Before the act came into effect, we had a senior staff person from the commissioner's office come in and meet with GRIC. We had an information session for all our members. This would have been in 2008 or 2009.
In the example given to help us understand which types of meetings we need to report, the example was which types of meetings we don't need to report. The specific example was that if you're at a conference or a cocktail party and you encounter a designated public office holder, you're not expecting to see each other, and you have a brief conversation about a file, you don't need to report that, because it's not an arranged communication; you just happened to be in the same place at the same time.
It was reported in The Hill Times last year that when the commissioner met with the New Democratic Party caucus, the specific example was the complete opposite. If a lobbyist approaches an MP at a cocktail party, that is an arranged communication.
The standard seems to have shifted without any notification or consultation. We sought clarity on that, and it only served to confuse the matter further, because the advice we got was that we should report unplanned but arranged communications.