Mr. Speaker, no one on this side of the House fears recrimination for standing up and speaking out on issues.
Members have heard the Prime Minister say on many occasions that quite often we have a much better debate within our own party than we have in the House because sometimes the opposition does not get to the complexity and the depths of issues. The member who spoke previously really distorted this bill.
I was one of the most outspoken members in opposition on amending the Lobbyist Registration Act. There were three very specific areas we amended in this bill. I will talk about where I feel I did not get everything I wanted.
We have in the bill now things that make it much better. We now have in the loop all grassroots lobbying. That is important but was not a deal breaker for me. Another thing that really concerned me in opposition was communications techniques used by lobbyists. We knew lobbyists used polling and advertising. They sometimes spent millions of dollars in advertising and no one knew how the mood of the nation or the House was being affected.
This bill was amended to include a declaration of all those communication techniques so those in the House who have to deal with a lobby coming at them not just from a lobbyist but also from the way a market can be manipulated now know the techniques being used.