act review.