You're absolutely correct, in that Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying has held that fundraising activities for elected members are a personal benefit.
The office's interpretation of rule 8 of the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct is such that even a riding association is considered a personal benefit—almost your property—whereas we've heard, as you rightly state, from the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner that it's not personal interest. So if you are finding it confusing, I guarantee that everybody is.
We'll say what we said the last time we were here, that the rules need to be clear.
We don't have corporate and union fundraising in Canada. We have funds that are donated by individuals typically in small amounts. Those people, as much as you do, need to know that what they're doing is not going to prevent their chance of making a case to you in the future, that if they find themselves in another job that requires them to talk to government, they won't be prevented from doing so because seven years ago they attended a fundraiser.
If any area of the Lobbying Act is really to be clarified and defined, it should be the area around political fundraising, and this is the opportunity for this committee to do that.