Information & Ethics Committee on April 23rd, 2026

[Joe Jordan]

I'll start.

I put a lot of thought into that when I did my brief. We need to move away from “lobbyists are evil and politicians are naive”. To me, that's at the foundation of this legislation.

Another thing contributes to a lot of the problems, and there's no easy fix. I refer to it as this one-sided compliance. We file our meetings. Originally, when the act was put together, there was talk about the designated public office holders also filing their meetings. At the end of the month, you would reconcile them, and the office could then concentrate on when there's a mismatch.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Linda Lapointe]

Thank you very much. We'll have to wait for the continuation.

Mr. Garon, the floor is yours.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Good afternoon, gentlemen.

Mr. Jordan, I will start with you. In your opening remarks, you alluded to the notion of an employee. For example, you spoke about the possibility of defining board members as employees for the purposes of the act. You say that it must be well defined and that it must be stated that it applies only to this act. I understand that. However, the concept of employee status is defined in provincial legislation in about 90% of the cases, not by federal legislation.

So should we not simply use another term, if only to avoid having 10 different definitions of employee status?

[Joe Jordan]

Absolutely, I think that would probably be helpful.

I think what the commissioner is rightly trying to do is eliminate the problem of corporate directors having to register as independent consultants. There's a whole legal framework that gets dragged into that.

Essentially, what you want to say is that they get treated the same way, under the rules, as employees. Deeming terminology may carry.... I'm not a lawyer. It just jumped out at me that perhaps it could cause problems. In an abundance of caution, I think you've probably hit on something. Maybe come up with another word.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

So I gather that we can probably achieve the objective by using another term.

You mentioned the five-year prohibition and you also said that it could be eliminated when there is a change of government. In my work here, I have had occasion to wonder whether the five-year ban is useful. For example, when I was on the Standing Committee on Industry and Technology in the last Parliament, I saw a former minister of industry become a senior manager in a telecom firm without registering himself as a lobbyist. People talk; words get around.

To what extent can we prevent someone from lobbying—perhaps with some ethical shortcomings—if that person really wants to?

[Joe Jordan]

We're targeting the wrong people. I've been a political staffer. Knowing what the minister takes in his coffee is not a marketable skill when I go out to try to lobby.

There's a misconception. This industry, when I first got into it, was a Rolodex industry. It was who you knew. It's much more than that now. When I look at people who have worked very hard in ministers' offices, regardless of what party they're with, and all of a sudden find, when they.... It's never a career. It's a career for very few. Five years...and they can't use those skills to make a living. That really takes me back.

In terms of what you're talking about, the commissioner has been very aggressive at trying to get that back. People say, “Oh, I'm under the 20% rule,” or, “I'm not lobbying. I'm just giving advice.” There is a series of advisory opinions that try to flush out exactly what you're talking about. However, I would argue it doesn't belong in an advisory opinion. It belongs in the legislation itself. That's something you may want to look at.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Hurley, in a world with all these possible ambiguities, elected officials discuss matters with lobbyists. No one in this room has not met with a lobbyist once in a while, maybe even daily. They tell us about the goings-on and the issues that are important for our constituencies and they help us in our work. We need them, but within limits.

Sometimes, someone will come to our office to talk about something but we may have questions about something else that interests us. We discuss a number of things. I understand that the recommendations seek to broaden the controls so that certain topics are disclosed when they are discussed. But how do we do that? Can we force people to tell the truth?

What happens when a member asks a lobbyist a question and the lobbyist just happens to have something to sell?

[Joe Jordan]

Therein lies the challenge.

I want to point out one thing, Madam Chair. My recommendation dealt with political staff. Keep the five-year ban on ministers. They tend to take care of themselves. I was just focusing on that level.

I guess it comes down to whether rigour equates to better. If we collect targeted information, that's good. If we collect 10 times that information, is that good?

In the example you gave, back to my point, if you're the one who set that meeting up, right now you can have whatever conversations you want. You can ask them whatever questions you want. You can lay out the government's plan and get their feedback, and whatever relationship you have with this person, that's fine.

Under that change, that's no longer the case. The person you're having that conversation with, who you may or may not think is incompetent, may legally have to go on a website and record what happened and, in very general terms, what you talked about.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

But you know Parliament. You know how it is. Sometimes, we may already have worked on something and, because we know everyone, we can come here and meet everyone we wanted to meet. It's not on purpose; we have no specific plan to do so.

How can we control that?

[Joe Jordan]

This bill came in under Prime Minister Harper. This is good legislation. It really was a step forward.

These debates happened, and what they arrived at was oral communication that's pre-arranged. If I send a letter in, that doesn't count; if I meet you in the bathroom, that's not pre-arranged. If it takes place, it has to be recorded, and it's initiated by the lobbyist. That's what's being changed here.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Linda Lapointe]

Mr. Barrett, the floor is yours.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you, through the chair, to both the witnesses for being here.

To our honourable former colleague Mr. Jordan, with whom I share the distinct privilege of having represented the greatest constituency in our beautiful country, Leeds—Grenville, now known as Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, I'll quickly express my appreciation for his continued support of United Way Leeds and Grenville, specifically through the golf tournament that bears the name of my predecessor, Gord Brown, who, like Mr. Jordan, did a great deal to support causes in our community. I really appreciate that ongoing awareness and what it does for the people in great need in our community.

Through the chair to Mr. Jordan, thank you very much, sir.

I'll ask my first question of Mr. Jordan.

With respect to shortening the ban for former designated public office holders—I perhaps inferred that from your comments, if you didn't say it directly—how would you balance that with the need to maintain confidence against the perception of a revolving door?

There is a pejorative connotation to the term “lobbyist,” though there is advocacy that is done for organizations like the United Way, which I mentioned, as an example.

Is someone advocating on behalf of the United Way akin to someone lobbying or advocating on behalf of a petrol company or a pharmaceutical company? Is it one-for-one the same?

[Joe Jordan]

Through you, Madam Chair, thank you to the honourable member.

We could probably have this conversation at The Keystorm. I'm sure Dan Thompson would love it.

You've hit on another important issue: the idea that the United Way is going to have the lobbying capacity equal to that of a multinational corporation. In fact, it's funny you mentioned the United Way, because that was the example that was always used when the bill was put together.

How do we strike that balance so that we're not overprofessionalizing the industry? I think we're dangerously close to doing that.

We're putting in place so much of a compliance burden that only people who do this as a living are going to be able to navigate the rules. Talk to anybody in the non-profit sector and they'll tell you that there are grants on which they spend more money filling out the application than the grant is worth, and this is going to put another layer on it.

I don't know what the answer is, Mr. Barrett, but I think it's useful that the committee is cognizant of that. Don't make a bill aimed at the top; make a bill aimed across the spectrum of the kinds of people who may or may not want to talk to government about a specific issue.

Each one of these recommendations is a step towards professionalizing this so that the United Way has to hire somebody like me.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Having talked about the secondary issue in my question, we can go to the primary issue of balancing the need for public confidence. You would suggest that there should be a dynamic application of the length of time for the prohibition on lobbying in post-employment.

[Joe Jordan]

The thing that Canadians need to understand is that under the Conflict of Interest Act, there are very strict post-employment rules for people who are in a minister's office. You can't change sides.

They will look at someone's situation. You get a letter saying that you can't talk to people you had significant dealings with in that position for a period of one or two years. They also say there is a lifetime prohibition on you using information that you obtained in that position to better yourself.

Those rules already exist. Throwing another set on top and making it a five-year ban may.... People may sleep better at night, but you haven't altered the situation at all.

Bringing those two pieces together, and making sure there is the appropriate authority, is more than enough, really.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON]

Thank you.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Linda Lapointe]

Mr. Saini, the floor is yours.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Jordan and Mr. Hurley.

Mr. Jordan, in your opening statement, you were talking about recommendation number 11, but then due to the shortage of time, you had to let it go. I would like to hear your viewpoint on that.

[Joe Jordan]

I apologize to the committee. If you put a former politician and a former teacher in a room with a microphone, they're going to go over their time. I actually cut a bunch out.

Thank you for the question.

Essentially, this recommendation would expand the number of people who fall under the DPOH category. Right now, it's essentially ADMs and above. If you're meeting underneath that decision-making level within the civil service, then you have to be registered to engage in that activity, but you don't have to file monthly communications reports. The original legislation made that distinction.

They know they can't collect everything, so they target senior decision-makers. Over time, there's been a sense of trying to broaden that net and catch more people in there.

I would have to be convinced that having potentially 900 more communication reports filed every month into that office is going to provide more transparency for Canadians. It might just be a fog of data that nobody can interpret.

This goes back to my other point. They're only reconciling one side of the equation, and I'm not suggesting that should change, but all the information that goes into that system is provided by lobbyists. We're the ones who provide it.

The lobbying commissioner's investigative capacities are very limited. They check the newspaper to see if somebody is at an event, and then they may follow up. They can ask you to provide your meeting records—incidentally, you don't have to give them, but they can ask you for them—to see if they can reconcile, do a spot audit.

It's not a very good system for how you catch the bad actors. I think that's one of the things Mr. Hurley was talking about in his remarks.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

In the commissioner's recommendation number five, they would like to change the registration to a 10-day period, compared to the current two months. Do you have views on that issue? Do you think it's effective?

[Joe Jordan]

Whatever it is, I'll follow it. I don't have a problem with changing the timeline.

I provide a compliance function within one of the firms I contract with. I tell them, “If you have a meeting, file the comms report the next day. Don't wait until the 15th of the next month.”

In terms of filing deadlines, I assume the commissioner has a rationale for that. My experience with the lobby community is that they think, “If you make the rules, we'll follow the rules, as long as they're clear.”

I have no issue with changing those deadlines at all.

[Gurbux Saini, Liberal, Fleetwood—Port Kells, BC]

Mr. Hurley, the commissioner has recommended clarifying that board members, partners and sole proprietors count as employees of their organizations for registration purposes. Does your association see this as a helpful clarification? Are there other areas of uncertainty that should be cleaned up at the same time?

[Dan Hurley]

We're basing our position here on the feedback we received from the members who completed the survey. It did come up in a couple of instances. In a couple of cases, I had contradictory views with respect to board directors.

I would lean toward what Mr. Jordan has said with respect to providing that clarification for board directors so they don't have to file two separate filings. The concern comes up when you are dealing with, again, smaller organizations and non-profits. United Way is an excellent example of that.

There's a balance between transparency and the burden that it places not only on the sometimes very limited staff capacity you have with non-profits but also when attracting board members. Some board directors may not feel comfortable being part of that. The principle is right. It's the right one, but it's about ensuring that you have the right balance when you are going to communicate that.

To your other point with respect to time frames and so forth, usually that's an issue when an organization or a consultant lobbyist is initiating an undertaking or beginning their lobbying. In terms of education and ensuring that you have compliance and awareness, it's important that you allow enough time for these organizations, which may not have ever had to file before, to ensure they come into compliance in a timely manner.

[The Vice-Chair, Liberal, Linda Lapointe]

Thank you very much.

Mr. Garon, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Jean-Denis Garon, Bloc, Mirabel, QC]

Mr. Jordan, I am a little confused. When my colleague Mr. Sari finished his turn just now, he said that we have one of the best systems in the world and asked you how it could be improved. Then you told us that we have a system that—as you said in English—is not very good at catching the bad actors in the system. As a member of the Bloc, I would use an equivalent term in French.

Are we the best or not?