Thank you, Mr. Chair, and thank you, witnesses, for coming here.
I think we're certainly interested in the issues regarding anomalies between the Conflict of Interest Act and the Lobbying Act. It doesn't seem to make any sense to be able to prosecute one side of the conversation but not the other depending on what the rules are.
I'm interested in the issue of the lobbying code explicitly targeting real and apparent lobbying. It seems that we've heard at this committee in the past the legal principle that in order to be just, it must seem to be just. Yet under the Conflict of Interest Act, it says that it's just a real conflict, that the apparent aspect of it is implicit in the act. I didn't know that something being implicit was a legal principle. It seems that if someone is being called out for a real conflict, there is a higher threshold than it merely being apparent—but it wouldn't be the same with lobbying.
Would you suggest that we use real and apparent in both acts, or would you want the Lobbying Act to be loosened?