I should immediately contradict myself—what I've just said about the opportunity to harmonize—but this is another example of where some variation across the jurisdictions may be justified.
As you point out, in British Columbia there is a two-year cooling-off period for former public office holders. As for why that number is different from the five-year period at the federal level, I'm not sure that I can answer that question. I think these are policy choices that are made by different jurisdictions. I think that the labour markets and the political ecosystems at the provincial level and at the federal level are likely to be a bit different. I think there may be some scope for variation in the amount of time.
As for the exceptions, yes, there is an exception provision for former public office holders to be able to lobby. We have just a handful of examples of where that exemption has been sought and granted. In my instance, it's based on public interest, which is a complex topic.
This was not a feature of the recommendations I made before my statutory review committee, but if I were to focus on this, I would probably recommend to my own committee that the scope of decision-making be that the federal commissioner have in their act to consider a range of different issues, because of the complexity of defining this public interest and having that principle embedded in the act. That's because it appears in there in the act but not in other places.
This is in the public domain. My predecessors have provided exemptions to, for example, former public officer holders who wanted to work for BC Ferries, which is identified as an entity. It's not considered a government-controlled entity in British Columbia. If someone wants to work there and influence government, then that would be defined as lobbying, but the submissions to my office and to me were that being able to do that was in the public interest, and we ultimately agreed. That's an example of where an exemption was granted, but, as I say, since this has been in effect over the past six years, there have been only three or four examples of exemptions being sought and granted.