Information & Ethics Committee on March 9th, 2026

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Good afternoon, everyone.

I'm going to call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 31 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, February 12, 2026; section 14.1 of the Lobbying Act; and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, the committee is commencing the statutory review of the Lobbying Act.

I would like to welcome, with great anticipation, our witness from the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, Nancy Bélanger.

Welcome, Ms. Bélanger.

Commissioner, you have up to five minutes. I invite you to take a little more time if you need it, because you're here for two hours to address the committee.

Go ahead, please.

[Nancy Bélanger, Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying]

Good afternoon, Mr. Chair and committee members.

Thank you for inviting me today. I don't think I need to tell you all how excited I am that you are studying the Lobbying Act. I look forward to discussing my recommendations, which are informed by my office's experience in administering the act and by that of my colleagues across the country overseeing their respective legislation.

My mandate is threefold: to maintain the registry of lobbyists, to expand awareness and understanding of the lobbying regime through education, and to conduct compliance work that supports respect of the act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct.

Last week, I shared with you 21 recommendations for improving and modernizing the Lobbying Act. These recommendations are aimed at enhancing transparency, expanding enforcement measures and increasing efficiency.

It is my sincere hope that this study will lead to improvements to the Lobbying Act. Amendments that enhance transparency will foster increased accountability, integrity and trust in our federal institutions. In my view, these improvements would also serve to ensure Canada remains a global leader in the regulation of lobbying.

I remain available to work with this committee, Parliament and the Treasury Board Secretariat to move forward with any proposed amendments to the Lobbying Act and the associated regulations.

Once you have heard from all witnesses, I may present a further submission that reflects my views on the testimony and submissions that have been presented to you. I would also welcome the opportunity to return to answer any questions or provide the clarifications you may need to complete your study.

Thank you, Mr. Chair and members of the committee.

I welcome any questions you may have.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Bélanger.

Further to your comment about providing a response, I expect it may be the will of the committee to have you come back at the end of the study in order to review what the committee has heard during the course of the study.

[Nancy Bélanger]

I'm at your disposal.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Mr. Barrett, we're going to start with you for six minutes.

Go ahead, please.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Commissioner, what is the threshold to require registration?

[Nancy Bélanger]

Currently, under the act, it's called “significant part of the duties”, which means it's a threshold for the employer who wants, collectively, all of the employees' work amount to be a significant part of duties. That's been interpreted by the previous commissioners as being 20% of the collective work in a month, which was 32 hours. Last July, I announced that I was reducing that threshold and, since January 19, it is now eight hours. It should be zero, but it's now eight hours.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

That is eight hours collectively for the organization.

[Nancy Bélanger]

Yes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

You said it should be zero.

[Nancy Bélanger]

Yes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

If it were zero, if the threshold were removed entirely and anyone who was doing lobbying had to be registered to do so, how many additional lobbyists do you estimate would then have to register with your office?

[Nancy Bélanger]

I'm not sure what that number would be. I can tell you that in the last two months, since January 19, we've had 70 new organizations and corporations register.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

As a result of the change in the threshold...?

[Nancy Bélanger]

I'm assuming it's as a result of the change. They were never registered before, so I have to assume that's the case.

How many organizations and corporations lobbied less than 32 hours in a month? Probably a lot. I look at lobby days, for example, and for lobby days, it's impressive how a number of organizations lobby on a full day of lobby day and are not registered.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Right.

[Nancy Bélanger]

That's an example, so there will likely be a lot more that need to register.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Would your office be able to manage what you believe to be likely a lot more? With your existing envelope of funding that you have and with your current staff complement, would you be able to accommodate that?

[Nancy Bélanger]

So far, so good, because what happens is that the registrations are done by the organizations. All we do is review to ensure they're appropriate and well done, and then we just click buttons.

Are we busy? Yes. Can we handle it so far? Yes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Your staff includes investigators, but I'm sure you also have folks who do media monitoring as well.

[Nancy Bélanger]

Of course, yes.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

In your media monitoring, let's say your staff observe that an organization successfully had meetings with 200 MPs who posted that they met with an organization that is not registered to lobby. What do you do?

[Nancy Bélanger]

Currently what I do is write letters to these organizations to explain the regime. To ensure they understand, I ask them to respond that they understand the regime. They usually tell me that they stay under the 32 hours. That was the case then. Eight hours is going to be a little more difficult now.

I have not received any allegations of anyone under eight hours so far. I might turn it right into a preliminary assessment to evaluate, but I do want to give people time to get used to this eight hours, so I would likely write to them again, but that hasn't happened in the last two months.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Which came into force when?

[Nancy Bélanger]

On January 19, and of course organizations have two months to register, so technically they still have until March 19 to register. We haven't seen the full impact yet.