Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses. Thank you to my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, for making the time to appear before committee today.
I would argue we've had a very good discussion on the Lobbying Act. We've heard from the lobbying commissioner and others who have come forward to talk about how, in very general terms, the Lobbying Act is working quite well and it is delivering a much greater level of transparency and accountability, which was the intent of the act.
We have heard a couple of recommendations that I'd like to bounce off you on which you might provide some direction or some advice to the committee.
My feeling is that wherever possible the rules should be as clear as they can possibly be so that people have a clear understanding of what is okay and what is not, what is expected of them and what is not. I think that is a goal of the Treasury Board as well.
Specifically, I wanted to ask—this might be a question for the officials—with respect to rule 8, which was a rule that was extended by the lobbying commissioner. It dealt with government or government relations representatives and the fact that they may or may not be able to participate in elections, may or may not be able to—essentially it is a conduct rule around things like elections signs and so forth. The problem with it is, and this is what I think they've indicated, they don't know what's okay and what is not until perhaps somebody comes forward and complains, or perhaps somebody comes forward and asks if what they did was—they can't get any advance notice.
They can't write to the lobbying commissioner to say they're thinking about putting an election sign for Scott Andrews on their lawn and is that okay. The lobbying commissioner will say she doesn't know. It might be. If somebody complains, they'll look into it. That doesn't make a lot of sense. In my view, we either need to codify what rule 8 means or we need to strike it, because there is no clarity in what it's trying to establish.
Can you provide me some background on that, what your impressions are in that regard?