Evidence of meeting #36 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was transparency.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON
If I can, then, what is the objective that needs to be achieved through the use of a cooling-off period?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
I think the primary objective is trust and integrity. It's so that people can believe there's not a revolving door.
I think there's a two-barrelled answer to that question. One, there should not be a revolving door. Two, people need to believe that people aren't trading on their networks in their life post holding public office. I think a really long period would be too punitive. A very short one would be too short. Less than two years, I would imagine, would be too short.
I would say that five years is getting on the longish side, but again, I don't think that's for the regulator to say.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON
Do you think it should be absolute in its application, or should there be ranges based on the position held and the position being sought? Should there be flexibility? Should there be exceptions?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
In the B.C. position, there are exceptions. As I mentioned in my answer to a previous question, I think the commissioner—or in my case, the registrar—should have some latitude to determine the basis of that exception, based on the diverse fact circumstances that apply.
Your other question was about whether there should be a scaling. In B.C. now, we have, “You're in or you're out.” You're a defined former public office holder, the definition of which is similar to senior public office holder. If you're a senior public office holder—for example, if you're not a parliamentary secretary and not a member of cabinet but just an MLA without one of those positions—then you're not a former public office holder. If you're a director in government, then you're not a former public office holder. If you're an ADM or a parliamentary secretary, then you are. It's just two steps.
I would go back to the principle of simplicity. If you introduce a scaling mechanism with many steps, then you start to get into confusion. What about this position? What about that position? Remember, lobbying legislation applies to a broad range of organizations. We're not just talking about MPs' offices or about departments. We're talking about the whole range of Crown corporations, agencies, boards and commissions that are covered. Their organization charts can be really complicated, so if you try to introduce a scaling mechanism that is too complex, you get into endless little debates about whether someone is at this level or that level and whether they are in or out.
My advice to you, as it would be to my own legislature, is that there's a beauty in simplicity. That would be the answer to both aspects of the question you asked.
Conservative
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Barrett.
Mr. Danko, you have five minutes. Go ahead.
Liberal
John-Paul Danko Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
Thank you, Chair.
I'm going to continue with Mr. Hardy's line of questioning, I think.
We're all familiar in our constituency line of work with people regularly asking for meetings. It's quite easy to define when it's a consultant lobbyist, since you're being lobbied for a specific issue or fund or whatever it is, but it can get into a bit of a grey area when you're talking about organizations or corporate entities. They are constituents that you represent, but they also have a business interest. It could also extend to advocacy and social justice issues.
There seem to be a number of recommendations that try to clarify when it's lobbying and when it's not. How can we better simplify that and make sure that the people who are engaging with elected officials are also aware that they are in fact lobbying, or are not?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
That's an excellent question.
The first point I'd make in response is that it's useful to remind the committee, and it's always a useful reminder, that the onus of the law is on the lobbyists. It's not on MPs. It's not on MLAs. It's the lobbyists who need to comply.
That's easy to say, and I know that if I were in your shoes, even though I might know that someone approaching me has the responsibility to figure this out, nevertheless, I'm the public office holder. Their information will or will not be in the registry and will or will not be in the newspaper, but it's a useful reminder that it's for them to figure it out.
That said, how do we make it easy to comply within the definition of lobbying? My answer, as with previous questions, is that simplicity is your friend. It should be a broad definition that focuses on influence, because that's really what this is about: representing interests as part of your job to try to influence a public office holder. A definition that is broadly applicable is less likely to suffer confusion over whether this is lobbying or not.
Because you used the word “advocacy”, I think it's important to reference this issue. We hear it a lot: “What's the difference between lobbying and advocacy?” We hear it from the community as well: “I'm not lobbying. I'm doing advocacy.”
The difference, in my view, between lobbying and advocacy is the stigma that's attached to the word “lobbying”, but there is no real difference. Both are trying to influence public office holders. I know that oftentimes we talk about “interest representation”, which is a useful term, but it's a very bland term and doesn't really resonate with the public. I think “lobbying” is a word that does. I think it's important to say that if you're trying to influence public office holders, there should be transparency about that in a democracy. I think we want to direct our efforts into addressing that stigma and say that in a modern democracy, yes, transparent lobbying is a part of our system.
Liberal
John-Paul Danko Liberal Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON
That's a really fascinating answer. It's quite a bit different from my experience at the municipal level. Thank you for that.
For my second question, I wanted to dig a little bit into recommendation 9, which is talking about grassroots lobbying.
I understand that grassroots lobbying is basically an appeal to members of the public through mass media by direct communications that seeks to persuade them to take a stance on an issue or seeks to influence government decisions. It seems to me that this could also apply to social media, to alternative news sites and to so-called influencers, who routinely can have very sophisticated organizations and who routinely seek to influence public policy and put out calls for action through direct communication or online.
Is that included in what we're talking about, or should it be?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
I think that's an important question. Grassroots lobbying is not part of the LTA in British Columbia. Whether it's in or not is one of those policy choices. I don't have a lot of expertise to talk about it.
I will pivot, though, and talk about social media. People sometimes ask why they need to register their social media communications as lobbying activity if they're already in the public. To that, I will very quickly respond that social media is not entirely in the public, because not everyone can automatically see every social media post. Also, they're not all in one spot. It's the “all in one spot” part that's the value of the registry.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Harvey and Mr. Danko.
That was an interesting response. Thank you.
Mr. Thériault, you have five minutes.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
British Columbia's Lobbyists Transparency Act is currently undergoing a provincial parliamentary review. You were a witness during those hearings in December.
Can you share some of the recommendations, or amendments to the Lobbyists Transparency Act, that you proposed as part of the review?
Could some of the recommendations also apply to the federal Lobbying Act?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
Yes, I think they could. Again, I don't want to speak with expertise on the federal act, because that's not my mandate and it's not my expertise, but I can make some level of comment.
We made five recommendations. The first one is that there be a disclosure of the beneficial interests behind lobbying. If an organization is lobbying on behalf of somebody else, it is obliged to disclose really who is funding its lobbying organization. There are a number of reasons behind that. For example, if a series of corporations got together and decided to create an organization to lobby on their behalf, in principle that may not be transparent in the registry. We think that it's an important principle of transparency that the beneficial interests behind lobbying be disclosed. That was our number one recommendation.
I'll just very quickly run through the others. They're pretty straightforward because, again, I think our act is in great shape.
The second is for the type of communication to be addressed. This speaks to the issue of social media. We heard this from the not-for-profit community. That form of lobbying is in sending tweets or Facebook posts that are directed at social media. They do that, let's say, 100 times over the course of a month, but the public doesn't know, from the registry, the difference between a tweet and a meeting. They think that speaks to transparency about who has what access. We agree, and we think there should be transparency about that. It's a really simple little thing, but we recommended that level of transparency.
The others might be a bit specific to British Columbia.
The definition is not entirely clear in terms of what a provincial entity is. We made recommendations on clarifying that.
I also sought the authority to issue advisory opinions. If someone comes to our office, they often will want specific advice on a specific fact circumstance. We are always wary about prejudicing our quasi-judicial role. I don't have the authority to give them a specific answer to that question. I sought that authority so that I wouldn't have to hedge my advice against prejudicing myself.
The last one is a mandatory consultation of the Office of the Registrar Lobbyists in the case of legislative or statutory changes. We're fortunate that governments, to date, have always consulted us on the legislation or the regulations, and we think this should be mandatory in the law.
Those were the five recommendations. For the ones that might apply to the federal legislation, I would clearly think that they would be a good idea there too.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
With respect to the first aspect you mentioned, is it something you see a lot?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
I can't really say, because we don't.... It's a fair point. I was wary about making recommendations about hypothetical problems, but there have been instances in which it has not been entirely clear. We have seen instances in which industry associations have emerged, and it's not entirely clear who has been behind them. It doesn't happen a lot, but when it happens, there has been some notoriety about it.
I'll leave it at that.
Bloc
Luc Thériault Bloc Montcalm, QC
Okay.
The Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada recommends that she be allowed, under the Lobbying Act, to refer matters to an appropriate authority, rather than just to the RCMP. Again, she refers to British Columbia's Lobbyists Transparency Act, specifically section 7.92(6).
Which appropriate or relevant authorities can you refer a matter to in British Columbia, and how often do you refer matters?
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Mr. Harvey, the worst part of my job is telling people that we're over time. I am going to give you a chance to answer that, sir, because I think it's an important question, but if you can do it quickly, I would appreciate that.
Thank you.
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
I understand.
I'm not aware of any instances where we have done that. We have the fence provisions in our act, and we would have to send those to Crown. We've never had to do it. It's important that they exist. If there was a truly scandalous matter, that tool might be useful, but we've never had to do it.
Because we have administrative monetary penalties, we can deal with particularly egregious matters in-house, through that tool box, so that's a very useful tool, even if we have only used it pretty rarely. Beyond that, I've not had occasion to do that.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Harvey.
Thank you, Mr. Thériault.
Mr. Hardy, you have the floor for five minutes.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Harvey, you have spoken to some extremely important issues.
The goal is to serve the public at all times. If a person influences a public decision-maker to get public money, and the money is invested in a certain sector, we'd agree that we'd want transparency. We always want to ensure that money is spent in the best way for the benefit of Canadians.
With respect to your measure to make all lobbying activities public through your registry, how did the public react to that? Have you seen any changes in the perception of lobbying in British Columbia?
Earlier, you said that lobbying is important. It's one of the tools decision-makers have to better understand businesses.
Did you observe any shift in the general public's attitude after implementing the measure?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
Thank you for that question. I think it's a very important question. Unfortunately, I have to report that I don't have an answer for you.
In part, that's because I'm still a relative newcomer to British Columbia. I've been in office for only about two years. Before, as I've mentioned, I was in Newfoundland and Labrador. With that said, It's a very important question, and I'd like to understand the answer to that question myself.
Under our strategic plan, we have two pillars. I developed a strategic plan. One of those pillars is to do more outreach. My impression as still a relative newcomer to British Columbia is that people in our province aren't sufficiently aware of all the protection they have under the Lobbyists Transparency Act. I think, if they were aware of the transparency, it would enhance the trust that they have in the system.
It is part of my multi-year strategic plan to answer that very question that you're asking, probably through public survey data and so on.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you very much.
You stated that you rely on the concept of simplicity. You noted that there was a 100% increase in registrations.
Has the simplicity of the system you put in place helped avoid excessive bureaucracy? To adapt, did you have to hire more people to manage more files?
City officials in my riding tell me that all legislative changes bring more paperwork. That forces them to ask members of their teams to handle the paperwork, so they have to hire more people; otherwise they won't be able to meet the requirements.
Has putting in place an extremely effective system allowed you to handle things without any difficulty?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
Yes, Mr. Hardy, I know you asked that question earlier and I wasn't able to answer it. I'll try to provide a succinct reply now.
We did have to increase our staff complement, but let's keep that in perspective: We increased it from two to four. We are able, with the two full-time registry officers that we have, to monitor activity in the registry and flag potential issues of non-compliance.
We also make use of our investigators, and that's why I am the Information and Privacy Commissioner and the Registrar of Lobbyists. In my job as Information and Privacy Commissioner, I have a range of investigators, and those investigators can do double duty and act as investigators on the LTA matters.
Yes, we've had to only very moderately increase our staff complement, but, through creativity, have been able to deal with this regulatory oversight mandate efficiently.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Was the transition complicated?
As you can imagine, if the federal government were to follow this directive, the number of lobbyist registrations could become quite significant fairly quickly.
Did the fact that it was very simple—you increased your staff complement by two only—reduce complications over time? Do you think it's become highly efficient?
Did it take several months for people to adapt, or was it still a good idea to change everything?
Registrar, Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia
I wasn't there at that time, but what I've heard is that for the small number of staff who were working on it, it was a significant change management enterprise. I wouldn't say that it was accomplished in six months; a fair amount of work had to go into it, but I think they did it, and they did it well.