Evidence of meeting #45 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 transparency.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Ms. Lapointe.
Mr. Bonin, welcome to the committee. You have the floor for six minutes.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Mr. Gear, you mentioned the OECD, but with regard to the Commissioner of Lobbying's first recommendation on the default registering in-house lobbyists, representatives of the OECD told the committee that countries that do not apply registration by default and that require it only when certain thresholds are met have a lot of trouble managing and implementing their policies.
They also said that countries that have passed legislation recently, such as Portugal in 2026, have chosen not to adopt the threshold approach but rather the default registration approach. We hear that it is difficult to manage using thresholds.
Don't you think it would be a good idea to adopt registration by default and that it would simplify things?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Obviously, there are a lot of benefits to having a simpler plan.
Even with registration by default, though, there would need to be conditions and thresholds in place. For example, the British Columbia regime talks about how they do registration by default, but even in those cases, small businesses with fewer than six employees are exempt from the registration requirement.
Even with registration by default, exceptions and conditions would still need to be put in place so that the system doesn't become so burdensome that the one person who very occasionally is in contact with a public office holder needs to register in the system and has to take on that additional burden.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
That's a very specific case, but in general, don't you think it would be a good idea to adopt registration by default? Do you think that would simplify things?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
That's certainly an option.
One thing we're looking at right now and learning from is the changes the commissioner has put in place in terms of the “significant part of duties”. Reducing that threshold significantly, to eight hours over a four-week period, is capturing a lot more lobbying activity, and we're certainly learning from that experience. That will help educate our view in terms of whether registration by default is a good direction to go in.
Bloc
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
It is absolutely a simple approach. I just caution that there are a lot of implementation details that would need to be worked out. I have difficulty believing that there would be no exceptions or conditions that would need to be put in place in what we would call a registration by default system.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
With regard to the administrative burden review, whose purpose which is obviously to save the government money, you indicated that you were going to revise the registration requirements in the Lobbyists Registration Regulations and that the objective was to reduce the administrative burden for individuals, corporations and organizations subject to the Lobbying Act.
In 2012, however, Mr. Douglas, from the Treasury Board Secretariat, told this committee that registering and managing the registry was not a huge administrative burden for lobbyists.
Why do you think we need to reduce the administrative burden on lobbyists?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Thank you for the question.
I didn't necessarily come out and say that the administrative burden is wrong. I just think that if we're looking at changes, any administrative burden we would be placing on the lobbyist community would be an important consideration that we would need to take into account. As I said, if we were to proceed with amendments to increase transparency around lobbying, that would definitely be something we would need to consider.
One thing that I would say about the regulations themselves is that we included them in the red tape review as something we would be willing to look at. This committee then announced that it would be looking at doing a statutory review of the act, so we've put that on hold until we receive the input of the committee to do that. We certainly are keeping an eye on how the recommendations come in order to decide what the approach will be, and then we will undertake that review again.
One of the things we'd be looking at is how we can make things more nimble, because the regulations, as they are currently written, are extremely prescriptive, and there are probably ways that we can make them much more nimble and flexible going forward.
Bloc
Patrick Bonin Bloc Repentigny, QC
The commissioner thinks her office could easily manage the requirement that all communications be subject to registration, including direct phone calls and text messages, which are exempt.
Do you think the commissioner's request would capture activities that you don't currently capture?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Obviously, with technological changes, methods of communication have changed a lot.
Since the legislation came into effect in 2008, the tech and the types of communications we do—social media and others—have changed significantly. That is certainly a question we should look at. We would value the input of the committee and others in terms of how that could be modified.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Thank you, Mr. Bonin.
For our second round, we have Mr. Hardy.
The floor is yours.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you to the witnesses for being here.
Mr. Gear, I listened carefully to what you said at the outset. The Treasury Board Secretariat is responsible for the Lobbying Act. So it's your responsibility. You said that the goal was to improve public trust in the work we do here in Parliament and in our institutions. Is that correct?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Yes.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Excellent.
Do you believe that today, as compared to 2008, people have more confidence in Canadian institutions or less confidence in the work we do?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Obviously, there are a lot of challenges right now regarding Canadians' trust in public institutions.
There are a lot of different factors that have led to that.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Do people have less trust in our institutions because there are all kinds of challenges?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
I know there are a lot of public opinion polls that have shown that confidence in public institutions has declined over time. Again, I'm not sure I would attribute that to just the Lobbying Act.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
It simply shows that your work is important, because you are responsible for something that nonetheless serves to maintain trust in our institutions.
Earlier, you talked about the trade-off between the pressure on lobbyists to register and show all the work they do, on the one hand, and the administrative burden involved on the other. One might say it's a question of the balance of convenience.
Knowing that people are losing confidence in our institutions, do you think we should work harder and show more transparency to regain their trust?
If not, will lowering the thresholds ultimately just increase people's distrust?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
Obviously, the expectations of Canadians with respect to transparency have changed. A number of different changes have been made over the years to increase the transparency of government information, for example.
I would say we should be very cognizant of that. It should be an important consideration when we're looking at potential changes to the act. On the other hand, there's the importance of cost—the cost to business and to non-profit organizations of dealing with red tape. We've heard that to be a significant concern, and it's also an important consideration going forward.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Let's talk about what you just said.
In 2012, your department, the Treasury Board Secretariat, said that lobbyists met the deadlines, with no incidents and minimal administrative burden, in particular thanks to a website that was perfected, among other things.
If your site has improved over time and, in 2012, there wasn't a problem with the structure or the way it looks, what has happened since then?
A few seconds ago, you mentioned something extremely restrictive. In 2012, before the technological era we are in now, the system was said to be effective, and today, despite all the technological advances and the improvement of your website, it is considered extremely restrictive.
What happened between 2012 and today?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
I apologize if there is a problem with the wording I used.
I didn't mean to suggest that the cost of the regime right now is too high. What I was pointing out was that if we were to make changes to the legislation, we would need to be very cognizant of what the changes would be and the impact that would have on the administrative cost.
Generally, our view is—and it's probably in line with what we said in 2012—that the current burden is probably appropriate in order to fulfill the provisions as they are now. I'm very mindful of the recommendations that have been brought forward to the committee by the commissioner and the push for greater transparency in a number of different regards. I'm just pointing out that in terms of good public policy, there needs to be a consideration of what the appropriate balance would be between transparency and the administrative burden.
Conservative
Gabriel Hardy Conservative Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC
Thank you.
The Commissioner of Lobbying told this committee that the federal regime suffers from a lack of transparency, and we just heard that this is extremely important. There have been suggestions, such as registration by default, disclosure of all lobbying communications, and disclosure of the names of each in-house lobbyist. These are all required in Quebec and in other provinces.
So, if we want to harmonize things in Canada and ensure that the threshold is higher rather than lower, why does the suggestion you seem to be making ultimately amount to reducing what is required of lobbyists, while they are being asked to do more in Quebec and in the other provinces?
Executive Director, Policy, Planning and Performance, Priorities and Planning Sector, Treasury Board Secretariat
I haven't proposed that we lower the threshold at all. Again, I'm just pointing out that as we consider any potential changes—and there's a lot of interest in more transparency—we take the cost into account.
