Information & Ethics Committee on Oct. 27th, 2009

[Pat Martin, NDP, Winnipeg Centre, MB]

A lobbyist would probably submit that as a billable encounter. If he got 10 minutes of a minister's time in the steam room, you can bet that a $600-an-hour lobbyist is going to bill for $60 worth of oral contact time in the steam room of the members' gym.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Mr. Martin, it's always a pleasure.

[Voices]

Oh, oh!

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

I'm moving on.

Mr. Rickford.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair, and my thanks to the witnesses.

I have a couple of questions with respect to monthly reporting, and I'm hoping to work through some education and awareness questions having to do with the mandate you mentioned in your report and in your presentation today. It's my understanding that the Lobbying Act requires lobbyists to file monthly reports if they engage in any oral or organized communications with designated public office-holders, including ministers, ministers of state, their political staff, deputy ministers, ADMs, and any other positions designated by regulations, like senior members of the Canadian Forces. Further to that, Commissioner, the act empowers you to confirm the accuracy of the information provided by those lobbyists. Do you exercise this power regularly? If you do, what have your findings been?

[Karen Shepherd]

In terms of education purposes, one of the requirements for filing a monthly return is just that, if the individual communicates with a designated public officer-holder. But there are also other reasons why a person may file a monthly communication, such as new information, he or she is now lobbying another department, additional subject matter, maybe the chief operating officer in the company has changed, or an addition or the termination of the activity. So those are some other reasons that may occur.

In terms of confirming accuracy, the answer is yes. I have one person who's dedicated to reviewing the previous communication entries on a monthly basis, doing a sampling of those entries that we send off to the designated public officer-holders to confirm whether the entries are, indeed, accurate. Things are brought to our attention from designated public officer-holders themselves, who are looking at the entries.

As I mentioned to the other member, in terms of the errors, what we're finding when we go through is not that people aren't reporting meetings; they're over-reporting. They're putting in meetings with members of Parliament, for example. While that requires an initial registration because you are public officer-holders, you are not designated public officer-holders, so the communication entry is not required. Or they're putting in meetings with the directors general, which is lower than what they're required to report. Or the meetings haven't occurred. Or there are written communications, which don't fall into a requirement to file.

So to try to correct some of those things to make the database more accurate, we did a mass mail-out about three weeks ago, listing all the common errors we're finding. And we have the feature that lobbyists themselves can now go in and correct something, if something is brought to their attention.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Education seems to be an important part of this. You've held information sessions for both lobbyists and senior officials. Do you offer these proactively or on demand? You mentioned mail-outs, but I'm just asking about the information sessions.

[Karen Shepherd]

A lot of information is available on our website. But we do respond to requests for presentations. Pierre can speak even more.... Just recently he's been in discussions with those who were lobbying and wanted additional clarification. I recently sent out 21 letters to most lobby departments and met with the deputy ministers to talk about the implementation of the act and what's occurring as well as what needs there are. So it was another opportunity to talk to them and educate them in terms of their requests.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Do the letters have a function in that you can understand what clarifications or what further education might be required? In other words, part of it may be a questionnaire. Are there specific things people who are in receipt of this information might communicate to you that they need further education or awareness on?

[Karen Shepherd]

The letters were my opportunity to speak to public officer-holders. I'm planning to offer that to the respective leaders as well.

But in terms of the lobbyists, one of the things we've done recently...for anybody searching our website, we did a survey of the information available on our website. And we're currently going through the comments to see if we can do additional things.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Did you get the sense from that survey...? Did it take you anywhere in terms of understanding whether lobbyists and senior officials have a good understanding of their obligations under the act?

[Karen Shepherd]

Yes. I was quite pleased in meeting with the deputy ministers that all of them were very well aware of the act, and, depending on the department, had different processes in place to keep track of the meetings, so when I come to verify the information, it's easier for them to respond. One thing that's interesting is that the act doesn't require them to maintain the information, but when I come to verify, they have to be able to. So they've been putting things in place proactively.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

Do I have just a minute left?

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Yes.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

For the benefit of the committee, Pierre, I know you wanted to make some contributions. You looked as if you were going to chime in on the education piece.

[Pierre Ricard-Desjardins, Director of Operations, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying]

No, I have nothing to add. Thank you.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

I guess the final question, very quickly, is this. In order for you to do this important education function, what percentage of your budget is allocated towards education and awareness of that mandate, if you will? It takes up a significant portion of your budget.

[Karen Shepherd]

It takes up a significant portion. If I look at 2009-10 in terms of the program activity of my $4.5 million budget, I have roughly a million for that.

[Greg Rickford, Conservative, Kenora, ON]

It's about a quarter of it, just under a quarter. Okay.

I have no more questions.

[The Chair, Liberal, Paul Szabo]

Thank you, Mr. Rickford.

Mr. Wrzesnewskyj, please.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Madam Shepherd, is there an obligation on the part of the lobbyists or lobbying companies to report their efforts when they lobby senior party officials with access to the Prime Minister's Office?

[Karen Shepherd]

If I'm understanding the question--

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

I'm talking about unelected non-parliamentarians and senior party officials.

[Karen Shepherd]

The act specifically covers those individuals who are lobbying public office-holders. If these individuals that are being lobbied are not public office-holders, then those meetings would not be covered, Mr. Chair.

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

What we have is a huge gap here. Senior officials who are intimately involved with officials, for instance, in the Prime Minister's Office, have direct regular contact and access and can in fact circulate among lobbyists and organize fundraisers to which they invite companies interested in infrastructure projects. There are no set rules at the present time that would compel those individuals to report those sorts of activities.