Information & Ethics Committee on June 8th, 2026

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

I call the meeting to order.

Welcome to meeting number 46 of the House of Commons Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.

Pursuant to the order of reference of Thursday, February 12, 2026, section 14.1 of the Lobbying Act, and the motion adopted by the committee on Wednesday, September 17, 2025, the committee is resuming the statutory review of the Lobbying Act.

To our witnesses, I will remind you that members may ask questions in both English and French. Make sure you have the right interpretation on for what you need. If you do need interpretation, just allow the interpreters to finish the response or the question. Then you can respond as well.

I'd now like to welcome our witnesses for the first hour today. As an individual, we have Maxime Boucher, an affiliated researcher from the Centre on Governance at the University of Ottawa. From the Government Relations Institute of Canada, we have Muhammad Ali, vice-president and board member.

To both of you, I apologize for the late start. Obviously, we had votes, which delayed the start of the meeting.

Mr. Boucher, you have five minutes for your speech.

[Maxime Boucher, Affiliated Researcher, Centre on Governance, University of Ottawa, As an Individual]

Mr. Chair, members of the committee, thank you for inviting me. It is an honour to appear before you as part of the review of Canada's Lobbying Act. I am here today in my capacity as an academic researcher and as the founder of a research project called “Lobbying and governance in Canada”, which I established with a professor named Christopher Cooper from the University of Ottawa.

My remarks today are based on several years of empirical research on the federal government's registry of lobbyists, on Canadian political institutions and on the role of lobbying in contemporary democratic governance. I have three introductory points that I'd like to highlight very briefly.

The first is that lobbying is not an anomaly in a modern democracy. In a pluralistic society, it is normal for companies, associations, unions, organizations and other organized groups to seek to make their views known to public decision-makers.

The issue today is not the existence of lobbying as such, but rather the conditions under which it is carried out and the framework within which it is regulated in order to preserve the values of democracy, namely transparency, fairness, integrity and public trust in institutions.

The second point I'd like to emphasize is that lobbying is a multidimensional phenomenon. It's not just about expertise, nor is it solely about influence and privileged access to power. Our academic work as part of the research project shows that lobbying combines several dimensions at once. It involves the exchange of information and it also involves sector-specific expertise and to a certain extent, consultation. It also involves strategies for exerting influence and strategies for gaining access to power. All of this takes place within the context of the development of long-term relationships between political institutions and certain interest groups and civil society actors in Canada.

My third and final point is that, in the Canadian parliamentary system—as we have thoroughly documented in our research—lobbying strategies follow the actual distribution of power within our system. In other words, lobbyists specifically target the areas where decision-making influence is strongest. I am thinking, in particular, of the executive branch of government, government departments, but also certain parliamentary actors who hold strategic positions, such as parliamentary secretaries.

Finally, I would like to highlight a significant limitation of the current system. The federal system allows us to track communications, the parties involved, and the institutions targeted. We have information, but it's not perfect. On the other hand, it does not allow us to measure the amounts invested and spent on lobbying. I don't want to reduce influence to a matter of money, but for a researcher like me, this aspect of the information still tells us about the intensity of lobbying efforts, the means of mobilization and certain power imbalances that may exist among the interests exerting pressure on the government.

From this perspective, I would like to emphasize today that the lobbying commissioner's recommendation to improve the disclosure of certain sources of lobbying funding strikes me as very important, because it would allow us to shed more light on the resources that support lobbying efforts without significantly disrupting the overall structure of the act.

I would like to conclude by saying that, based on our research project, successful modernization of the legislation should aim for meaningful transparency that is proportionate and better adapted to the contemporary realities of power so that we can have more information.

To conclude, I repeat: The point is not to deny the existence of lobbying, but rather to ensure that it is carried out in a manner more consistent with the requirements of a modern democracy.

Thank you.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you for your remarks, Mr. Boucher. You spoke for less than five minutes.

Next we're going to Mr. Ali.

You have up to five minutes to address the committee. Go ahead, sir.

[Muhammad Ali, Vice-President and Board Member, Government Relations Institute of Canada]

Good afternoon, Chair and members of the committee. Thank you for the opportunity to appear today.

My name is Muhammad Ali. I'm the vice-president of the volunteer board of directors of the Government Relations Institute of Canada. GRIC is a national not-for-profit association representing government relations and public affairs professionals across all sectors of the Canadian economy. Our membership includes both consultant and in-house lobbyists.

Let me begin with one foundational point: Canada already operates one of the most transparent and rigorous lobbying regimes in the world. That is not to say the act cannot be improved, but any amendments should be grounded in clear evidence of a problem and must strike a careful balance between seemingly enhancing transparency and preserving Canadians' open access to government. Our recommendations are guided by that principle. GRIC has put forward six recommendations, but I'll focus on two today.

First, the Lobbying Act does not define the phrase “significant part of duties”, which determines when a corporation or organization must register for in-house lobbying. In the absence of a statutory definition, the threshold to meet a significant part of duties has been set through interpretation by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, OCL. For over a decade, this threshold was interpreted as 32 hours over four weeks across employees. In July 2025, it was reinterpreted as just eight hours—a 75% decrease—without clear public evidence of widespread non-compliance nor robust consultation to justify such a change.

It is important for this committee to understand what this threshold includes. It captures not only time spent meeting with government officials and elected officials, but also the preparation time, internal strategic decisions and any written communications, as well. In other words, this is not just a measure of time spent lobbying in meetings; it is a measure of the total time connected to those interactions.

Consider a local, family-owned small business in your riding, like a restaurant or a farmer, or consider a food bank facing an urgent issue. Over a few days, staff meet internally, prepare materials to brief you, as their local MP, email your office, meet with you and then meet again internally to debrief on the meeting. Perhaps there is a follow-up meeting with you, as their MP, to present further information to help them. Their collective time spent could easily reach eight hours just before that one meeting. Now, they are required to register under the law. These are not professional lobbyists. They are Canadians engaging with their elected representatives to seek help.

Going even further by potentially expanding the regime to that of registration by default by getting rid of “significant part of duties” altogether from the act, as has been proposed by the OCL, would significantly broaden the scope of the act. This risks imposing even further unnecessary administrative burden and red tape on small organizations and could overwhelm the registry with low-value filings, which would ultimately reduce meaningful transparency.

Given how central this concept is to the act, GRIC believes that “significant part of duties” should be defined in the legislation and not left to OCL interpretations that could be changed without any industry consultation. We recommend restoring it to 32 hours over four weeks, ensuring the system remains focused on capturing sustained lobbying activity.

Second, GRIC recommends maintaining the current requirement that only oral communications that are arranged in advance and initiated by lobbyists be reportable, and that reporting continues to focus on senior civil servants along with other designated public office holders, including, as the OCL has suggested, staff of the office of the Leader of the Opposition. The OCL's proposal to expand reporting to all communications, whether they are written or unarranged, would significantly flood the registry with insignificant communications and add limited transparency value.

Such changes could also create unintended consequences. Public office holders could be associated with interactions they did not agree to, including unsolicited written communications, such as emails and letters.

Transparency is most effective when it captures deliberate, substantive engagement, not incidental or informal exchanges. Fundamentally, designated public office holders, such as yourselves, should continue to have the authority to decide who they meet with and when. Government decisions are not shaped simply by chance encounters at the airport, your local community event or a letter. Similarly, expanding reporting requirements to include all public servants present at meetings would dilute the registry's usefulness. The current focus on senior decision-makers reflects how government decisions are actually made.

Our other recommendations include defining “undertaking” in the act, reducing post-employment bans, improving clarity in the code of conduct and including paid board directors in organizations' registrations.

In conclusion, Canada's lobbying framework is the strongest in the OECD. We welcome changes that are evidence-based, proportionate and focused on improving transparency where it matters most without limiting Canadians' democratic ability to engage with their elected officials.

Thank you. I look forward to questions.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Ali.

We're going to start with our questions. We'll go to Mr. Cooper first for six minutes.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to move the following motion that I put on notice on Friday. The motion reads as follows:

That,

given that the Privacy Commissioner of Canada is a trusted and respected defender of the privacy rights of Canadians;

and given that Liberal members on the Standing Committee on Public Safety and National Security denied the Commissioner an opportunity to protect those rights by appearing as a witness during clause-by-clause consideration of the Prime Minister's overreaching surveillance law, Bill C-22;

the committee report to the House its concern that the Liberal government has silenced and sidelined the Privacy Commissioner during this critical stage of consideration of the Prime Minister's overreaching surveillance law, Bill C-22.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay, Mr. Cooper. It's similar to the motion that you put on notice on Friday, I believe.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

That's right.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Okay. I'm going to deem the motion in order.

Go ahead, Mr. Cooper, if you have any comments.

Before you start, I have Mr. Lawton and Mr. Strauss on the list as well to speak to this.

I'm going to ask the guests to stay in place right now. I'm hoping that we can get back to you soon. We're going to deal with this matter.

Thank you.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Sturgeon River, AB]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

Bill C-22, the Liberals' surveillance law bill, gives the government sweeping new surveillance powers to access the private digital communications and information of Canadians. This bill has serious privacy implications, to put it mildly. As the Privacy Commissioner himself observed, “the interception of communications and the search and seizure of information are among the most intrusive forms of power that the state can bring to bear.” The Privacy Commissioner was referencing the National Security and Intelligence Committee of Parliamentarians in their 2025 “Special Report on the Lawful Access to Communications by Security and Intelligence Organizations”.

The Privacy Commissioner went on to state, in a brief he submitted to the public safety committee, the following:

This is so not only because of the reasonable expectation of privacy that we may have in such information as individuals, but also because of the impacts that its collection and use by state actors may have on our ability to exercise and enjoy other fundamental rights as members of a free and democratic society.

Consistent with the observations made by the Privacy Commissioner, I would note that constitutional jurisprudence has recognized that such things as metadata, Internet browsing activity and so on are highly sensitive personal information protected by section 8 of the charter, which states, “Everyone has the right to be secure against unreasonable search or seizure.”

Bill C-22 is arguably overly broad, interfering with the privacy rights and interests of Canadians. The bill would give sweeping powers to order electronic service providers to build into their systems interception and monitoring capabilities to collect and retain data about Canadians, data that includes everything, including the location of Canadians—talk about a surveillance state bill. Service providers are any “person who provides services to the public”, which is an extremely broad definition.

The Privacy Commissioner, in light of the privacy implications of Bill C-22 and the concerns that it is overly broad in scope, submitted a brief to the public safety committee, where Bill C-22, the Liberal surveillance bill, is being studied. In it, the Privacy Commissioner set out a number of concerns he had with the bill, including, as I noted, the broad definition of a service provider. The Privacy Commissioner observed that “the proposed production order for subscriber information”, which is information in which a high level of privacy is attached, based upon jurisprudence of the Supreme Court, “could be served on any 'person who provides services to the public'.” As the Privacy Commissioner notes, “Given the breadth of the definition, this means that...in some cases...healthcare providers, lawyers, financial institutions, certain apps and online services” and others “could be ordered to produce highly sensitive information about clients or subscribers based on a threshold of only reasonable suspicion.” That's a very low threshold to be made out.

Further to that, the Privacy Commissioner noted that “the production order provision stipulates that a person who receives such an order would have to produce 'all the subscriber information that relates to any information...that is specified in the order'.”

He also says, “As a result, service providers could be compelled to produce much more subscriber information than is necessary for the purposes of a given investigation.” Again, it's overly broad in its scope.

The Privacy Commissioner went on in his brief to cite concerns around the fact that “for greater certainty” with respect to production orders or warrants, it wouldn't be necessary to get one if the information were available to the public. In other words, law enforcement could do a runaround on the basis that the information was supposedly publicly available. I should note, as the Privacy Commissioner notes, that just because information is publicly available, it does not automatically follow that privacy interests and the right to privacy are not attached. That is not the case.

Also, what's missing from the bill is a provision for “necessity and proportionality” to ensure that regulations made under the legislation “are tailored to minimize privacy impacts.”

These are just some of the concerns the Privacy Commissioner raised with regard to Bill C-22.

At the public safety committee last week, Conservatives asked, given the serious concerns the Privacy Commissioner raised, that the Privacy Commissioner be present as a witness to address questions about privacy as the committee goes through clause-by-clause, just as, for example, CSIS, the RCMP and departmental officials are there to answer questions. Conservatives thought it was appropriate that the Privacy Commissioner also be there, given that this bill deals with issues around public safety that need to be balanced against the privacy rights of Canadians.

What we saw last Thursday at the public safety committee was Liberals thwarting and blocking the Privacy Commissioner from coming to committee, the very commissioner who is charged with protecting and promoting the privacy rights of Canadians. Liberal MPs want the commissioner to be silenced, to not be heard, to not answer questions about clauses within the bill that go to the heart of the privacy rights of Canadians. The question is this: Why?

The answer one can reasonably infer is that the Liberals want to sidestep and ignore the very serious concerns that the commissioner has raised about the threats posed by Bill C-22 to the privacy rights of Canadians. These are the same Liberals, by the way, who are doing a do-over with Bill C-22 after they got caught sneaking, into what they called a “border bill”, a surveillance bill in Bill C-2.

Given that, I would submit that it's imperative that we hear from the Privacy Commissioner and that we on this committee, who are charged with dealing with issues around the Privacy Act and privacy issues, report our concerns to the House and urge the Liberals to reverse course in order to stop putting a gag on the Privacy Commissioner and to allow the Privacy Commissioner to come before the public safety committee so that the committee can fully understand the privacy implications of Bill C-22.

Thank you very much.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

I am working on a list. I have Mr. Lawton, Mr. Strauss, Mr. Hardy and Ms. Chagger.

Mr. Lawton, go ahead.

[Andrew Lawton, Conservative, Elgin—St. Thomas—London South, ON]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair. It's good to be back on the committee that is tasked with looking at ethics, information and privacy. These three things, I note, are in very short supply with this Liberal government, especially with Bill C-22.

When we look at the way this process has proceeded before the public safety committee, it is shocking that a bill this complicated and lengthy, with as many good-faith concerns that have been raised from actors on the left and the right, from civil society groups and from civil liberties groups, was met by the Liberals with a desire to have an incredibly abbreviated study of the bill.

I note that my Conservative colleagues had to fight a Liberal government that was kicking and screaming to allow for even a modest expansion of witness testimony. In the course of that, we heard precisely how many issues were embedded in the bill that would compromise the privacy and security of Canadians.

We have big-tech companies. I have a great deal of skepticism about how big-tech companies operate when it comes to privacy. When they are sounding the alarm, and they are saying that they will not be able to safeguard user privacy if Bill C-22 passes, we should listen. These are the people who have infinite resources and can read the bill and see that Bill C-22 will compel them to build back doors into their own systems, systems that all of us as members of Parliament use. It will allow the government, not even Parliament but a minister, to circumvent this process. We are to believe that the government will just naturally, in good faith, constrain its own power that it's granting itself with Bill C-22.

I'll note the powers and authorities that law enforcement officials were asking for. I canvassed police chiefs in my riding. I spoke to other law enforcement officials and police associations across the country. The powers they wanted are in part 1 of Bill C-22. The powers the government is trying to seek in part 2 of the bill were not what the vast majority of law enforcement officials were seeking in this country. That's exactly where the concerns have come from these privacy groups and from the Privacy Commissioner.

When a commissioner, who ultimately serves at the pleasure of the federal government, wants to weigh in on this, the fact that the government, which claims there are no privacy concerns in the bill, is seeking to deny him the right to testify is, in and of itself, incredibly concerning. It doesn't want to hear what he has to say, because it knows he's right.

It was interesting. If you watch the public safety committee meetings from last week, there were actually government witnesses who questioned the motives. They didn't impugn the motives, but questioned the motives of the Privacy Commissioner. The response by the government was to not allow the Privacy Commissioner the opportunity to come and answer for himself, answer for his own motivations, and speak to amendments that he put forward on ways to improve the bill and ways to minimize and mitigate the harms.

On the one hand, we had the Public Safety Minister coming out and saying the government was open to amendments, but on the other hand, refusing to commit to any substantive amendments that would actually deal with the requirement to build back doors into electronic systems, that would deal with the broad retention and definition of metadata, that would deal with the broad ministerial authority that the minister is trying to give himself, and that would deal with, and this is particularly insane, the encryption issue.

On the one hand, we had some government witnesses saying they actually did want to get into encryption while the government was trying to say encryption was not at issue. This is exactly why the privacy implications of Bill C-22 are so important. If we have a public servant, a Privacy Commissioner, whose job it is to look at bills like Bill C-22, the only conclusion we can draw from the Liberal government's attempts to deny him the opportunity to speak is because it is scared of what he will say about the problems he sees in the bill.

Mr. Cooper's motion is basically reporting to the House of Commons, because this is a full parliamentary issue that needs to be raised here. The fact that the Liberal government has silenced and sidelined the Privacy Commissioner is incredibly important. I will be enthusiastically supporting this motion. I hope my Liberal colleagues will see the error in their approach in denying him the opportunity to testify and will also support this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Lawton.

We're going to go to Mr. Strauss next.

This is just a reminder that we're not debating the merits and the value of Bill C-22. The motion here is that the committee report to the House its concern that the Liberal government has silenced and sidelined the Privacy Commissioner during this critical stage of consideration. That's what we're debating here.

Go ahead, Mr. Strauss.

[Matt Strauss, Conservative, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Thank you, Chair. It's an honour and a privilege to join this committee today.

I think this may be perhaps the most important thing I've done here personally as a member of Parliament so far in my time here. I am more concerned about this bill than I have been by any bill that has come forward in my time as a member of Parliament.

Through you, Chair, I'm here, really, to implore the Liberal members to take this motion seriously and to consider what is at stake here. I am not speaking to the particulars of Bill C-22 as my colleague, Mr. Lawton, already has.

I want to talk about the function of the Privacy Commissioner and the history of his office. Anyone can shout it out if they know, but does anyone know which prime minister instituted the Office of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada? I won't wait too long for the answer: It was Pierre Trudeau. Which prime minister appointed the current Privacy Commissioner? It was his son, Justin Trudeau.

This is an office instituted by Liberals. The current holder of the office was nominated by Liberals, and his office has a $40-million budget every year that is paid for by the Liberal government to do important work, such as investigate, consider and advise the committee about Bill C-22.

It is shocking, then, and this committee ought to take very seriously the fact that the public safety committee has prevented him from testifying and has not allowed him to depose his amendments to the committee for their consideration. This is a rush job, and that's very peculiar.

One other thing I wanted to say about the history of the Privacy Commissioner's office is that I was looking at the commissioners who have been in this office in the past. One name that was familiar to me was that of George Radwanski, and he was known to me because he had an expense scandal.

What I didn't know was that he was a speech writer for Jean Chrétien before he took the office, so he was very much from the Liberal PMO. He was very much perhaps tied to this expense scandal thing that he had, but he is credited—if you look at his Wikipedia article—with stopping in 2023 the ability for law enforcement to read letter mail.

This lawful access business has been a going concern for 25 years. Liberals, with then justice minister Anne McLellan, tried to get it through. There was a public outcry. There was criticism from the Privacy Commissioner, and it did not go through. Conservatives, under then justice minister Vic Toews, tried to do it in 2013. There was a public outcry. There was criticism from experts. It did not go through.

We're repeating the same thing now. What I'm trying to show to the members opposite, many of whom I've come to know, like and respect during my time here—and Ms. Chagger, of course, whom I've known for longer than that because she's my parents' MP—is that this issue of privacy rights in Canada has required both parties to defend against the other party over the last 25 years. It's so critical that we have to ask the question: Why would the public safety committee try to prevent the Privacy Commissioner from coming to testify?

If asked, I think the Liberals on those committees would say that it's a rush job and that we've got to get it done in the next two weeks. That's just not true, Chair. As I said, it's been going on for 25 years. Every time it comes up, the public rises up to stop it. There's nothing about this that should go forward. It won't go forward.

I will say that when I watched what unfolded in 2013 when Vic Toews tried to get this through, I was scandalized. I'm very happy that I met the woman who became Stephen Harper's director of policy in 2013 and whose very first act in Harper's office was to withdraw legislation very similar to this. Conservatives can oppose it when their government is doing the wrong thing. The Liberals across from us can oppose it when their government is doing the wrong thing. I implore them to do that.

I would not be sitting here today as a Conservative member of Parliament if the Conservatives had not withdrawn that bill back in 2013. Whether this goes through or not, whether the Privacy Commissioner is invited or not and whether this committee raises it with the other committee or not, they should think about the sort of legacy that this can leave 10 years later.

Those are my comments.

I really urge them to vote for this motion.

Thank you, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Strauss.

I'm going to ask for more patience from our witnesses here and go to Mr. Hardy, followed by Ms. Chagger.

Go ahead, Mr. Hardy.

[Gabriel Hardy, Conservative, Montmorency—Charlevoix, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Again, it's not just happening here. It is happening in other parliamentary committees as well. The Liberals don't seem to be very transparent after all.

It is not even us, the Conservatives, who are opposing this, refusing to work or blocking the debates. It is a completely independent commissioner. This is someone who is urging caution because he has identified a problem with what is happening and would like to be able to testify.

That is essentially what Mr. Cooper's motion is saying. Here is what happened: The Liberals refused to allow this person to testify even though this person is an independent official whose specific job is to protect citizens' personal information. He is Canada's Privacy Commissioner. That is his job. He warned to be careful because the Liberals were moving too fast.

Once again, it's not that we don't want to work with our colleagues, which is what they seem to say all the time. However, we must follow the proper procedures. The processes must be followed. That's important. They must be followed to protect Canadians, our constituents, the people who vote. We must follow the processes. That's why all of this exists here—a Parliament, a structure—specifically to provide mechanisms that prevent things from moving too fast and prevent us from making mistakes.

There is an independent commissioner who has asked to testify, who says that this is an important issue, that it is 100 per cent his job, and that he spends his whole day ensuring that personal information is protected, yet the Liberals are not only refusing to call him to testify, but they are also trying to rush the passage of a bill as quickly as possible.

I understand that not much has been adopted in the past year. That's understandable. The Liberals were able to cobble together a majority behind the scenes. However, just because they have that majority today doesn't mean it's any less important to follow proper procedures. They have the majority; I know that. Every time they come in here, they're grinning from ear to ear. Suddenly, they're the kings of the world. I believe, however, that we must respect not only the processes but also the work of every member of Parliament. Moreover, this work is done for the citizens. It's done to ensure that we don't make mistakes and that, in the end, we achieve the best possible outcome for them.

To be perfectly clear, Bill C‑22, which the Liberals are trying to rush through without even respecting the commissioners, will force telecommunications companies to retain all metadata on every Canadian for one year. This is no small matter. Not only is maintaining this entire database a massive undertaking for the companies, but it will also make it possible to track where we were, what device we were using, who we were communicating with, and our phone numbers. We're facing a situation that is neither simple nor trivial.

I don't understand why this kind of access to information has been treated so lightly. Furthermore, I don't see how it's very ethical for the Liberals to do this just to score political points. Ultimately, the point is that they've managed to pass laws, despite a track record that hasn't been very good over the past year, but rushing through this won't improve their track record.

I think it is extremely important for us to address this issue, examine it and allow the right witnesses to come forward and testify to help us draft sound legislation so that, on the one hand, we can truly help our police officers do their jobs, but on the other hand, we do not open the door so wide that our citizens would feel genuinely threatened when it comes to access to information and the protection of their data. They will lose even more trust in our institutions.

My colleagues are already tarnishing the reputation of our democracy. I'd really like to see that stop as soon as possible.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Mr. Hardy.

Ms. Chagger, go ahead, please, on the motion.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I don't know what to say, but I keep saying that I'm a new member of this committee, and I really do find that the work this committee does is valuable and important. I know, based on what's taking place in my inbox in the riding of Waterloo and so forth, that my constituents would be disappointed to know what's happening at committee today.

What's even more interesting is that, as we were sitting here and I was getting to watch the show, I was writing to my colleagues at SECU to ask what took place and what's going on. I asked them if they could give me some insights because of what Conservative members are here suggesting on a motion. I asked them just to remind me who is on that committee. It turns out that the member for Elgin—St. Thomas—London South does not sit on that committee. The member of Parliament for Kitchener South—Hespeler is not on that committee, which is really disappointing to me because he comes from a very intelligent region. They have come to take time from our committee where we are advancing a conversation that's really important to Canadians. Every member says it.

What my colleague sent to me said that the Privacy Commissioner has appeared as a witness during the study of the bill and provided a brief to that committee. That brief is publicly available for anyone who would like to see it. They noted that we had committee business at the ethics committee, and we do it in public, unlike most committees, so they were able to confirm that we could have discussed this motion last week, but no. Conservative members wanted to wait until we had witnesses lined up to appear at our committee on a study that's important. Two witnesses, who are gainfully employed taxpayers, are now getting to watch this show at ethics committee, because Conservatives cannot understand that their motion was voted down at another committee.

I would just state for the record that it's not up to this committee or any committee to tell another committee what to do, nor is it normal practice for commissioners to be appearing during clause-by-clause consideration. I would hope that we would think that our commissioners have important work to do. When it comes to scrutinizing legislation clause-by-clause, that's our job as elected officials. That's why we go to committee, and that's why legislation travels through its process.

I should just also note on the record that it's of note that, when the Privacy Commissioner was in front of committee, the Conservative members used that time to talk about how much time they didn't have rather than asking thoughtful questions. I would encourage Canadians, because I'm sure that there are many watching, to go and check out the testimony at that committee. Watch what happens at this committee.

That's just the approach. Conservative members have demonstrated time and time again that, when Canadians are hurting, they love it. It's sad, but they do. Whenever things are doing all right in our economy and people.... If you look at the job numbers, they're not great, but they're better than they've been in a long time. Conservatives have a really hard time with that.

At the end of the day, we're not in a campaign. We have been elected. We have work to do. Conservatives need to start understanding that Canadians need us to do that work. During a campaign, they can be their political stripe first, no problem. That's part of what it is but, between campaigns, we should be Canadians first. We should be fighting for our country first. We should hurt when people are hurting, but we should also be able to applaud and celebrate when things are going well.

Mr. Hardy is a member of this committee. Mr. Hardy talks about how processes should be respected.

Yes, Mr. Hardy, I agree. We should respect processes, and SECU committee members voted. We should respect those votes. Canadians voted. More and more, Canadians are understanding why once again they sent a Liberal government, because it's the only party right now.... I'll give a shout-out to other parties in the House, just not the official opposition. It's the official opposition that refuses to get to work. It's the official opposition that does not respect our witnesses who are here.

I know the next panellists have also appeared so, with that, I will speak amongst Liberal members.

I think Bloc members want to hear from witnesses, too. I'm going to assume that, and I'm confident because that's usually how they are.

To respect our witnesses, I will move to adjourn this debate.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you, Ms. Chagger.

It's a dilatory motion. No debate is required. The motion is to adjourn debate.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 3)

We are now returning to the witnesses.

Thank you for your patience, Mr. Ali.

Thank you, Mr. Boucher.

Ms. Lapointe, you have six minutes.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you very much.

We will be able to ask you some questions, Mr. Ali.

You mentioned earlier that you had two main recommendations for reducing the administrative burden. One of them concerns the 32-hour threshold, which has been lowered to eight hours. I'd like to hear your arguments on this issue again.

[Muhammad Ali]

Our recommendation to return it to the status quo, essentially, of 32 hours is partly to ensure that small organizations like small businesses that need to go to elected officials to talk about specific issues aren't captured as lawbreakers in that situation. They aren't professional lobbyists.

Professional lobbyists like me are abiding by the law. This is our day-to-day job. Our recommendation is to make sure the system targets the people who are actively lobbying, not those seeking help from local officials who don't have the resources to track everything and who are simply asking for help. They are not looking to fundamentally change government policy.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

There has been a lot of discussion at committee about recording meetings. You mentioned that all scheduled meetings are documented. However, what do you propose if a chance encounter takes place, for example, at the airport or while walking outside? Could you elaborate a bit more on that?

[Muhammad Ali]

Our recommendation is that meetings be arranged.

When we say, “oral” and “arranged”.... It's a request for a meeting. A location and time are set aside. Even at an airport, you could say, “Well, can we meet on that side of the hallway?” That's an arranged meeting.

Our purpose is this: You, as elected government officials, should have the right to determine when you meet with someone. To say that an email, a letter or a chance encounter constitute lobbying is simply not accurate because that's not how decisions are made. You should be afforded the opportunity to find an actual time.

Our recommendation is to not flood the system with communication reports that don't demonstrate lobbying took place. You, the elected officials, should be in a position to say, “Yes, I wanted to hear what you had to say, whether I agree or not. I want to have the right to choose.” Without that right to choose, you may disagree with, or never want to meet with, an organization that can claim they've lobbied you hundreds of times because they sent you 100 letters. You may not want to respond to that.

Giving you that opportunity and right to choose is part of why we recommend that “oral and arranged” be the barometer for filing a communication report.

[Linda Lapointe, Liberal, Rivière-des-Mille-Îles, QC]

Thank you.

I have another question to explore this topic a little further: Do you think Canada should adopt a default enrolment model? Please explain your answer.

[Muhammad Ali]

I'm sorry, but can you repeat the beginning part?