Information & Ethics committee  I don't have an interpretation bulletin specifically for a public office holder. Actually, there is one. It doesn't specifically say “public office holder”, but it is if you are communicating with a public office holder, which would include members of Parliament. The one docume

Information & Ethics committee  Well, right now I have 25 full-time employees, but I have three staffing actions, so we hopefully will have 28 in the near future. In terms of monitoring activities, almost 30% of my budget, that is of the FTE count--sorry, person, easy on the bureaucratic terms--is involved in

Information & Ethics committee  Yes, but everybody is keeping an eye. I have one person dedicated to it. It's the one thing.... We're doing a lot even with 28 people. I have five investigators, or actually I'm in the process of staffing for one of them.

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of what we have right now, in terms of what we're finding.... I mean, with the monitoring that we've done and with 90% of individuals actually being registered, it would seem it's a good use of resources right now.

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of the lobbying community, we're communicating with them on a daily basis. The advisors who are answering the phone are not only providing technical support, but are also providing advice for those who have questions about the Lobbying Act. So providing advice is done on

Information & Ethics committee  Okay, we'll do that. We're quite proud of it actually. It's the first one we did as part of our marketing resources or outreach activities this year. In terms of other groups, one of the things that I did last year was to get the word out to public office holders. As a group, if

Information & Ethics committee  A member of Parliament is a public office holder.

Information & Ethics committee  So if the individual is being paid to communicate with a public office holder—and, as I said, it could be for the making or development of a bill, proposal, or policy or program—and if it's for the awarding of a federal grant or financial contribution, that is something that's re

Information & Ethics committee  Well, it's a little more complicated than just a simple yes. If it were an in-house organization and they were paid and it were about communicating a registerable activity, they must also hit the significant amount of time to register.

Information & Ethics committee  Sorry, can I just make one correction when you're looking at page 9? I was just referring to my budget, but that is the appropriation we have been given to work with.

Information & Ethics committee  By doing the job I am doing. Both Houses of Parliament entrusted me with me the integrity of the act and ensuring that lobbying was done in a transparent manner and that those who were communicating were doing so with high ethical standards. I take that seriously. As I was indic

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of the reporting, I report to Parliament through this committee, which I think is one of the ways.

Information & Ethics committee  They need to file their initial registration. Once they have filed their initial registration, if they communicate with a designated public office holder then they have to file a monthly communication. They have 15 days in the next month to file the monthly communication. If they

Information & Ethics committee  One of the things we're looking at is once a lobbyist files, there are about seven steps for consultants and corporations from the filing of the registration until it hits the system. The performance indicators will allow us to figure out where in those steps we need to focus mor

Information & Ethics committee  No, this is allowing us to get better at capturing information we have and trying to put things in place.