Information & Ethics committee  Just to clarify, consultants who are government relations officials, if they are hired to negotiate a contract—

Information & Ethics committee  —for an organization, they would have to register—

Information & Ethics committee  The code for lobbyists is only applicable to registered lobbyists. Any individual who volunteers for you who is not a lobbyist is not subject to this code. It's really only for the individuals listed in a registry. If they are registered to lobby and they do volunteer for you, there might be some consequences under the code, because they would be subject to the code.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you for your question. Obtaining contracts is not something that is regulated in the Lobbying Act, except for consultants. If organizations and corporations hire a consultant to negotiate a contract for them, the consultant would need to register with our registry under the Lobbying Act.

Information & Ethics committee  If I understand your question correctly, are you asking how the current code that I am proposing would help to benefit, or is it adding—? Okay. Basically, right now, the rules are simply not clear, and because they're not clear, it is very difficult to regulate, investigate and provide advice.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. Good morning, Mr. Chair and committee members. I am pleased to have the opportunity to discuss the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct, which I submitted to you on November 15, along with a document explaining the changes. I am joined by Scott Whamond, our office’s policy analyst.

Information & Ethics committee  In fact, there is the transition period, which corresponds to a suspension period. There may be lobbying of officials, but not of members of Parliament. The House of Commons being the highest institution, this is a time when there is less activity.

Information & Ethics committee  In 2021, there were 28,000 monthly communication reports. In the last year, we had 24,000. So it went down a little bit, but it was an election year. Every election year, when there's a caretaker mode, there is no real lobbying that's occurring. In light of the fact that it was 24,000, even, I think we're on a trajectory.

Information & Ethics committee  It was in 2008. From when the office was created until just recently, it was the same budget.

Information & Ethics committee  Wow. Exactly. It requires work to evaluate and do a submission. We did one in 2019. I arrived in January 2018. It took me a bit of time to get my footing. Then we did a request for the IT. It's grand time that we asked for more.

Information & Ethics committee  I guess it's about how much weight you put to the value of transparency. To me, it's up there. To me, the burden of going into a registry to put in who you're going to communicate with, and about what, is not that high. Right now, because the threshold is where it's at, there is a lot of lobbying that's occurring that we don't know about.

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. Exactly.

Information & Ethics committee  Well, I don't know that I have a huge strategy. Right now, I rely on the people I have in the office to simply do the basics. When we say that we look at the media, we look at the media. We start with that. We have some keywords. I might have 10 or 15 articles a day, so it's not that big.

Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely, yes.

Information & Ethics committee  I would say that lobbying is not well understood. I make a lot of presentations and, as soon as I say the word "lobby,” people roll their eyes. I find that unfortunate and I work hard to make people understand that it is a legitimate activity. It's the only way you can get the information you need to do your job.