Information & Ethics Committee on Sept. 18th, 2006

[Michael Nelson]

And that some aggressive commissioner might want to review the next time the act comes around.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Indeed, because if it's in the act, it's a different matter.

[Michael Nelson]

Yes.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

The last question I'd like to ask comes directly from my briefing notes. I'd like to read it:

In your 27 October 2005 appearance before this Committee you indicated that you would like Parliament to study the possibility of having the registrar impose fines under the Act rather than sending all suspected breaches to the RCMP for prosecution.

That was in your slide.Justice Gomery in his 1 February 2006 report also recommended that the Registrar have the ability to both investigate and prosecute....

What do you say now?

[Michael Nelson]

What was behind my thinking at the time, to refer to what Mr. Tilson said just a while ago, was justice denied. It's the lack of immediacy that was in the act at the time, the ability to actually see something and not send it into some investigative process--as you know, the RCMP have their procedures and their processes--that would take an awfully long time. So if one were going to make one small move forward, that would be one of the ideas.

There are problems with administrative fine regimes as well. How do you decide who gets the $1,000 fine and who gets the $40,000 fine? Will these just be passed on to the client, and thus on to the taxpayer? These things went through my mind.

You know, it's not about the money. I would be just as happy in the future, the next time the act comes around...because I think there's already enough in it. Having seen what happened with the last set of amendments, that they caused in some cases--these are the ones that came in during 2005--an tenfold increase in some of the registrations, I'm wary of making too many changes at the same time.

It's the ability to just name people who have been bad actors, who are on the edge of infractions, who aren't saying, “I'm never going to register,” but who are messing around for two months. I'm not saying a lot of people do this, but you can obscure justice by just not registering, or not providing complete information. It's what Pierre was talking about earlier, where people say, “Well, I'll just fill in these parts.” We say that it's not good enough to just say “procurement”. If you're going after procurement of the new replacement for such-and-such piece of equipment--and this is not a real case--that's what we want on the registry. The game begins, and it takes another month or so before the registration goes up.

I'd like to be able to name those people, because sending them to the RCMP.... The RCMP, with all of the important things that we know the RCMP has to pursue, will say, “Come on; you're after us because somebody has messed around for a couple of months with the registry?”

So that's what was in my mind. I was thinking, isn't there some more immediate way? Maybe fines is one way to do that, but it's not about the money. At this time, having now seen everything that is in Bill C-2, and knowing what will be required to implement those regulations, I wouldn't want to slow down the process of whatever Parliament decides by adding an administrative fines regime right now.

That's what was behind my thinking. It is very frustrating to me to not have any evidence out there that there are consequences for not paying attention to this act.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you.

We'll go to Mr. Wallace, and then we'll give you an opportunity to draw your remarks to a conclusion.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

I'll be very quick.

One, just on your last comment, I like the concept that you're able to deregister somebody, to kick them out of here. I don't know if you have that ability, but maybe in the future you will.

I ask this question as a backbencher, as a new member of Parliament. You alluded to it earlier, but could you tell me, what is my actual responsibility when the president of a local pharmaceutical company comes to see me in my office in the summertime?

[Michael Nelson]

There is no responsibility in the act, but my advice to all public office holders--to you, of course, because you've asked--is that there is a risk in dealing with an unregistered lobbyist. If someone is coming to you and they are clearly representing someone else's interests, or even if they're working for a company and they're the director of communications, perhaps you could have your assistant check on the registry before they come over. See if you can find them on the registry. See if they're registered to talk to you about what they're coming to talk to you about. If they aren't, there may be consequences with that.

Again, as I was saying earlier, it's a risk management issue for public office holders.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

That registry is on your website?

[Michael Nelson]

Yes, and we're trying to make it as friendly as possible. Just last week we had some journalists in, doing a session to try to make it more searchable, more “Google-able”, if you will, because right now it's not as good as it should be. But yes, it's on the website.

That's my advice.

[Mike Wallace, Conservative, Burlington, ON]

Okay, I appreciate that advice.

Thank you, Mr. Chairman.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you.

The floor is yours, Mr. Nelson.

[Michael Nelson]

First of all, let me thank you once again. As I said to Mr. Peterson earlier, in the rather odd situation I'm in of being a public servant who never talks to his minister, coming to these meetings is as close to being with my boss as I get. So I really appreciate the ability to come here and I appreciate the comments and the constructive criticism about the operation of the office, because it's very important to me and it's important to my staff.

In terms of moving forward, as you'll see in my RPP, which will be the very first and perhaps the last, because the next could be a different office, strategically there are three pillars I think this office and this function needs to move forward on.

First, the registry is our outreach. It's in an era when you can Google just about anything and get any information. To deal with an ancient system as we're dealing with, our registry system is very frustrating for clients and it's frustrating for staff. So we're making strides to make it much more searchable and much more user-friendly. So updating the registry and enhancing its transparency is very important.

The second pillar is increasing the awareness of the LRA and the lobbyists code of conduct along the lines I talked about so the public office holders and people who hire lobbyists who actually want to do the right thing have the ability to do the right thing. There are many lobbyists who have registered; there are 5,100 people who have registered, so it's a lot of people trying to do the right thing. I need to help them understand this arcane act a little better.

Finally, the third pillar is to pursue enforcement and communicate the results, which again goes to this notion that there needs to be evidence. So I'm looking forward to tabling my reports, and it will be interesting to me to see what Parliament does with my reports, because the act is silent on what you're supposed to do with them.

Thank you so much. We look forward to helping this committee in your work in whatever way we can.

[The Chair, Liberal, Tom Wappel]

Thank you very much.

Are there any final questions, colleagues?

Well, this has been absolutely fascinating, certainly for me, just a real eye-opener. On behalf of my committee members and myself, I want to thank you and your team for coming here, having this deck for us and making the suggestion that we interrupt periodically with questions. I think it worked well under the circumstances.

We wish you good luck, both with what is present and what may be coming with Bill C-2. We'll look forward to your parliamentary report. Presumably it will be directed here, and then I guess we'll decide what we'd like to recommend to Parliament should be done with your annual report.

Thank you very much for being here.

Before I adjourn, colleagues, I remind you that Mr. Shapiro will be here Wednesday. There will be no meeting Monday because of the seminar we're attending. The following Wednesday, a week Wednesday, we'll have a full committee meeting to discuss future business, which will also include possibly at that point a mandate by Parliament to review PIPEDA for the five-year review. We'll have to come to grips with that as well.

That's more or less it for the next two weeks. We'll see you Wednesday, 3:30 to 5:30, with Mr. Shapiro.

Thank you again, Mr. Nelson.

We're adjourned.