Information & Ethics committee  It is good to have a team. It's great.

Information & Ethics committee  I did. Bruce Bergen is my legal counsel.

Information & Ethics committee  That's right. He did.

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of the member's question, under the act, it is a criminal offence. The act requires that if I consider there to be reasonable grounds, I must send the RCMP...

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Excuse me, Ms. Freeman, but sometimes it is easier for me to express myself in English. On the first question, concerning the powers, the difference in this act is that now the act states that I have the power to conduct investigations or examine offences under the act and the L

Information & Ethics committee  Those are 600 monthly communication reports. We verified about 6% of the 5,000 entries last year and found that more than 90% of them were accurate. The errors were more on wrong dates, spelling mistakes of the individual's name, or they were over-reporting in terms of, say, putt

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  The department is subject to the Access to Information Act and Privacy Act.

Information & Ethics committee  They could put in a request and we would go through the process of analyzing it. Because they are public office-holders, I would assume that some of the information would be permissible to give out. However, according to the Privacy Act, if the information is of a personal nature

Information & Ethics committee  Actually, that communications function, I'm pleased to say, is actually in place. Registrants can go in now. The way I view the Lobbying Act and the need to report on the monthly communications is that it should be as accurate as possible. If there have been communications that

Information & Ethics committee  It's more like factual errors, and that's what we're trying to correct. In terms of whether it's specific companies, I don't think we've noticed a trend at this point. That's something I can get back to the member on, if she's interested, Mr. Chair.

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of the process, we have a description on our website of the type of information we would like to see. When an application comes in for review, we will look at their past employment, résumés, whether they happen to know any information on their future employer, and so on.

Information & Ethics committee  That's my understanding.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.