I stand corrected, Madam Speaker, about the time the member for Elk Island spoke. He spoke for half an hour. I can assure him it certainly felt like an hour. I would suggest that the reason why it felt like an hour was that there was very little in his speech that was actually substantial. Try as I might, I cannot remember, and I did listen the entire time, a single, clear suggestion that he made on how to improve the Lobbyists Registration Act.
I put to him that he could have said, for example, as I did in committee when I proposed to the ethics counsellor, that mid-level bureaucrats keep a telephone log of all the lobbyists who make representations to them, and that telephone log would be available through access to information or any other means that would be available for the public to see who precisely, what lobbyists and what individuals in the bureaucracy, are being approached.
Now, we well know that deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers are approached by lobbyists and we well know that there are senior politicians and senior bureaucrats who become lobbyists. What we do not know is those people who are in the lower levels of bureaucracy, who are, shall we say, the nameless policy-makers, who may be approached by their colleagues who have become in-house lobbyists, who are also nameless. They get together and it is sort of a little old boys' school.
I have proposed that change. I think the first time I did it was in 1994. It was rejected by the government at the time and by the committee, I regret to say. I proposed it again when the bill came up for review recently. You know, Madam Speaker, you have to take the bones that are available to you, and I do believe that the government heard the message of the amendment, heard my colleagues who supported it, because the backbench MPs, the soldiers, shall we say, of democracy, are very aware that there is a problem in the lower levels of the bureaucracy, in the lower levels of the lobbying firms, and that it needs to be corrected.
Our job here is to make those suggestions. The member for Elk Island had an opportunity to make a very clear suggestion like that, and I really regret I did not hear it. I am sure he has some other ideas of his own and maybe we will get a question from him.