I will take that one, and perhaps echo what Elsa said.
When it comes to lobbying regulations, there will always be actors who want to conduct influence in a malign, manipulative or secretive way. They can find ways to circumvent regulations. The goal of a lobbying regulation—a lobbying register—is not to cover every single angle, but really to, as much as possible, cover some of the key risks, provide transparency where it is relevant and ultimately enable citizens and various stakeholders to understand who is lobbying on what, how and with what means.
As you said, when there are these cases, it's always an opportunity to improve. Following this particular case, there have been reforms. I think that the purpose of your study is to be able to ask, where can we go even further, in terms of transparency and what communications we ask lobbyists to disclose in terms of who is the ultimate beneficiary of lobbying? These are the questions that you could look into on how to enable citizens to understand where the lobbying comes from.
Again, there will always be cases and those who want to influence in a malign way. Sometimes, they're ahead of the reforms. The idea is, through these cases, learning and experience, to be able to identify where reforms are needed.
In Canada, you have a very long experience regulating lobbying—one of the longest experiences within the OECD. I think, from the previous commissioner, the current commissioners and now these international examples, there is room to really identify where these specific points are where Canada already does well but could do better in terms of transparency.
