Mr. Speaker, I really wanted to point out that at the end of the day, when we strip away the veils, the fact of the matter is that the lobbyists are looking to talk to the people with decision-making authority, and those people sit on the other side of the House. They do not sit on this side of the House.
In Mr. Jaffer's case, he was not lobbying the member for Burnaby—Douglas, because he knows the member for Burnaby—Douglas has no access to government contracts. The type of activities that Mr. Jaffer was involved in had exclusively to do with the government and people he knew within the government.
The question is, why were members of the government, cabinet ministers, not smart enough in that case to ask him if he was registered, and to recognize it for what it was, an attempt to influence them to actually get contracts?