Thank you, Mr. Chair.
Good morning and welcome, Ms. Shepherd, Mr. Bergen. It's a pleasure to see you again.
I would like to start where my colleague Mr. Proulx left off. I will invite you to explain your approach in greater detail in relation to the surveys you can give. I would compare one aspect of your work to what an auditor does, someone who has to have a degree of expertise to see whether the figures presented are plausible or not.
I will go back to Mr. Proulx's example. Ms. Hamilton worked as a full-time lobbyist and made a very good living. She said she engaged in lobbying activities once or twice a year. An auditor would use a survey technique. Not a survey like CROP or Léger does, but a survey in the accounting sense. To see whether the information given is plausible.
I respectfully submit, since this is your field and not mine, that it is not plausible that a person could earn a good living as a full-time lobbyist, that she could be regarded as one of the best and most active lobbyists, and that she would declare only a few lobbying activities in a year.
What investigative techniques do you have for doing these surveys, an audit? How do you exercise oversight in this regard?
Myself, I'm just gobsmacked when I see these statistics.