Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Thank you, witnesses.
This is an open question to each of you. I'm very concerned about the type of communication and reporting. To people out there, to our stakeholders, the word "lobbyist" hasn't got a clear meaning, and it probably has a pejorative one. Thank goodness I'm a lawyer and a politician, because I know how to deal with pejoratives daily.
I think people in the country are wise enough to know that talking to your MP, your mayor, or your city councillor on the steps after church, at a hockey game, or in the supermarket is a form of lobbying. It's just done by private citizens who vote.
What has been done in the past in the Lobbyist Registration Act is to keep this lobbying—politicking, if you like—when it's for remuneration, which none of us deny, in the open: make it transparent. That's what you, as professionals, are all about.
My concern is that by making these amendments to the Lobbyist Registration Act—in fact, just calling it the Lobbying Act, which is the amendment--we will significantly cut down on the legitimate type of communication that can take place.
In the Ottawa Citizen yesterday, Prime Minister Harper may have been a guest at the CFL before he was Prime Minister; Carol Skelton was at the Grey Cup as well, for Telus; and Jay Hill was there, or somewhere, for Bell Canada. Who is to say they weren't just talking about the hockey, baseball, or whatever?
Do you envisage that if the Prime Minister or Mr. Poilievre or Mr. Tonks goes to a hockey or football game--I bet you there won't be too much of that, by the way--and they pay for their own ticket and their own drinks and refreshments, but there is a pre-arranged discussion or phone call, is all of the discussion reportable that takes place at a hockey game or at the bottom of church steps, if you happen to bump into your MP, even though you're a paid lobbyist but working on a file?
How will that stultify the public process? I'm not going to say that it's easy to sell this if it's Exxon trying to drill holes in the north of the country, as much as if it's the Sierra Club saving some birds on the east coast. I mean, it's a laudable goal. How much is it going to hinder you, when I presume these things are in process, if you have to put down every detail of a discussion and report it, as required?
How much will that hinder your job, Mr. Duguay?