Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes.

Information & Ethics committee  Of course. I will always support any endeavour that promotes transparency. It would be a good thing. That said, in my experience with the registry of lobbyists, in order for a foreign agent registry to be effective, its objectives will need to be clear. I don't know what a foreign agent registry would look like, but I do know that its criteria and parameters will need to be clear and that it should include no threshold, because it's too easy to remain under the threshold.

Information & Ethics committee  Indeed, these communications are similar, but we will need to ensure that the foreign agent registry not include all communications with Canadian citizens, because these activities don't constitute lobbying. The Lobbying Act recognizes lobbying as a legitimate activity. We will need to carefully define the objectives and the purpose of the foreign agent registry.

Information & Ethics committee  No.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely. I've been working with officers of Parliament since 2007 or 2008, so it's a conversation we've been having for a long time. Over 20 years ago now, this very committee stated that we should have budgetary independence, and I completely agree. I'm very happy to have received funds, but I didn't get what I'd asked for.

Information & Ethics committee  Several. We have about 28 staff members, but we should have 33. With the funds I'll be receiving, I'll be able to hire four more employees, at which point we'll be 37. I currently don't have much of a choice, since our staffing pool is quite shallow, meaning that I have one staff per position, but no backups.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you.

Information & Ethics committee  Here's what I'll say. The resources I have do not impact on how many I conduct. It's the speed—the efficiency—that is not as fast as I would like. However, we look at everything. I have never been resource-oriented. I make sure we look at all the files. Obviously, if we had more people, we could probably turn them around a little faster.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely. We have a pretty big mandate—the registry, education and compliance. Up until that budget in 2021, the budget had not changed since 2008. It's always been 28 employees. The number of lobbyists, and therefore the number of calls our office gets, keeps going up. The number of investigations and the compliance work keep going up.

Information & Ethics committee  When a former designated public office holder leaves office, they cannot lobby for five years. There is a small gap if you work for a corporation, in that you can lobby up to 20% of your time. However, if that person is a senior official, it's complicated. They end up in the registry and then they are subject to the code, but unless you're on the registry of lobbyists, you're not subject to the code.

Information & Ethics committee  Anyone who leaves office is prohibited from communicating with public office holders, so they simply can't communicate unless they fall into a category. Going to work with someone that you have dealt with before comes under the post-employment rules of my colleague's office, so if you don't mind, I will pass the baton.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, absolutely. We should've reviewed it in 2017, but we didn't. We should've reviewed it in 2022, but we didn't. Now, here we are in 2023, but I'm seeing no indication of it happening. And yet, it's high time to review the act. The weaknesses in the code flow from the weaknesses in the act.

Information & Ethics committee  The first should be the threshold that organizations and companies are subject to. Everyone remains under the threshold, and yet there's a lot of lobbying that can happen before reaching that threshold. Someone can do up to 32 hours of lobbying per month before having to register as a lobbyist.