Information & Ethics committee  This year, we conducted a press review and assessed the priorities for the various projects for the entire office. Subsequently, we decided what we need to invest. As I explained, this year, it may be necessary to invest more in the registry system by drawing on our $300,000 disc

Information & Ethics committee  Yes. The budget is tight, and we have put measures in place to be as efficient as possible so that I can fulfill my mandate. Could I have avoided this situation if I had had more funds? It's really difficult to say because it's truly unprecedented. The difficulty in terms of th

Information & Ethics committee  If there are a lot of appeals, then you don't know how much court is going to cost you. With the office, I think I have always taken pride in using the dollars and so on wisely, so I would not want to be having such a large fund that it's going to lapse. When I initially started,

Information & Ethics committee  Indeed, if we had more funding, we could do more. Currently I have only one lawyer on staff. We still manage to put things in place. However, in terms of the legal fees fund, it's really difficult to say because this is the first time since 2008 that the office, or myself, has be

Information & Ethics committee  In fact, there are two facets. When I talk about the priorities and the meetings I have with the directors and managers, I'm talking about what we do at the beginning of the year. We have to appear before you with the departmental plans in order to have an additional budget appr

Information & Ethics committee  Are you referring to the new Lobbyists' Code of Conduct?

Information & Ethics committee  When I first announced in 2013 that I was seeking a consultation to see if the code was meeting its objectives or should be revised, the initial reaction was, “What's wrong? We didn't request a change.” I think when they felt that I was truly listening and so on, the participatio

Information & Ethics committee  Right now the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct is a non-statutory document so there are no fines or jail terms. There are reports to Parliament, but as I've said before, I think the consequences are quite significant when you think of the lobbyist's reputation in terms of maintaining o

Information & Ethics committee  That's a good question. There is no precedent. Yes, it would be a good thing if it was possible to have money that I could use as needed.

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of moving forward with the lobbyist registration—?

Information & Ethics committee  In terms of things like the lobbyist registration system, for years I had put that system into maintenance mode when there was the first budget cut of 5%. It's a robust system, but it's not sustainable in the long term. I've started to put money into the project from the discreti

Information & Ethics committee  First of all, if I may, for the record, I think what I had said in the past was that I was not going to seek reappointment. In other words, I was not going to—

Information & Ethics committee  However, I've always said that I am committed to ensuring a smooth transition. At this point, my extension is scheduled to end on December 29. There is a process under way, and I would have to suggest that you speak with the Privy Council Office as to the status of where things

Information & Ethics committee  To be honest, it's hard to speculate at this point. What I can say is that the staff are very professional and very well educated and there are things in place, but in terms of speculating as to what might happen, I'm sorry, I don't have an answer for you.

Information & Ethics committee  I guess I share a slightly different view, in that I think there's a reason for the two offices being separate. They were together at one point before 2004, when they were separated, and it was a court case that talked about institutional bias. There are different things that w