Information & Ethics committee  We have the same provisions in the Alberta legislation as there is in the federal legislation with respect to confidentiality and privacy. So we are faced with much the same kind of an issue with respect to that. We've only had three instances when there has been a request for an investigation, and in two of those instances we conducted the investigation.

Information & Ethics committee  In Alberta, it's specified in the legislation that upon the issuance of a notice of administrative penalty, the party receiving the notice has 30 days within which to file an application in the Court of Queen's Bench. The court can review the amount or indeed whether it was even appropriate to have issued an administrative penalty.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you, Madam Chair. In Alberta we can self-initiate an investigation. However, we have not done so. There have been two investigations conducted, and both were in response to complaints. You need a lot more resources if you're going to go down that road. At this point, we simply don't have those resources, so it's very unlikely that we would be doing much in that regard.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. It's our view that it's important for all officers of the legislature to have an immunity provision in their enabling statute. Without that immunity, as legal counsel, general counsel, to the commissioner, anytime virtually anything comes up where there's the potential for either an investigation or a prosecution naming a person, or one of those kinds of things, I would have to advise the commissioner that we must be aware that doing anything would have the potential for an action against him personally and against our office.

Information & Ethics committee  Thank you. Where it came from initially I cannot tell you. Part of the legislative drafting...that's what they came up with. When I am contacted by an organization and questioned around that issue because they're trying to determine whether they might fall below the threshold and therefore not register, this is what I tell them: “That's fine.

Information & Ethics committee  I can't speak to the public policy aspect of that. I don't think it's our role to say whether there should be a threshold. But I think that a lower threshold such as ours means there will be very few organizations engaged in any kind of regular lobbying activity that are not registered, if any.

Information & Ethics committee  It's our view in Alberta. We certainly do have the power to initiate a prosecution if we want to do so, so we would be referring it to the police, but we also have the authority to issue administrative penalties. As the commissioner indicated, while we have not yet done so, we're going to be moving in that direction shortly.

Information & Ethics committee  If I may, in Alberta there is a cooling-off period. It's contained, however, in the Conflicts of Interest Act, not in the lobbyist legislation. For ministers, it's one year for lobbying the ministry, but they can lobby other elements of government. For senior government officials and former political staff, it's six months.