There needs to remain—and there currently is—a distinction between professional lobbyists who are paid and volunteers on boards of directors, who could be day-to-day farmers, nurses, engineers or teachers; you name the profession. I still believe very fundamentally that there needs to be a distinction between those two types of individuals.
For those who are professional lobbyists, as I have been over the past 10-plus years, every single day is about lobbying. Every single day is looking at what's happening in the House of Commons and what's happening at these committees. Okay, we need to meet with these members of Parliament on this issue. We need to meet with these ministers or ministers' offices on this issue. Every day as a lobbyist, you're thinking about lobbying. You're thinking about how you can influence the Government of Canada to go one way or another on a policy or a program that impacts 100,000 or 50,000 Canadians. That's the day-to-day life of a lobbyist.
In the day-to-day life of individuals who volunteer on boards of directors, they may meet four times a year. One of those meetings is here in Ottawa, and they meet with a few members of Parliament. Otherwise, they're tilling their fields; they're nursing patients, or they're teaching children. They're doing their actual job. Just because they're volunteers on a board of directors, that doesn't mean they should be required to register.