Thank you, Madam Chair and committee, for the opportunity to participate in this review.
I was talking to the committee clerk beforehand. This is the third time over the last 20 years that I've appeared here on the act. I'm one of those strange individuals who take an inordinate amount of interest in it. I certainly don't claim to be particularly unique, but as a former member of Parliament, a former exempt minister-office staffer and, currently, a registered consultant lobbyist—albeit in the twilight of that career—I feel I'm in a unique position to provide the committee with experiential feedback, from multiple perspectives, on the overall effectiveness of the Lobbying Act in terms of meeting its public policy objectives. I can also, perhaps, highlight a few unintended consequences.
For the record, I have been—and remain—a strong, consistent and vocal supporter of the act since its inception, and of the personnel who administer and enforce it. Evolving from a prior system that simply registered lobbyists to one that regulates lobbyist activities was not only necessary but also long overdue. The implementation of that was always going to be challenging. We attempted to place a usable framework over an intersection of human interactions, self-interest, advocacy, charter rights, parliamentary privileges, ethics rules, procurement processes, conflict of interest laws and post-employment obligations.
For context, I think it's important to recognize that the system we have in place is not only working but also working well. Canada is consistently ranked in the top tier of lobbying rules, globally. In the OECD's 2026 integrity report, Canada's regime was scored at twice the average among the 62 countries studied.
In the spirit of making a good bill better, I've structured my comments around the recommendations the commissioner made in her submission. I think that provides a very useful focus for the review.
I'll start with recommendation two, which clarifies “who qualifies as in-house lobbyists”.
This amendment would ensure that board directors are treated as employees under the act. I think there's general support for this. It's a very interesting recommendation because it illustrates the point I made about the complexity of trying to implement this regime. When the original bill was drafted, the focus was on persons who were paid to lobby and their contacts with decision-makers of influence. Boards weren't on the radar or captured in the statute. When the decision was made to attempt to regulate board member actions, it came down to whether they were paid or not, net of direct expenses. Organizations would look at their board and decide if they were being paid over and above expenses—which meant they had to register as consultant lobbyists—or simply paid expenses as volunteers. There was no requirement to register. It wasn't an ideal situation. This particular recommendation would fix part of that. I'm not sure how it would address the paid versus not paid part.
It makes me a bit nervous for a separate reason. In the wake of Enron and the move we're seeing in corporate governance towards independence, you want to be careful with a deeming provision that uses the term “employee”. If you're going that route, I suggest that you make sure the amendment very clearly states that it would apply only to this act and would not create an employment relationship for any other purpose. This is so you won't have conflicts with other acts wherein “employee” is a legal term with a legal definition.
Recommendation 10 is on the “Status of staff who work for Ministers and Leaders of the Opposition”. Essentially, this is trying to extend the designated public office holder, DPOH, classification to additional political staff. I'll just say my part. Given that the average career span of a political staffer is about four years, I feel the current five-year lobby ban is unnecessary. In fact, I think it's punitive. Post-employment restrictions should align directly with ethics and conflict of interest rules so you won't have two sets of rules. A ban on lobbying activities should be removed entirely if the governing party changes. As somebody who practices on the ground, I think that's a perfectly reasonable approach. These are people we know. We're trying to get people interested in politics. I can tell you that the five-year ban has a very real impact on what people do when they leave a minister's office, which is a bit of a revolving door at the best of times. I don't think we should be expanding that category without first adjusting its scope and intent.
Recommendation 11 is on the “Inclusion of director general-level positions in the definition of 'designated public office holder'”.
I would need to be convinced that throwing a wider net contributes to a better outcome. The current threshold captures about 30 deputy ministers, about 300 ADMs, senior management in Crowns, certain military leaders and a few diplomatic personnel.
