Information & Ethics Committee on April 30th, 2026

[Ian Stedman]

I think it's important to recognize, too, that when these laws are put in place, we often don't know what's coming down the pipeline. They get stress-tested every once in a while when something new happens. We saw that when Trump took office. The American laws were stress-tested quite a bit. Right now we have a situation with a Prime Minister who has holdings we've never seen before. We're getting an opportunity to look at what we've done and what we've put in place and to ask ourselves whether it's fit for purpose when the purposes are changing.

That's not a bad thing. That's what this project of legislative enactment is about. That's why you're here. Your job is to continually tweak around the edges so that you can keep up with the times and be ahead of things. I don't think anything has failed. This is just a great opportunity to look at what we have and ask whether we've learned something.

What can we do to make sure we have the right tools in place so that we're not blindsided in the future?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

I agree with that. Thank you so much.

I just want to note that when lobbying occurs, obviously, as members of Parliament, we have stakeholders and lobbyists asking for meetings all the time. We can become very busy with those meetings. There's an exchange happening. There's giving and receiving of information.

Would it be important for MPs to also identify when they've been lobbied?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have about 25 seconds to respond.

[Lori Turnbull]

I don't think it's a bad thing. It's a question of workload for the commissioner and whether she can keep up with it.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Stedman, you have 10 seconds.

[Ian Stedman]

I agree. I think it's a matter of where you want to put the burden and who has the resources to shoulder that burden.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

Mr. Kelloway, you're next for five minutes. Go ahead.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Thank you, Chair.

It's great to be here. This is my first time at ethics committee. It may be my last—you never know—as I'm subbing in for MP Chagger.

I really appreciate the testimony. Often when I hear from witnesses, I take questions and put them aside when something really tweaks my interest in the opening remarks. There were actually many things today, but I have only a limited amount of time.

Dr. Turnbull, you mentioned in your testimony “post-employment rules”. Can I follow up on some of the comments you wanted to make around post-employment rules?

Then I'll go to Professor Stedman for a question as well.

[Lori Turnbull]

Sure. The post-employment phase is when a person is leaving their role as a designated public office holder and they're now going into a new world. It depends on what they want to do. They may go into a retirement phase. They may want to engage in a different kind of work. If they do, what will that look like, and what restrictions are on them?

The point of the post-employment restrictions is to make sure that the public interest is protected. If you have somebody leaving, such as a cabinet minister who wasn't re-elected, they've gone from having this very powerful role inside government to being a private citizen. If we put restrictions on them, and we do, they should be appropriate. They should be there to protect the public interest. To me, they should not be any heavier than that, to the point where you're discouraging people from wanting to enter public office because they don't know what they're going to do after their career on the public side is over. Of course, the restrictions apply to not just ministers. They apply to staff and to people inside the public service as well. Again, we have those things there for a reason.

I think probably, if we look around at the countries we typically compare ourselves with, Canada is actually quite robust in our restriction of the post-employment phase. Even going back to some of the comments about the American jurisdiction, their emphasis, it seems to me, is on disclosure. Do what you're going to do, but tell people about it. Then it's up to the public to map on to see if you've done anything wrong, whereas—

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

It's the type of thing that's in the moment—

[Lori Turnbull]

Right.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

—as opposed to after the fact. That's interesting.

[Lori Turnbull]

Yes, but it's up to the public to say that they don't like what you're doing, and to react to that, as opposed to saying that the laws prevent you from doing this. Part of the issue they came up with is that Donald Trump, when he came in the first time, decided he wasn't going to disclose; a whole bunch of people decided they weren't going to disclose either, and then...oof. You don't want to make rules around that.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Totally, and that's totally a different topic altogether, in terms of Mr. Trump.

Professor Stedman, I really liked your testimony as well and your answers to the questions in terms of a common-sense, balanced approach. Fundamentally, at the core of this is influence. It can be money, but it's influence.

I think about my home riding of Cape Breton and Sydney—Glace Bay. We talked about it before testimony. I'm thinking not so much of the bankers or the financiers who may come to government—God bless them; we need them. I'm also thinking of the not-for-profit world that I come from. I deal with a lot of not-for-profits in Cape Breton and, in fact, across the country.

In terms of the balance and the common-sense approach, I'm wondering what your perspective is on how best to handle that in terms of making sure that if we go forward with recommendations, it's covered in a very balanced way.

A second piece is around putting rules in place for the not-for-profits. It's often said that culture drives the strategy. In terms of rules or laws, do you think there's a time period when not-for-profits in particular would need to learn about the new rules and whether they are applied? I think that a lot of folks in the not-for-profit world don't have that capacity, but they would need to get that capacity, if that makes sense.

[Ian Stedman]

Many not-for-profits are already subject to these rules. The question then is, if you're going to lower the registration threshold so that everyone registers, do you do the same for a not-for-profit?

I completely sympathize with that. I live within the rare disease space in another part of my life and patient groups form as not-for-profits. They have no choice but to lobby to find answers to the things that they are dealing with. I have a lot of sympathy for that question.

I think the solution might be that you keep a threshold for some exceptions. For those not-for-profits that are doing health-related, individual charity work or small not-for-profits—whatever the threshold is that you will decide upon—you could say that there is a baseline number of hours that they would have to meet within their organization before they're required to register. You could keep the current rules in place for those smaller players because of the value of having them not waste their time on an administrative burden. I guess that's one way of putting it.

[Mike Kelloway, Liberal, Sydney—Glace Bay, NS]

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I have two minutes for Mr. Hardy and then Ms. Nathan to tie a bow around this.

Mr. Hardy, you have the floor for two minutes.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

I'm really happy. That's a very good question about non-profit organizations.

Yes, we have seen that there's a good side, as in everything. People lobby for the right reasons. In other cases, we can sometimes see the problems coming.

Let us talk about a situation that happened here. The Prime Minister met with Brookfield's chief operating officer in his office, without triggering the ethical screen. However, the purpose of the meeting was to discuss a non-profit organization. It's as if it were for another reason.

How can laws ensure that people don't circumvent the rules by taking cover under the umbrella of another rule that says they don't have to declare certain things? How can we be truly sure that the systems in place are being used properly?

We need to help non-profit organizations; we agree on that. However, this rule shouldn't ultimately become a way to circumvent the Lobbying Act.

What do you think?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have a minute to respond to that.

[Lori Turnbull]

Yes, I agree with that.

That's why I come from the perspective of when in doubt, register. Just say it. That way, the net catches everything. It doesn't mean that, whatever's going on, there's something bad and that's the reason you need to report it—not at all. It's just a question—

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

I'll go back to my question, but the other way around. You often tell us that people act in good faith, but if someone circumvents the rules in bad faith, they won't voluntarily register. They will want to avoid anyone finding out that they misused a law.

Do you understand? That's what I want to avoid.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

You have 30 seconds.

[Lori Turnbull]

How can you force someone to register if they don't want to?

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

We need laws that can cover that. That's the point. People who misuse processes, that's what we want to avoid.