Thank you, Chair and committee members, for this invitation to speak on one of Canada's most important democratic government laws, the Lobbying Act, and the lobbyists' code. This is the fifth or sixth time I've been here.
I will be presenting in English.
I practise my French a lot, but my speech includes a lot of technical terms.
I will very soon be filing with the committee a detailed brief of much-needed changes to the act and the code that I'm summarizing today to close the huge loopholes that allow for secret, unethical lobbying, and to make enforcement independent, timely, transparent, effective and accountable. The Commissioner of Lobbying's recommendations call for only half of the key loopholes to be closed. The commissioner ignores some of the biggest loopholes. Also, these loopholes make enforcement very ineffective.
I've read all of the written submissions filed with the committee. Many of the submissions argued for keeping loopholes open or requested that a new loophole be opened. The committee should disregard all of these requests.
Secret, unethical lobbying is a recipe for corruption, a recipe for a waste of the public's money and a recipe for other decisions that protect private interests and violate the public interest. It also facilitates foreign interference.
Canada's law allows for more secret, unethical lobbying than the U.S.' laws and several other countries' laws, as the OECD representatives noted in their testimony.
Overall, Canada's Lobbying Act and the lobbyists' code are loophole-filled, and the enforcement system is negligently bad. Combined with the federal political donation system, with its much too-high donation limits, it means that Canada still has a secret, corrupt favour-trading system that essentially legalizes bribery, with Commissioner of Lobbying Nancy Bélanger and the RCMP covering up almost every violation.
Since January 2018, according to her annual reports, Commissioner Bélanger has let off, in secret, almost 20,000 violations of the act and the code involving an unknown number of lobbyists. She has not identified or penalized any of these law-breaking lobbyists, even though, despite what she has claimed before this committee, she could have found them all in violation of the code and named and shamed all of them, as a past commissioner did in one case. Overall, the commissioner and the RCMP have let off 99.9% of the lobbyists they have caught violating the act or the code. Only a few lobbyists have been investigated and only two have been charged—and one of those two was let off by the RCMP.
The commissioner and the RCMP are also illegally hiding their investigation records, and the Information Commissioner is investigating them both for violating the federal Access to Information Act.
A national survey in January 2025 found that more than 80% of Canadian voters want to know the details of all lobbying, and want lobbyists prohibited from fundraising, campaigning or doing other favours for politicians they lobby or will lobby.
To summarize briefly, the loopholes that need to be closed—almost all of which hide the extent of lobbying by big businesses—are as follows.
Unpaid lobbying is not required to be registered. The commissioner told this committee this is the biggest loophole in the act. However, bizarrely, she did not recommend closing this loophole. Toronto and Ottawa require disclosure of volunteer lobbying.
Up to eight hours a month of secret lobbying is allowed by each executive and employee at a business. While the commissioner's lowering the threshold from 32 hours down to eight hours was a long-overdue change, eight hours is still a lot of lobbying. A government lawyer told the RCMP some years ago that violations of any lobbying time threshold, like the current eight hours, will never be prosecuted.
Secret lobbying about the enforcement of a law or regulation, or for a tax credit, is allowed. Secret lobbying by business employees and executives for a government contract is allowed. Secret lobbying of political party officials is allowed, even though they can easily pass on the lobbyist's demand to the party leader.
Only oral, pre-arranged communications that lobbyists initiate are required to be disclosed, but who is actually doing the communicating is allowed to be kept secret. B.C. requires disclosure of all communications.
The amount spent on lobbying efforts is not required to be disclosed, unlike in the U.S. and other countries.
Lobbyists are allowed to secretly fundraise, campaign and do other favours for politicians they are lobbying.
The so-called five-year ban in the act on lobbying after leaving a public office position applies only to registered lobbyists. No one lobbying in ways that exploit the loopholes I just listed is required to register and disclose their lobbying. As a result, there is no five-year ban. Federal politicians and officials are allowed to leave office and start lobbying the next day, in secret and unregistered.
If someone can exploit a loophole so that they are not required to register their lobbying, then the few weak ethics rules in the lobbyists' code also don't apply to them, and they can do corrupting favours for the politicians they are lobbying or will lobby.
To stop unethical lobbying, the committee must call for the closing of the huge unethical lobbying loopholes that the committee, together with the commissioner, very unfortunately added to the lobbyists' code three years ago. These loopholes allow lobbyists to secretly fundraise and campaign for party leaders, politicians and parties and assist them in other ways, while lobbying them at the same time or soon afterwards. The loopholes essentially legalize bribery.
Finally—
