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.