Evidence of meeting #5 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 39th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was lobbyist.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
For example, the communications director of a non-profit organization whose lobbying activities amount to less than 20% of his or her overall activities is not required to register.
Registrar of Lobbyists, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
However, if someone else in that company is also engaged in lobbying, we would have to look at the total number of hours of lobbying done by the company.
Bloc
Carole Lavallée Bloc Saint-Bruno—Saint-Hubert, QC
My second question is also a request for clarification. I went through these pages rather quickly. I don't know whether that was the right thing to do, but I do see time moving on.
There are examples where the statute and Code of Ethics were violated.
At present, are you considering complaints or negative comments submitted to you? Are any prosecutions under way? If so, what are the grounds on which they are based and what exactly is the issue?
Registrar of Lobbyists, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
Yes. We don't exactly receive a flood of complaints, but we do receive letters from time to time. In some cases, the letters are anonymous, but a number are signed and indicate that a given person or a given company is engaged in lobbying but is not registered. From time to time, we receive complaints about the behaviour of lobbyists who are former public employees. We note that they might be in violation of the Code of Ethics.
So there are indeed complaints, and Karen is responsible for following up with respect to the current legislation and Bill C-2.
In cases where the Code of Ethics has been violated, I am obliged to conduct an investigation and report to Parliament. There are 10 such cases under way at this time.
Bloc
Registrar of Lobbyists, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
There are 10 investigations currently under way.
Bloc
Registrar of Lobbyists, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
Previously, before the current system was put in place, there were no investigations under the legislation. So, we had none last year.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Not to drag this on, but you were talking about your information campaign and informing people of the act, etc. Have you been invited, for example, to address newly elected members of Parliament after an election? Have you thought of that? We were talking about it taking two to lobby and that this is complex legislation. For the vast majority of people, I would say it's not one of the top things on their agenda to know the Lobbyists Registration Act when they're trying to get elected.
Could I recommend to you that you think about inquiring with the people who arrange the orientation sessions for new members of Parliament to perhaps make a presentation or have your office make a presentation so that at least they're aware of it?
Similarly, have you spoken with senior deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers? Do you have little seminars with them? You mentioned the RCMP. Through the course they take in order to become RCMP officers, perhaps there'd be an opportunity for you to make some comments to them and bring the legislation to their attention as well.
Registrar of Lobbyists, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
I agree completely.
The current act is totally silent on any obligations whatsoever for the registrar to do this, so it's sort of volunteer work that we've been doing. It's very hard to get money from Treasury Board if you don't have something explicit in your legislation that says you're supposed to do it.
That's one of the reasons I find the Bill C-2 wording is helpful, because when you go to the Treasury Board folks, they say, “So, Michael, are you supposed to be doing this? It doesn't say anywhere in your act you're supposed to be doing this. Why aren't you just in your office taking registrations?” It will be very helpful to have language that says explicitly that the commissioner has to go out and do this. I agree with you completely.
Although those types of audiences are drinking out of a fire hydrant at the time--there's a lot to learn--it at least exposes them to this idea, and if we can leave some print publications behind or links to our website, I think those are absolutely the right things to do, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Tom Wappel
Excellent.
Sorry to hold us up, but let's try to get through the deck. I think we were on page 14.
Director of Operations, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
Thank you, Mr. Chairman.
If you are interested in figures, you can turn to page 14, where you will find a breakdown, by category, of currently registered lobbyists. I should tell you at the outset that the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists keeps two kinds of statistics: the number of registrations and the number of lobbyists.
As we explained a few moments ago, a single registration entry from a corporation or a non-profit organization may contain a number of names. We might have a company registered with the name of 15 lobbyists. The converse holds too: a consultant-lobbyist may have 20 clients—in other words, there might be 20 different registration entries for a given lobbyist. To add to the confusion, we should bear in mind that a lobbyist can, depending on his or her category, have more or fewer registration entries.
I think we should also know that we now have over 5,000 lobbyists. In fact, 5,100 lobbyists are registered. That is a high number. For comparison's sake, there are some 500 in Quebec. So there are ten times more lobbyists registered at the federal level. To be precise, there are 6,950 registry entries, a very high number as well. This is because a single lobbyist may register a number of times.
I have provided these details for your information. If you have no further questions, I will give Karen the floor .
Registrar of Lobbyists, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
Before passing over to Karen Shepherd, I would like to mention one of the factors that have contributed to the delay in getting registrations. One year ago we had fewer than 2,000 registrations and lobbyists. Now in some categories we have ten times that number of lobbyists.
Go ahead, Karen.
Karen Shepherd Director of Investigations, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
The purpose of the lobbyists code of conduct is to assure the Canadian public that, as we've talked about, lobbying is done ethically and with the highest of standards, with a view to conserving and enhancing public confidence in the integrity and impartiality of government decision-making.
As Michael mentioned, the code came into force in 1997 and complements the registration requirements of the act. It is developed and enforced by the registrar. The code establishes the mandatory conduct for all the lobbyists communicating with federal public office holders. The principles of the code set out in positive terms the goals and objectives to be obtained without establishing precise standards.
The rules, on the other hand, set out specific obligations and requirements. As you can see from the slide, there are three categories. Under the rule of transparency--and we've been talking about that a little bit this afternoon--there's an obligation on the lobbyist to provide accurate information to the public office holder, to disclose the identity of the person or organization on whose behalf the representation is being made, as well as the purpose of the representation.
They must also disclose to their clients, employers, or organizations their requirements under the Lobbyists Registration Act and under the code itself. Under the rule of confidentiality, lobbyists can neither divulge information nor use insider information to the disadvantage of their clients, their employers, or their organizations.
And finally, under the rule of conflict of interest, lobbyists are not to use improper influence nor to represent conflicting or competing interests without the consent of their clients.
There are two series of penalties under the act. The first relates to breaches of registration and disclosure requirements, and we've been talking about that again this afternoon in terms of disclosing complete and timely information or false declarations. If the registrar concludes that there are sufficient grounds within the two-year period, the registrar would refer the file to the RCMP.
The second relates to breaches of the code of conduct dealing, as I've just mentioned, with integrity, honesty, openness, and professionalism. There are no fines or jail terms for breaches of the code. However, the results of investigations must be concluded by the registrar and must be tabled before both houses of Parliament. Investigations as per section 10.4 of the act are to be conducted in private. Once the registrar concludes the investigation, that's when the results would be put into a report and tabled. As Michael mentioned, there are currently ten investigations under way.
The Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists provides the registrar with the authority to issue the advisory and interpretation bulletins. While they're not legally binding, they do indicate how the registrar intends to enforce the act. What's interesting is that we've all been using the 20% this afternoon. The 20% is not in the act but is rather in an interpretation bulletin and has been gradually accepted over time by the lobbying community as the customary definition of significant part of duties.
There are no specific requirements to issue x number of bulletins in a year, but as the registrar determines that there is a need, either from the number of questions we're receiving in the office or because of clarification issues, we will issue bulletins to address those sections of the act.
The registrar must submit a report for both the LRA and the code within three months of the end of the fiscal year to the President of the Treasury Board, who must then table them in both houses on any of the first fifteen days in which the House is sitting. The contents of the report vary each year but generally contain the same sorts of items, such as a message from the registrar, a description of the activities related to the act and the code respectively, statistics, and a summary of the enforcement activity.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Ms. Shepherd, we were told a year ago there were eight investigations under way. Is that part of the ten, or are these ten more?
Director of Investigations, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
Those are part of the ten.
Conservative
Director of Investigations, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
Four investigative reports have been submitted to the registrar.
The act requires that the person who is alleged to have breached be provided with sufficient opportunity. We are currently at that stage.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
Those investigations were under way about a year ago. When do you expect that they will be reported to Parliament? I think it was October. I don't know how long the investigations have been under way, but we were told when you saw us—I think it was October of 2005—that there were eight.
Director of Investigations, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
On those four, we are currently in the process of waiting for the person in question to have the reasonable opportunity to present their views on the allegations. Once that is done, the registrar will take that into consideration and the report will be finalized.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
I guess all I'm looking at is that this all took place over a year ago. Is that going to be the practice, that it will take a year to process these investigations?
Registrar of Lobbyists, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists
I could speak to that.
I initiated eight of them in October. We actually managed to hire our first investigator. As you recall, the office was at about three people last year. We managed to hire our first investigator in January, so it did take us a while to get rolling. We now have three investigators, and my hope is that we'll be able to move the investigations a lot faster. That's for sure.
With respect to the four that are under way, they are done in private. You know we can't talk about the details, but I can certainly tell you that we had given the lobbyist in question—because it's one lobbyist for four investigations—until the end of September to get back to us. If the lobbyist doesn't get back to us with what I am obligated to ask him about, then I'll be tabling my report shortly after that. It's important for me to get some evidence out there that something is going on.
Conservative
David Tilson Conservative Dufferin—Caledon, ON
You know the expression, Mr. Nelson, justice delayed is justice denied.