Information & Ethics committee  Absolutely.

Information & Ethics committee  It is the same situation; that's exactly the way to put it. It is not the same machinery-type situation, because I'm no longer part of anyone's management team. I'm my own department, so I don't sit on anyone's management team. Here's the way it's working--

Information & Ethics committee  Here's the way it's working now and the reason it can work, but the reason I still think it's critically important that an independent commissioner of lobbying be created. Because of the way the Financial Administration Act works, in order for me to have financial delegations to sign contracts and things and like that, a minister needs to sign a delegation instrument, and as well, if I'm going to make a presentation or submission to Treasury Board, a minister needs to do that.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am extremely happy to be here today. These meetings are very important to me. I am accompanied today by our counsel, Bruce Bergen, by Karen Shepherd, Director of Investigations, as well as by Pierre Ricard-Desjardins, Director of Operations. I think it was interesting to hear the bit of discussion about a seminar.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Just to make it clear, Mr. Chair, the way the act is currently applied, informal lobbying is a registerable activity, and if someone is being paid and they've said that they're going to use informal methods and that includes meeting at a hockey rink, then that is something they have to register.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  I have two very quick responses in support of two parts of the act that I think are very, very important. In your earlier comments about no convictions and no consequences, two extremely important parts of this act, I believe, are the extension of the investigation powers of the commissioner of lobbying from just the code of conduct to the act itself, so you can actually go after people quickly with powers that mean something, as opposed to asking people to cooperate voluntarily, which is the case right now; and the second one is the duty to educate.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  On the form that currently has to be filled in when you register, there's a tick-off box that says, “I'm receiving a contingency payment”. We could do a search on the registry. It would take a little bit of time to find out exactly how many, but from what comes across my desk, I would say it is not a large number.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  We would have to create a new data base. The one that we have is obsolete. We would have to create a new system for that purpose.

Bill C-2 (39th Parliament, 1st Session) committee  Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'll make some brief comments. Members of the committee, Mr. Chair, I'm very pleased to be here today. As a point of departure for questions you may have for me regarding the lobbying provisions in Bill C-2, I thought it could be useful to you if I were to provide a brief synopsis of the operation of the current legislation, from my perspective.