Mr. Speaker, my colleague just outlined, possibly better than anybody else could, exactly what is wrong with the Lobbying Act as it stands.
It appears that Mr. Jaffer did exactly what my colleague from Hamilton Centre just described, knowing full well perhaps, because he was the caucus chair of the Conservative Party at the time that we crafted the Lobbying Act, that he could fly under the radar, make his contact with the parliamentary secretary, who, by some happy coincidence, is excluded from the Lobbying Act and does not have to file anything, and then gets all the access to the senior bureaucrats and public office holders by that open door.
The door was thrown open for well-connected Conservatives who knew the secret handshake and knew how to get past the rules. That is what is offensive and that is what needs to be corrected. It is a loophole that should not be allowed to continue for another day and, by order in council, those guys could fix it.