Thank you and good afternoon, Chair and committee members.
My name is Siobhán Vipond. I'm executive vice-president of the Canadian Labour Congress, Canada's largest central labour body. The CLC advocates on national issues on behalf of workers from coast to coast to coast.
We support the objectives of the code to ensure that lobbyists adhere to the highest standards of transparency, respect for government institutions, integrity and honesty. We support the commissioner's goal to ensure that the code is clear so that lobbyists understand their obligation, and to foster transparent and ethical lobbying of public office holders. However, we have serious concerns about two rules in the updated code that will undermine my ability to do my job as an elected union official and undermine your ability to do your job as elected public officials.
First, we are concerned about rule 6, with respect to political work. This rule limits the lobbying activities of our members because of political activities they undertake during an election campaign. It is very concerning that the updated code not only subjects our members to a 24-month cooling-off period for campaign work that is strategic, high-profile or important work for a candidate or political party; it also subjects our members to a 12-month cooling-off period for such campaign activity as canvassing, gathering donations, distributing campaign materials and helping with campaign office or event logistics.
These types of campaign activities cannot reasonably be seen to create a sense of obligation by an elected official towards a lobbyist. We firmly believe this rule violates the charter rights of our members to participate in the democratic process. Specifically, it violates our members' freedom of expression under paragraph 2(b) of the charter, and cannot be justified under section 1.
I'm elected to represent my members. An essential part of that is to meet with all of you to discuss my members' priorities, but I also enjoy volunteering on election campaigns for good candidates. This rule forces me to choose between these two things—doing my job representing my members or volunteering on campaigns. That is totally unreasonable and unfair.
The second rule we have serious concerns about is rule 4, with respect to hospitality. The updated code prescribes a $40 limit for hospitality per official at each meeting, lobby day, event or reception, and it prescribes an $80 annual limit per official. This rule will severely limit or effectively end the ability of many unions, associations, charities or organizations to host receptions, lunches or even provide coffee at meetings in cases where there are multiple engagements with the public office holder in a 12-month period.
First, we believe it's unreasonable to suggest that normal hospitality, such as serving coffee, juice, wine or cheese, at any in-person event should create a sense of obligation for a public office holder. Therefore, the threshold is unwarranted.
Second, this threshold will diminish democratic discourse and the duties of public officer holders such as you by curtailing the number of events a public office holder can attend with one organization. If a public office holder attends two events with our organization in January and they reach that $80 annual limit, then they won't be able to attend another event with us for the rest of the year where hospitality is provided. This is a major overreach of the code and will make it much more difficult for you to do your job, as it will limit the interactions you can have with the constituents and stakeholders you represent based on this $80 hospitality threshold.
Third, the rule is completely unworkable for organizations like ours. It's untenable for us to monitor this hospitality threshold for every public office holder. We meet with hundreds of public office holders in a 12-month period. It is totally unworkable for us to monitor and track how much hospitality each public office holder consumes at each event and to ensure that they don't attend other events once they reach that $80 limit.
Plus, it's ridiculous to expect us to enforce this rule. Are we supposed to tell the Minister of Finance that they can't have a coffee or a bagel at the next meeting because they reached their hospitality limit at a previous meeting?
The low-value threshold for hospitality is unwarranted, unworkable and unenforceable. It should be removed from the code. Public office holders are subject to the Conflict of Interest Act with rules for disclosure. Organizations such as ours should be able to offer whatever hospitality public office holders are able to accept.
In conclusion, we believe rules 6 and 4 of the updated code will curtail my ability to do my job and your ability to do your job effectively by limiting how often we can engage with each other on behalf of the people we represent. We urge you to address these concerns in the advice you provide to the commissioner on the updated code.
Once again, thank you for this opportunity. I look forward to your questions.