Information & Ethics Committee on Feb. 14th, 2023

[W. Scott Thurlow]

Toronto is not a country.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay, Mr.—

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

I have a point of order.

It's not helpful, Mr. Conacher, when you interrupt my interventions. It's not helpful, at all. You're here as a guest at committee.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

As the committee knows, I generally have a lot of leniency, with regard to interactions. Many committee chairs ask that things go through the chair, then to the witnesses. I allow a lot of this cross-sectional stuff to occur, but we have to be mindful that we don't interrupt each other. If there is a question to be asked of an individual, please ask it of that individual. My expectation, as chair, is that the individual will answer the question directly.

Mr. Green, I stopped your time. Please go ahead.

Thank you.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you very much.

My last question is for the congress.

We've heard that being lumped in with everything else happening is very difficult. With the way you do hospitality, do have any concluding remarks on having consideration for the millions of members you represent across the country?

[Siobhán Vipond]

If you take into consideration what we're proposing with regard to rules 4 and 6, you are not losing the essence of the changes proposed in front of you—transparency and efficacy. Rules 4 and 6 are having a negative impact, so we're asking you to address that, then leave the rest, because it's working to the extent it needs to, I think, and will allow us to represent workers who trust us to talk to elected officials.

[Matthew Green, NDP, Hamilton Centre, ON]

Thank you so much.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Green.

The next speaker we have is Mr. Dalton.

You have five minutes, Mr. Dalton.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you.

Thanks to all the witnesses for their comments.

I'm following up Mr. Green's comment with a question to you, Mr. Conacher.

He asked about a gold standard. You mentioned we weren't meeting any of the OECD standards—or not so much meeting standards as falling behind the rest of these countries.

Can you elaborate on that, please?

[Duff Conacher]

We haven't fallen behind all the countries. The U.S. has a stronger disclosure law, and the OECD has stronger ethics standards set out as goals for both lobbying and conflicts of interest. Canada is not meeting either of those.

Toronto and Quebec require volunteer lobbying to be registered. You don't have to be paid. That catches a lot of people: retired business executives doing a bit of lobbying for their former business, and board members doing lobbying for their organizations. These can be high-powered lobbyists, because they may have been lobbyists for a long time, when they were staff or CEO, and they know all the politicians. In a couple of minutes, they can make an influential call. That's captured in Toronto and Quebec.

They're better, and the U.S. is better. They require disclosure of how much is being spent on lobbying. The OECD standards are higher than anything any country has met. These have been set out in several reports. I'll be submitting links to them in the submission I'm making to you.

We're far behind the best or gold standard. [Inaudible—Editor] unethical lobbying is very easy to do and legal.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Again, to you, Mr. Conacher, what do you see as positive measures within this proposed code?

[Duff Conacher]

The gifts rule clarifies the dollar amount, but, again, the Ethics Commissioner and Commissioner of Lobbying already set that out, so it doesn't have to be set out in the code. It was already set out in guidelines and statements by both commissioners.

Otherwise, it's a gutting of the rules. As I mentioned, it will be legal for lobbyists to raise tens of thousands of dollars for a minister they're lobbying. Currently, that's illegal. That's a gutting of the rules—going from a four-year cooling-off period to zero for that kind of activity.

The one-year cooling-off period in this code does not apply to anything the Canadian Labour Congress representatives talked about wanting to do. You would have to do all of those things—canvassing, door knocking, and dropping off leaflets and pamphlets—nearly full time or with frequent and extensive interaction with the candidate or party official, in order for you to have to sit out one year. If you do it less than nearly full time and without that interaction, you can lobby them the next minute after you finish door knocking. There's nothing you're going to be prohibited from doing with this rule.

I'm not sure why they have a problem with rule 6 and the definition for “other political work”. It doesn't prohibit them from doing anything they've talked about today—

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you.

[Duff Conacher]

—and it doesn't prohibit them from representing their members. Go and lobby people. Just don't wine and dine them, and don't do favours for them, because that's unethical.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Thank you.

Ms. Vipond, we're moving from four years to two years, but you said you're not happy with that, at all.

Can you express why? I would think you'd be somewhat happy. What are the big changes that bring you displeasure? Do you think it's a total gutting...a total difference between what they were doing beforehand, as opposed to now?

[Siobhán Vipond]

No, a two-year period is better. Our big concern is that lower threshold, which is really encompassing almost any kind of participation in that kind of election process as a volunteer. That is more the concern, which has that 12-month cooling off period.

In terms of going forward to two years, I think that is going to work better, but, yes, it is catching many people. I would argue that, if I put leaflets in a mailbox, you are not going to do the changes I need. It's not enough to lump sum it in with giving tens of thousands of dollars illegally. It's not the same thing.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

You have also made some good points about the $40 and $80 per year limit. What do you suggest? You also suggest increasing it yearly, because I know that legislation moves on, and that can change.

Just in the whole area of wining and dining, it can be quite expensive. I know that members of Parliament have a limit to how much we can spend for a meal if we go to a event, so there are limits that we also have.

Can you make some comments on that? I know that Mr. Thurlow has said there shouldn't be any limits. Maybe I misheard you. What should the limits be and what should be put in the code regarding this?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I need a very quick response on this, because we're over time. You've no more than 10 seconds.

[Siobhán Vipond]

I think you have answered the question, which is that there's already an existing limit. It is on you to say you have to disclose everything over $200. That should stay in place. The onus shouldn't be on us to keep an eye on what you're consuming at events, that wining and dining. That's why we think that there should not be a limit in these rules. You are already covered by rules, and we should be able to host events where you participate as you can according to your rules.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I'm going to leave it there.

I'm sorry, Mr. Thurlow.

Ms. Saks, you have five minutes.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Thank you to all of our witnesses today. This has really been a fascinating discussion and back-and-forth.

I'm going to start with you, Mr. Thurlow, and a tweet of yours:

Rather than deal with hypothetical problems, why don't we focus on the constitutional issues that are squarely in front of Parliament as a result of the proposed changes to the lobbying code?

I don't like to deal in hypotheticals either, so let's get to the heart of the matter, because we have skirted around the charter. I would like to dig in a little, if we can.

[W. Scott Thurlow]

First of all, I am glad I have one follower. That's spectacular.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[W. Scott Thurlow]

Mr. Conacher has offered these hypotheticals. He thinks that these things could be happening. He has offered no evidence of any of it happening.

We know that there are people who have said that they are not going to go knock on doors because they think it will limit their ability to be a lobbyist in the future.

What's worse and more nefarious is that even if they don't do it every day, as asserted by Mr. Conacher—though we have the code in front of us that says something a little different—they might just want to do it for a weekend, but they might get that phone call in the middle of the night from the investigator saying that someone has complained. Then the investigation happens, the report is tabled in Parliament and their reputation is ruined forever.

[Ya'ara Saks, Liberal, York Centre, ON]

Okay. I'm going to dig a little deeper into that. Your earlier comments during your testimony today talked about precision in language to provide ethical transparency.

For example, we get to the lobbying commissioner and her ability to determine what is an appropriate cooling off period person by person or individual by individual. You talked about the impact of the trawler effect. How can we be more precise or push for more precise language, let's say for example, in volunteers?