Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) Committee on May 31st, 2006

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

Thank you for your presentation.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Monsieur Sauvageau.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

Thank you for your presentation and your clarifications, Ms. Curtis.

I'm going to take a chance and ask a question on clause 35 in Bill C-2, since you seem very familiar with it and very well informed. I will start by reading you the proposed clause:

35. (1) No former reporting public office holder shall enter into a contract of service with, except an appointment to a board of directors of, or accept an offer of employment with, an entity with which he or she had direct and significant official dealings during the period of one year immediately before his or her last day in office.

That could mean for example, had this bill been in force, that Irwin Cotler, who was the Minister of Justice and Attorney General for Canada in the Liberal government, could not have practised as a lawyer anywhere, because, as Minister of Justice, he had been called upon to work directly with the courts or with various courts in making his decisions that resulted in amending the Criminal Code. Is that correct?

Therefore, this...

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Mr. Murphy, on a point of order.

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

Just on a point of order, do you think that's a little too precise? Let's just say “an ex-minister”.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You're absolutely right, Mr. Murphy.

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

Keep it hypothetical, like I did.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I'm going to agree with Mr. Murphy. He has a point. We have to avoid using names. So continue without using names.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

I think people just heard the name and jumped to a conclusion, because I did not say anything bad about Mr. Cotler. You should have listened to what I said before and after, and not just listened to the name.

My question is this. Could a Minister of Justice, for example, not be allowed to practise law, if he is a lawyer, after being defeated or resigning? I think that if people had listened to me correctly, they would have understood that I was defending the minister in question rather than accusing him of anything whatsoever. In my opinion, this definition is too restrictive.

Proposed clause 39 reads as follows:

39. (1) On application by a reporting public office holder [...] the Commissioner may waive or reduce any applicable period [...]

Do you think that could apply more generally? In other words, could the commissioner be given the power to reduce or waive the period in order to allow the public office holder to engage in lobbying or to work in his or her field after leaving their position? What do you think?

[Jenefer Curtis]

I don't think that should be in there at all. There should be a clear period of three years, for no matter who. With all due respect to somebody you're referring to, I don't think the commissioner should have the ability to make any exceptions.

When I made this presentation, I looked at all the loopholes and the exemptions. There should be none at all. With all due respect, people are not taking it seriously. They're saying, “You're saying five years, with all these different loopholes.” Well, that just waters it down completely. You say three years, with absolutely no loopholes whatsoever, and then you're taken seriously.

Let's face it. When people go into public life, they make great big sacrifices. They give up big salaries, they give up their other professions, and sometimes they go back and sometimes they don't. It's part of the sacrifice of public life. I really believe there shouldn't be any kind of exemption that the commissioner should be able to make.

[Benoît Sauvageau, Bloc, Repentigny, QC]

Thank you very much.

If, unfortunately, for whatever reason, the committee is prevented from amending the part of the bill on lobbyists and if the bill were to be passed as it is drafted at the moment, what would your worst fears be?

[Jenefer Curtis]

At the risk of sounding like somebody who endorses lobbyists, which I certainly don't entirely, I would be afraid that you would get people in the government and in the lobbying industry who frankly don't really want to be there and who are, as I said, not as capable and not as politically attuned to other people. You need some sense of tension there, and you need political people going back and forth.

My fear was that the flow of information and the understanding between industry and government would be decreased very much. That's basically the biggest fear I have.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

You have two and a half minutes, Madame Guay.

[Monique Guay, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Thank you. I will be very brief.

You are an independent journalist, Ms. Curtis. We have heard a lot of questions from organizations and companies regarding confidentiality. Under the bill, it would be possible for them to obtain some very personal information about their plans, even though they have files they themselves consider confidential and they do not want to reveal this information because of possible conflicts and competitivity considerations.

I would like to hear your views on this. I would just mention in passing that this applies even to journalists.

[Jenefer Curtis]

I'm going to speak to this not as journalist, but more as somebody specifically looking at lobbying.

I realize this came up in the GRIC presentation. I think it's actually a very good point, but I think it's trumped by the necessity to have some form of recording of meetings. As I said, I suggest you put them on the registry and that you don't put people's names on them but put a box for bureaucrats or non-political and a box for aides.

Especially with the case that was brought up with mergers and acquisitions--and that's the only case I can think of where this is relevant--I suggest that the people wait two weeks before they have to do this. I just think that lobbyists working on cases like that are going to have to be very careful. I don't necessarily think you should make an exemption. Exemptions make for diluted public policy. I feel that there were too many exemptions before and you just got into a mishmash of trying to make regulations. There are legal problems with that. I think you shouldn't make flat exemptions.

If they're going to be contacting public office holders for their particular events, it will encourage them to be very picky about which clients and which things they actually have to contact public office holders for. Maybe it will reduce the amount of insider lobbying that goes on. But I don't think there should be an exemption. Maybe we can extend that rule to two or three weeks, maybe a month, before they'd have to register those meetings so they have to proceed with caution. But I don't think they have that strong a case.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

Thank you.

Mr. Martin.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Thank you, Chair.

Thank you, Ms. Curtis.

I'm concerned about lobbyists. First of all, I'm not a big fan of lobbyists. I think lobbyists have bastardized democracy in the United States, and I don't like what I see with lobbyists here.

I don't meet with lobbyists. I have a rule that lobbyists don't get in my office and that's all there is to it. Having said that, I'm thinking in terms of those lobbyists who are there to advocate on behalf of a particular business or profit-making venture; I'm not really thinking of lobbyists who may be on the Hill for the Canadian Cancer Society or a non-profit NGO. I don't really categorize them.

I think the rules to put limitations on lobbyists have that other corporate lobbyist in mind. There have been egregious examples that have really turned Canadians off, such as the David Dingwall affair, where they're negotiating contingency fees to peddle influence.

[The Chair, Conservative, David Tilson]

I know it's tempting, but try to refrain from mentioning names.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Oh, yes. Okay. Thanks.

Well, for instance, without mentioning his name, three months after a former Minister of Indian Affairs ceased being the minister, he was a lobbyist on behalf of a bunch of first nations who were lobbying the Department of Indian Affairs. Can you imagine? That's so vile that it cries out for swift action.

Unfortunately, maybe there will be some collateral damage and other lobbyists will be duty-bound to stricter guidelines as a result of our efforts to curb the abuses that are taking place.

One question I have is with regard to an amendment we're thinking of. Would you agree that rules should be put in place where if a company is a lobbyist on an issue they should not be contracting to the government in another capacity at the same time?

[Jenefer Curtis]

You and I have spoken briefly about this. I have given this a lot of thought, because this is in my book. This is what I call the “hybrid syndrome”. There are certain lobby firms that have been in the media for this problem. I'll tell you right now that there's more than one firm that does this, so it is a big problem. What we're talking about is where you have part of the office that lobbies--usually these are big firms, because let's face it, they want to make as much money as they can, and government is a great place to get work--and the other half of the office does work for government, whether it be stakeholder management or strategic whatever. I mean, they have all sorts of names for it.

I've looked into this, and my suggestion here for an amendment.... You're saying you want to ban it?

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

Yes. It can be one or the other. Just like it can't be the auditor of a company who sells tax services at the same time because that's a conflict, I think it's a conflict to be contracting to the government and being a lobbyist to the government at the same time. We saw huge problems in the previous PMO where the revolving door between the lobby firm, the contracting firm, and actual people in the PMO was so offensive that Canadians recoiled with shock.

[Jenefer Curtis]

From an ethical point of view and a principle point of view, I agree with you entirely. If you can ban it, that's great. I've talked to a couple of lawyers about this. There are, for example, lawyers who do exactly the same thing. There are many, many law firms that are called on by government departments for their advice on particular issues, and at the same time, they're lobbying that department.

So you have to sort of look into--

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

That would be wrong, wouldn't it?

[Jenefer Curtis]

Well, the law firms can get around it because the Chinese wall idea started with law firms, because they were able to keep their conflicting clients and their different works. If you can get away with it and you can do it, if it's constitutionally okay, then I think that would be a good idea. I don't know if it would fly.

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

I don't think law firms should either. I used to be an organizer for a union, and I went to our lawyer one time to file our application to certify this company. It turns out he was the lawyer acting for the company I was trying to certify. That's an example that these things just shouldn't happen in law offices or lobby firms.

Chinese wall--I don't know where that term comes from.