Evidence of meeting #41 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 45th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was registry.
A video is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON
What is the overlap between your mandate and foreign influence detection for reporting?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Any foreign entity that lobbies federal public office holders is subject to the Lobbying Act and should register. The foreign transparency act actually goes broader than the current Lobbying Act, so there will be overlaps in registration, but the responsibility under the Lobbying Act applies even though someone may be a foreign entity or body, and we do have foreign entities in our registry.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands—Rideau Lakes, ON
I think that's it for my time.
Thank you very much.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
Commissioner, it's nice to have you here at committee. I'm a new member to this committee, so I'm looking forward to our discussion.
I do want to congratulate you on your top-ranking status. You should be very proud of that. I think that having a team member who is working so hard, and recognizing that, goes a long way, so congratulations to you and the entire team.
Since I am a new member, as I've shared, would you perhaps elaborate on what types of issues you're referring to the RCMP?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Of the 19 files we have shared, some are organizations and corporations that were not registered, when I was of the view that they met the threshold. Some were consultant lobbyists who were not registered but, in my view, should have been registered. Some were former designated public office holders who should not have been lobbying because they were subject to the five-year restriction, but they lobbied.
For the most part, those are the files. There were some on contingency fees as well, where we found evidence that people were agreeing to lobby based on the success. That's not permitted under the Lobbying Act; therefore, I have sent some of those as well.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
You send a file to the RCMP, the RCMP investigates it, and if there are charges that need to be pressed, it presses those charges.
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Yes. That's exactly how it works.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
Of the files that you're usually referring to them, how many are returned to you, and how many have charges pressed?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Of the 19 files I have sent, they currently still have three. In one, charges were laid, the file is finished and they returned that one. I have closed 14, and there's still one that was just recently sent, which is still suspended, and I haven't decided yet what we will do with that.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
When you say that you haven't decided what you'll do with that, what do you mean by that?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
The issue is that, when I get the file back, I need to decide whether there is a compliance rationale to.... What is there left to investigate? This file has been investigated by me. I've sent it to the RCMP. They've investigated. No charges were laid. It was sent back to me. What am I supposed to do with that? The only thing I could do, possibly, is a report to Parliament to say, “Here's what I did. Here's what the police did.” I don't know what they did, because they don't tell me. They just return the file. The purpose of that.... Then I have procedural fairness. I would have to let the people know that these events that happened four or five years ago...so I just close the file, because there's nothing left to investigate.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
Okay. Our time is limited. The challenge is.... We have people like you in these important roles. Clearly, your team takes the role seriously.
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
Yes, absolutely.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
I have no doubt that the police and the RCMP take their role seriously, so matters are being looked at and they are being addressed. A report to Parliament would allow the public to know what's taking place, because it would be a public report. I just don't want the impression that things don't get taken seriously. They are addressed.
Sometimes I have conversations, “I want to determine someone's guilt or innocence,” but that's not how our independent judicial system or independent agencies work. That's part of the strength of our democracy in Canada. I think it's something that's fragile around the world and something that we need to protect a lot more now. Thank you for that information.
I am going to move on to the main estimates, just to make sure that we stay on the topic that you're here for. Can you give us a breakdown and overview of your main estimates for 2026-27, just so that anybody watching can get a bit of a snapshot of what's taking place?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
We have a budget of $6.1 million, and $4.8 million is for our staff: $3.6 million of that is actually for my program, and the rest is for internal services. Then I have $1.3 million left for O and M, and then $700,000 of that goes to MOUs with other departments to help us. We're a team of 35, and we have the exact same obligations as other departments.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
For the newbies like me, do you want to just remind people what O and M means and what an MOU is?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
I'm sorry. It's for our operational budget. Our operational budget is $1.3 million. That's for contract expenditures, and that's outside of salary dollars.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
As a follow-up, can you walk us through the difference between the two main components, the regulation of lobbying and internal services?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
The program has 27 of our employees take care of advice to stakeholders, the registry, our outreach and our compliance, to make sure that we interpret and apply the Lobbying Act. The rest of internal services is to do our finance, our contracts, access to information requests—the usual corporate internal services that other departments have.
Liberal
Bardish Chagger Liberal Waterloo, ON
I'm just going to jump back to the top, to investigations and compliance measures. What additional compliance measures are you looking for under recommendation 17?
Commissioner of Lobbying, Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying
I'm hoping that I could have a spectrum. It could start from mandatory training to administrative monetary penalties, to a prohibition on lobbying and then, as well, to continuing to send to the RCMP if it's warranted.
Liberal
