Information & Ethics Committee on June 8th, 2026

[Duff Conacher]

Yes, and if you're really concerned about this burden, something systemic could be done: Reverse the onus and just have all of you and all public office holders register in the registry people who communicate with you with regard to your decisions. That would take the burden off all lobbyists and put it onto the government. However, the commissioner has testified that there isn't really any burden.

I agree. I've done the registration. It doesn't take long. The updates don't take long. I have a lot of other things to do. Democracy Watch only has a couple of staff people. I have a ton of things to do, but it's something that takes almost no time at all to keep updated.

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

It just seems perfectly reasonable to me that if you're involved in a matter of policy and you take it upon yourself to lobby a public office holder—and you didn't initiate the meeting in advance but you stop the public office holder at the airport or at a reception—then it should be very easy to understand that that's lobbying and, therefore, should be reported.

[Duff Conacher]

Yes. Every loophole that allows for secret lobbying also, therefore, allows for unethical lobbying, because you don't have to comply with the code. As a result, that's all a recipe for corruption, for waste of the public's money, for private interests being protected and for public interests being violated.

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

You referenced British Columbia. How has it worked in British Columbia over the past few years? Has it been overly burdensome?

[Duff Conacher]

No. The registrar testified here and said that this measure with, again, the carve-out they have—which I would modify somewhat for the smallest of organizations that don't really do ongoing advocacy—is fine. It's just, really, the way it should be done. Again, if you want to take the burden off, then switch to the reporting of the communications being done by public office holders.

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

I'll give the balance of my time to Mr. Hardy.

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

Mr. Thurlow, earlier you said it was simple: if a mistake is made, it'll be obvious and we'll know about it. The person will be taken to court, arguments will be made, and it will be proven that unethical lobbying occurred.

Over the past 10 years, we've had SNC-Lavalin, WE Charity, and ArriveCAN. How many of them went to court and lost? How many times has the act been enforced? How many times has what you're saying actually been proven?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

I have no specific information on any of those examples.

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

You work in this industry. Over the past 10 years, you must have seen someone in the industry who clearly engaged in lobbying and went to prison or was fined. You're saying you know of no—

[W. Scott Thurlow]

There's one very conspicuous example where someone was charged. It was a prison sentence that was imposed in that particular example. I'm not going to name them here because I don't think that's appropriate. You can figure out all on your own who it was.

The system can work. I'm not going to pretend that there aren't ways that we can improve how the law is enforced. The commissioner herself has said that that's a challenge she has from a resources perspective. If that is what Parliament wants to do, it should be Parliament that says that it wants that.

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

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

Thank you, Mr. Hardy.

Mr. Chang, you have five minutes. Go ahead.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Thurlow, I'm from B.C. In your brief, you raised concerns about expanding the commissioner's enforcement power, particularly with respect to administrative monetary penalties. Could you explain those concerns and what lessons, if any, our Parliament should take from the B.C. experience?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

I'm fascinated by British Columbia. First of all, you don't get as much snow in Vancouver, so that's good. Also, they have the AMPs authority, and it's used sporadically. If we assume the same issues and complications that happen under the federal rules happen in British Columbia, they should have way more AMPs issued. There aren't very many AMPs that have been issued. They have also temporarily suspended the use of AMPs, so that's another interesting question that you might want to ask the commissioner about.

The one thing, though, that I think this committee could recommend, from a saving money and saving resources perspective, is borrowing infrastructure. British Columbia has borrowed the infrastructure from the federal lobbying registration process. That can be exported to all of the other provinces and maybe some of the larger cities that have it as well. That kind of sharing could reduce burden and create expertise as opposed to all of the different systems.

Quebec is very difficult. Just by way of example, it's a very different system. Some are a little bit easier; some are a little more burdensome. That's something, from an infrastructure, intellectual property perspective, that could be shared with all of the provinces to have that kind of one-window approach. Certainly it works for our taxes, so why couldn't it work for this, too? I think, if you interviewed all the commissioners of lobbying, you'd find that they spend a lot of money maintaining their registries. Maybe that's something we could do to reduce costs.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you very much.

Do you agree with the statement that Canada's lobbying regime is full of loopholes or secret lobbying, or do you agree with many of our witnesses who stated that our lobbying regime is one of the most robust and most rigorous in the world, and why?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

I absolutely agree with the second statement more than I agree with the first one. There are differences everywhere around the world. To say that one is better than the other will depend on the prism through which you look at the performance of those systems.

I am not going to celebrate the U.S. system, which is administered by the Internal Revenue Service. That is the last person you want administering the lobbying registration rules in Canada, I think. I also think that there's quite a bit of skepticism about whether or not they have similar problems, if not worse problems, in the United States about the interplay between lobbyists and political actors. Part of that is because of their contribution rules, which are a problem that we don't have in the same way.

I believe that we have the best system that I have seen. Can it be improved? Absolutely, it can be improved, but I don't think we should be making some of the more fundamental changes that have been recommended.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

Thank you.

Why do you believe the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct should remain focused specifically on the activities of registrants as they communicate with public office holders?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

It's called the Lobbying Act; it's not called the democratic freedom act. I think that the lobbying code of conduct should be about what you are doing as you are communicating, as you are lobbying. The first version of the code of conduct had this: Please tell the truth, please don't share secret information and please ensure that you are communicating with your various different clients. Don't lobby for both apples and bananas. You can only lobby for one. You can't have interests that are different from one another, though I find both delicious.

The new approach to retroactively look at different activities, which then places limitations on what you can do as a lobbyist, I think is beyond the purview of the Lobbying Act. I think we should focus on the registration to ensure that it's transparent and focus on the activities on a going forward basis, not what I used to do a long time ago.

[Wade Chang, Liberal, Burnaby Central, BC]

I guess my final question for you is this. From an administrative law perspective, what principles should Parliament consider when assessing proposals to expand the powers of the Commissioner of Lobbying?

[W. Scott Thurlow]

The very first administrative law principle that we have to ensure is the duty of fairness. To have new obligations placed on someone without the ability to have them freely and fairly debated in the House of Parliament is going to be a little bit of a problem. I would also like to ensure that, if there is a violation, there is no judge, jury or executioner situation that happens, which is one of the main criticisms of AMPs. It's that the person who finds the violation can then issue the fine that's associated with it.

I think Mr. Conacher is right when he says that sometimes that hand-off to the enforcement agencies doesn't happen the way that it should. I can't explain why that is, but, by the exact same token, I can't explain why the RCMP, the law enforcement agency, doesn't choose to pursue some of these matters. I think part of the issue there is prosecutorial discretion, and they are determining what is or is not something that's worthy of their time.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Brassard]

Thank you.

I want to thank both of our witnesses for being here today as part of this study on the review of the lobbying legislation. Like other witnesses, if you have some other information that you'd like to provide to the committee, please send it in.

I know, Mr. Conacher, you've already indicated that you will be supplying a brief to the committee, so we look forward to that. I made a mistake earlier. I said your opening statement was the brief; it is not. I understand that.

I have no other business for the committee.

On Thursday, we'll have the finance minister and the Ethics Commissioner here on the Alto situation.

This meeting is adjourned.