Chair, while I think the intentions are good in the sense that if a foreign state were trying to influence Canada and a former public office holder went to work with them, that would be problematic. The problem is that this amendment is quite broad; it just says “a former public office holder must not enter into an agreement with a foreign principal”.
What if that arrangement was something with one of our allies? Promoting democracy is work that I think many public office holders do, and the experience in Canada would be actually quite helpful. There's a distinction between work involving foreign agents or influence and the important work that actually promotes democracy around the world, and this does not distinguish between the two.
The other concern I have is that it's just too broad and doesn't deal with it. If an individual, whether a public office holder or not, entered into an arrangement with a foreign principal to impact or to advise on behalf of that foreign principal, the foreign principal would be subject to the foreign agent registry and would have to be identified on that anyway.
Again, I think the intentions are good, but the way it is drafted is too broad to allow for the distinction, and the registry itself would allow for the disclosure of that individual in any sort of arrangement with a foreign principal, so we can't support this amendment as it is drafted.