Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on May 29th, 2006

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

It's a good question, but it needs to be brief.

[Brian Murphy, Liberal, Moncton—Riverview—Dieppe, NB]

If a lobbyist was in the opposition office, don't you think that's a good model to follow? If an opposition EA has knowledge of something--he may not have knowledge of everything--should he be precluded from working? Chinese walls, Martin v. Gray—I'm talking to the lawyers here--could it work?

Thank you.

[Chris Benedetti]

Thank you very much for the question. I think it raises a good point.

Just to reiterate, the Public Affairs Association, and certainly our practitioners, very much embrace the requirements for transparency and openness. Indeed, in most jurisdictions across the country we have to abide by those rules, as it now stands, and we are certainly looking at ways to work with government to make them better.

One of the concerns we have in going forward is that the spectre of inappropriate behaviour is cast over the entire profession. I can tell you as a practitioner that we embrace any change that will ensure that conflicts and inappropriate behaviour are dealt with, and that the rules of the game are well understood by all parties so we can all work in a field where merit rules the day, and not some sort of inappropriate sense of access. Right now, 99.999% of the industry operates that way in very much of a reciprocal fashion, working with government as a bridge between the public and private sectors. We hope this bill will embrace that as well and will enable us to work more effectively to weed out the bad apples.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Ms. Flis, gentlemen, thank you very much for coming. I think the fact that we went well beyond the time shows the committee's interest in what you had to say. We thank you very much.

The meeting is adjourned until six o'clock in this room.