:
Good morning, committee members. Could you take your seats so we can start?
We're on meeting number 26, continuing our statutory review of the Lobbying Act.
I would like to welcome Mr. Saxton, the parliamentary secretary for the Treasury Board, who will be presenting to committee today.
Mr. Saxton, if you could introduce your colleagues, I will turn the floor over to you.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair, and I'd be happy to.
With me today is Roger Scott-Douglas, the assistant secretary, priorities and planning, at the Treasury Board Secretariat; Janice Young, the senior advisor of strategic initiatives at the Treasury Board Secretariat; and David Dollar, the director of strategic initiatives at the Treasury Board Secretariat.
Thank you, Madam Chair, and thank you, members, for inviting me here today.
I'm pleased to be here on behalf of the and to speak to this committee as you approach the end of this phase of the legislative review of the Lobbying Act.
[Translation]
First, let me thank the committee members for your hard work on this important matter. You have heard input from various parties, and I appreciate your efforts in seeking out the views of stakeholders on this important piece of legislation.
[English]
As you know, lobbying public office holders in this country is a legitimate activity and a necessary part of the democratic decision-making process. This is recognized in the legislation itself.
At the same time, Canadians have the right to know who is lobbying their public officials. The provisions of the Lobbying Act, which is largely oriented toward the lobbying industry, assist in ensuring that this activity is carried out ethically and transparently.
[Translation]
In my view, the current legislation functions well, providing Canadians with transparency around lobbying activities.
Indeed, Madam Chair, at the federal level, we have one of the toughest and most sophisticated lobbying regimes in the world.
This government is committed to transparent and accountable public institutions and has taken steps to ensure this since first being elected in 2006.
[English]
One of these steps was strengthening the rules and guidelines that regulate lobbying at the federal level to ensure lobbying is conducted ethically and transparently.
On coming to power, our first priority was passing the Federal Accountability Act. The Lobbying Act, which is a key component of the Federal Accountability Act, came into force in July 2008.
The Lobbying Act toughened the rules and ensured Canadians had access to more information about interaction between lobbyists and senior government officials. The changes that came into force in 2008 represent a significant step forward in providing clarity to Canadians about who is lobbying their public officials.
As you know, the legislation was further expanded in September 2010 to include all members of Parliament, senators, and exempt staff in the offices of the leaders of the opposition in the House and in the Senate.
Today at the federal level, the system works well and it is meeting the overarching objectives of the Lobbying Act. However, this legislative review, mandated by the act, provides the opportunity to consider whether in the committee's view the rules and guidelines governing lobbying remain current and easily understood. It also gives stakeholders the opportunity to provide their opinion on this issue.
The current regime seeks to ensure that the interests of all stakeholders—the rights of lobbyists to advocate, the rights of those they represent, and the rights of Canadians to know how their government does business—are respected and balanced against the overarching objectives of the act.
As the committee considers possible recommendations regarding the Lobbying Act, I would ask that you bear in mind these overarching objectives while maintaining the act's focus on regulating the activities of lobbyists rather than those they lobby.
[Translation]
As a government, we are committed to openness and transparency. We support this review and we continue to place a priority on ensuring Canadians have the clarity they rightly seek in regard to lobbying activities.
[English]
Madam Chair, I look forward to hearing your recommendations regarding the Lobbying Act.
Thank you. Merci beaucoup.
[Translation]
Thank you very much.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
First of all, thank you for being here. Of course, we would have liked to have the President of the Treasury Board here, but we will still ask you a few questions since you are here with us.
I would first like to explore the role of the RCMP with respect to this legislation. As you know, a number of witnesses have discussed that issue at length. They have told us that the RCMP was not doing its work properly and that there was never any follow-up when the commissioner referred cases to the RCMP.
Do you believe that the RCMP is not doing its work properly? Do you think that we should call for RCMP representatives to appear before the committee, as we have already requested?
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you to the witnesses. Thank you to my colleague, the parliamentary secretary, for making the time to appear before committee today.
I would argue we've had a very good discussion on the Lobbying Act. We've heard from the lobbying commissioner and others who have come forward to talk about how, in very general terms, the Lobbying Act is working quite well and it is delivering a much greater level of transparency and accountability, which was the intent of the act.
We have heard a couple of recommendations that I'd like to bounce off you on which you might provide some direction or some advice to the committee.
My feeling is that wherever possible the rules should be as clear as they can possibly be so that people have a clear understanding of what is okay and what is not, what is expected of them and what is not. I think that is a goal of the Treasury Board as well.
Specifically, I wanted to ask—this might be a question for the officials—with respect to rule 8, which was a rule that was extended by the lobbying commissioner. It dealt with government or government relations representatives and the fact that they may or may not be able to participate in elections, may or may not be able to—essentially it is a conduct rule around things like elections signs and so forth. The problem with it is, and this is what I think they've indicated, they don't know what's okay and what is not until perhaps somebody comes forward and complains, or perhaps somebody comes forward and asks if what they did was—they can't get any advance notice.
They can't write to the lobbying commissioner to say they're thinking about putting an election sign for Scott Andrews on their lawn and is that okay. The lobbying commissioner will say she doesn't know. It might be. If somebody complains, they'll look into it. That doesn't make a lot of sense. In my view, we either need to codify what rule 8 means or we need to strike it, because there is no clarity in what it's trying to establish.
Can you provide me some background on that, what your impressions are in that regard?
:
I will certainly do my best.
The principle by which you began, the principle of clarity and transparency about the rules, is terribly important. That is absolutely true. I know the commissioner feels that way also.
As you know, rule 8, as is possible for other rules within the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct, is the subject of a number of interpretations put out by the commissioner where efforts have been made to clarify exactly what that means. Anything that can be done while respecting the facts of the case, making sure that whatever is being said about what is appropriate or inappropriate, is done in the clearest possible terms. That would be the position, and I think the committee, in formulating recommendations to that effect, would wish to consider specifically how things could be clarified.
In so doing, any deviation from encouraging interpretations and encouraging positions taken by the commissioner to be distanced from the facts of any particular case might be something the committee would want to take particular care about, but I don't specifically at this point have a recommendation or a view on what specific changes need to be made to rule 8.
:
Madam Chair, I'll be happy to take that question.
The Commissioner of Lobbying has recommended the introduction of a scheme of administrative monetary penalties. A number of witnesses, I understand, have come before the committee in this regard with various recommendations.
When the Lobbying Act came into force in 2008, the rules around lobbying were toughened. This included doubling the monetary penalties for breaches of the Lobbying Act and extending the timeframe for investigations. At the same time, the act requires the commissioner to table reports to Parliament about her investigations of breaches. These reports to Parliament represent a significant sanction, particularly in this type of industry where the reputation of somebody is very important.
With respect to additional enforcement tools, such as administrative monetary penalties, the committee may wish to consider issues regarding due process, which other witnesses have identified, specifically an appeal process, whether there is sufficient clarity about the requirements and obligations under the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct, and issues related to ministerial accountability over an area where an independent agent of Parliament is acting. This is a rather unusual situation where you have an independent agent of Parliament who is actually requesting the power to sanction or to levy fines on private individuals or private entities.
:
Thanks very much, Madam Chair, and thanks to our parliamentary secretary and to the officials for being here with us today.
As my colleague, Mr. Del Mastro, has stated, I also think that we've had a very fulsome review of this legislation. I think we've heard from some very excellent sources. We've heard from those who are involved in lobbying. We've heard from those who have perhaps had some concerns about the way the existing legislation is written. I think at the end of the day what we really need to do as a committee is make recommendations that are going to clarify and are going to make things more crystal clear for those who have to abide by this legislation.
One of the things that did come up during the consultation process was the confusion between the Conflict of Interest Act and the Lobbying Act. They definitely are two distinct pieces of legislation, but there's often confusion among those who have to abide by the acts. Could the officials—I expect it would probably be the officials—explain the purpose of each of these acts and why there are two separate pieces of legislation?
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
I would first like to say that I agree with my Liberal colleague, Mr. Andrews: I am also disappointed that the President of the Treasury Board did not find the time to attend our committee's meeting, unlike other ministers. Just this morning, at the Standing Committee on Health, we learned that the Minister of Health would be pleased to appear before the committee before long. I find it regrettable that the President of the Treasury Board is too busy to deign to attend a meeting of the committee that deals with the same issues as he does. That said, I am pleased that Mr. Saxton is here to replace him.
My colleague, Pierre-Luc Dusseault, asked you what you thought of the fact that the committee, at least this part of the committee, wished to have representatives of the RCMP appear before the committee and give some explanations. Many witnesses have expressed the same desire. As you know, the Ethics Commissioner has been submitting a large number of complaints to the RCMP, but they all seem to disappear into a black hole. So we would like to have representatives from the RCMP come before the committee. In response to my colleague's question, you said that the choice of witnesses was up to the committee, but might I remind you that your mission at Treasury Board is to ensure that government resources are properly managed?
I would therefore ask you the same question, Mr. Saxton: given your mandate to ensure that government resources are managed properly, do you think it would be a good idea for the RCMP to come before the committee and explain why none of the complaints submitted by the Ethics Commissioner have led to a conviction?
We have to do that. Under the act, in two stages, the definition of a designated public officer-holder was made clear. In the initial amendments that came into force in 2006, there were about 11 specific categories of individuals who filled positions. I can very quickly run through those: the Chief of the Defence Staff, the Vice Chief of the Defence Staff, Chief of Maritime Staff, Chief of the Land Staff, Chief of the Air Staff, Chief Military Personnel, the Judge Advocate General, as well as any position of a senior advisor to the Privy Council to which the office holder is appointed by a Governor in Council appointment.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chair.
Thank you very much to the parliamentary secretary and to the staff from Treasury Board for being here.
I have to say that as a new member of Parliament I found this study to be very enlightening, very helpful, mainly because (a) I'm a designated public office holder and I certainly need to know what the rules are, but (b) I think this has been a very good exercise by this committee to have a five-year review taking a look at this act.
There may have been some haste when the previous legislation was brought forward. We were dealing with some issues at the time, and I think Parliament wanted to make sure there were some rules, and quickly. I think now, five years later, this gives us a very good opportunity to take a look at what's working and what maybe needs to be changed a little bit.
Let me just ask you a couple of things. First, my colleague Monsieur Morin was talking a little bit about the definition of designated public office holder. Are you of the view that this is covering the right people, or enough of the right people? It is very broad. It does cover a whole scope of people. It treats, to some degree, me as a backbench member of Parliament no differently than a cabinet minister, or the Prime Minister, to some degree.
Is that still appropriate? Are we covering the right types of people in all of this? I realize that some of those who work in the bureaucracy, who are not elected officials, are also covered.
In your view, are we covering the right number of people? Do we need to be covering more, or should we be refocusing on who is within that definition of a DPOH?
:
Madam Chair, I'll take the first part of that question.
First of all, I agree that it is a very large net. A lot of different positions are covered. The overarching objective of the act is transparency, and in order to do that, in order for Canadians to know who is lobbying their members of Parliament, their senators, their government, I think it is important that we cast that net fairly wide. In order to achieve the transparency that the act sets out to achieve, it is important that all of the people you mentioned fall under the definition of designated public office holder.
However, it's up to the committee to make your recommendation. If you feel that it's not wide enough, or that it's too wide, then I would certainly encourage you to put that in your report. As my colleague said earlier, it is a balance between transparency and ensuring access to government. Sometimes it becomes too onerous, on the one hand, which then affects the other.
So it is a very fine balance, and I encourage the committee to make recommendations if you feel that balance could be better represented.
Roger, do you have anything to add to that?
One of the things we've heard from some of the government relations firms and registered lobbyists who've been participating in this regime for the last five years or so is that when we're requiring lobbyists to report both oral and arranged meetings.... We've heard from some of the stakeholders that they've raised some concerns over the definition of “arranged”, that the term is somewhat ambiguous, or a little unclear.
Can you shed a little bit of light on what your view is of the interpretation of that term, “arranged”? Chance meetings—“I bumped into you in the hallway” kinds of meetings—happen all the time. We're all busy, and we're going to all kinds of meetings, and we're bumping into people all the time, both in our ridings and here on the Hill. Some of those people are registered lobbyists and some aren't.
Would it be helpful if there were some more clarity around what actually constitutes a proper arranged meeting, where there is a discussion of a matter of substance with a DPOH rather than these chance meetings? I assume that would be helpful if the act were strengthened, to some degree, in that regard to give clarity to both us as DPOHs and the registered lobbyists.
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I think it's very important that people who fall under the act understand their obligations under the act. If further clarity could be achieved, I would certainly encourage the committee to seek that. I think it's extremely important.
At the same time, I understand that the commissioner has asked for the word “arranged” to be removed so that it strictly becomes oral communications. My colleague mentioned that there may be some complications with that, for example, social meetings. I ask the committee to consider that it may also cause a chill. For example, you may not want to cross the street to say hello to your friend who happens to be a lobbyist, for obvious reasons.
I would encourage the committee to consider all these aspects when making their recommendations on this subject.
Roger, do you have anything further on this?
:
Thank you very much for the question.
I'm not sure I can fully answer all aspects of it, but the act sets out very clearly the kinds of activities that need to be reported when undertaken by a paid lobbyist, including many that would naturally fall within the Ministry of Industry. Examples are anything to do with the development of legislation, the provision of grants and contributions, or funding.
In point of fact—and these statistics are all found on the Commissioner of Lobbying's website—Industry Canada is one of the government institutions that has the most active number of registrations. There are about 1,645 active registrants for Industry.
What I'm not able to tell you is the trend—how that appears over time. But that's information you would be able to get from the Commissioner of Lobbying to give you a sense of how that has changed. Taxation, finance, and environment are also some of the heavily registered areas.
:
Thank you, Madam Chair.
Thank you to our guests today.
The Commissioner of Lobbying has requested that the act be amended to allow her, the commissioner, to administer fines for penalties for non-compliance. I'm just curious about the feeling of your ministry about that.
Also, would you have any suggestions of any other judicial body that could be used to accommodate the enforcement, and the administration of that enforcement?
:
Perhaps I'll answer the first part of it regarding the administrative monetary penalties.
In developing its recommendations, I encourage the committee to consider the issue of due process and whether the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct is sufficiently robust to support a system of monetary fines imposed on private individuals, and also to consider the Commissioner of Lobbying's status as an independent agent of Parliament operating outside the framework of the ministerial responsibility.
One might also want to consider that the commissioner, in this sense, is the one who creates the codes, who does the investigations, and now it has been suggested that she also be the one to levy the fines. In this sense, she would be the lawmaker, the police person, as well as the judge and jury. So I would encourage the committee to consider what implications that might have.
One thing the committee might consider when it comes to the code of conduct is putting this into rules or regulations, which would be developed by a committee such as yourselves, so that there is some outside influence as to what goes into those regulations. That might be something the committee might want to consider.
Mr. Scott-Douglas.
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Well, I may not take the full five minutes, but there are a couple of things I do want to talk about.
I do thank you very much for coming, all of the witnesses today.
I really wanted to talk a little bit more about the significant part of duties and the thoughts around that. I know this has been a discussion where perhaps we should be looking at removing that particular part. It's so difficult to be able to define. We look at consultants who are coming in from British Columbia versus from downtown Ottawa. Do you count the travel time? Do you look at the amount of time that is taken into development of questions? Of course, there were other comments. For some people, 15 minutes or 20 minutes have a lot more impact than hours would for others.
I'd like some comment on that so that we have your opinion, so that we can then go back later when we go through our overall discussions.
Madam Chair, I'll take the first part of that question.
I believe my colleague is referring to what is known as the 20% rule, and it does allow some people to not report lobbying activity if it's below the 20% threshold. I understand the commissioner has asked for that to be removed. Also, I understand that other jurisdictions do have similar rules. They may not be actual percentages; they may actually be hours that are spent. I believe one province specifies more than 100 hours. That is its threshold.
There are two issues here. First of all, if a threshold is maintained, is that threshold increased or decreased? Second, do you eliminate the threshold entirely so that it captures many more people who would not otherwise be obligated to register?
Again, I encourage the committee to seriously consider this, because it is an issue that I understand has come up time and again. There is some uncertainty as to what time is involved. I also caution the committee that it would cast the net quite a bit wider, and it would cause, for example, administrative contact to also be required to be reported. So there would definitely be an increased reporting burden on those people affected. At the same time, we want to ensure transparency. Again, it goes back to Mr. Scott-Douglas's recommendation earlier that you always consider the balance between transparency and the reporting burden.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
Madam Chairman, as you're aware, on Tuesday I sent notice of motion with respect to Mr. Adam Carroll, a former Liberal Research Bureau employee. I wanted to bring him forward to respond to questions specifically with respect to an apology that was issued in the House of Commons by Liberal leader that alleged that this individual was responsible for the very dirty, sleazy, underhanded attack campaign against a federal cabinet minister. We believe there are significant questions that need to be answered in this regard. We don't believe we have the full story in this at all, and we think that the Liberal Party is frankly sitting on an awful lot of details in this regard.
That said, we're going to extend a courtesy that the Liberal Party would probably never extend to us. We're going to allow them between today and Tuesday to come forward with the details that we believe they've withheld in this matter. We would encourage them to be fulsome; we would encourage them to indicate exactly who was involved in this. We'd like to know who ordered these actions to be undertaken. There are a number of questions, frankly, that they should respond to. We think in this case we have an individual who has been hung out to dry by his party and released to us to take one for the team, if you will.
If need be, we will pass this motion Tuesday to bring this individual before this committee. But the Liberal Party does have an opportunity in the time between then and now to consider whether they would actually want to see that happen or not.
:
Then I'm going to suggest that we move on to other future committee business.
We actually have nothing on the table at this moment that's scheduled.
We have passed a motion in the past on something that we agreed to do. I'm just going to read it to the committee. There were two motions, actually. It was agreed:
That the Committee undertake a study of the Annual Report of the Privacy Commissioner, pursuant to the Order of Reference Tabled in the House on Thursday, November 17, 2011.
And:
That the Committee undertake a study of the Report of the Privacy Commissioner of Canada on the application of the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, pursuant to the Order of Reference Tabled in the House on Tuesday, June 21, 2011.
Those were adopted on Tuesday, November 29.
So we have those two agreements on proposed studies by the committee.
The other matter is that the estimates have now been referred to the committee on the four commissioners. I'm at the will of the committee about whether you want to hear from the commissioners and the format. We can have one meeting per commissioner and a full review of the estimates.
The other matter is that the committee well prior to my time had started a study on open government, and there has been a significant amount of work. I believe the summary of evidence was submitted to all members. The Information Commissioner has also supported the committee looking at continuing that study on open government.
The last thing is that Google has a new privacy policy, and the Privacy Commissioner, I believe, has raised some concerns about the Google privacy policy.
So there are a number of things the committee can undertake, but we do need to make some decisions about scheduling some business.
Mr. Del Mastro.
:
I agree with my colleague. I think it is important that we look at that in the next few weeks. In our view, that should be one of the committee's next steps. As you say, there isn't much on the agenda for the next few committee meetings. That is something important that should be dealt with quickly.
Moreover, I appreciated what you raised regarding the comments by the Privacy Commissioner on the new rules for confidentiality of private information on Google. I think we could also look at that shortly, perhaps after the estimates, of course, as they are very important.
You also said that a report was tabled in Parliament. So I support, in general, what you are proposing for the upcoming meetings.
:
Thank you very much, Madam Chairman.
With respect to scheduling, you indicated that the estimates are available to be reviewed. I think that's something the committee should do. I think responsible committees undertake to do that, so I think it would be wise to make the commissioners aware that we would like to review the estimates with them.
I also would support what Mr. Dusseault just indicated, that this privacy issue that's been flagged is worth looking into as well. However, the motion that I'd moved at this point indicates a single meeting. We don't know if that would be the only meeting required to dispense with the issue related to the motion.
:
Thanks, Mr. Del Mastro.
The clerk is just pointing out...and because he's a great clerk, he's actually drafted a motion for us with regard to the estimates. It doesn't actually mean we have to start the study Thursday.
I'll just read it: Pursuant to the order of reference of Tuesday, February 28, 2012, the committee undertake the study of the main estimates for the fiscal year ending March 31, 2013, specifically votes 40 and 45 under Justice, 15 and 20 under Parliament, and 45 under Treasury Board.
There's no timeframe on that. So if the committee is interested in moving that motion—if somebody would move that motion—then the clerk could at least start contacting the commissioners' offices, recognizing that over the next two weeks may not be a good time to call them. I would suggest we actually wait until later.
[Translation]
Mr. Dusseault, you have the floor.