INST Committee Meeting

STANDING COMMITTEE ON INDUSTRY, SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

COMITÉ PERMANENT DE L'INDUSTRIE, DES SCIENCES ET DE LA TECHNOLOGIE

EVIDENCE

[Recorded by Electronic Apparatus]

Thursday, April 26, 2001

• 0906

[English]

The Chair (Ms. Susan Whelan (Essex, Lib.)): I call the meeting to order. Pursuant to Standing Order 108(2), the committee will proceed with the statutory review of the Lobbyists Registration Act.

We're very pleased to have with us this morning from Bell Canada, Ms. Linda Gervais, vice president, federal government relations. Everyone should have in front of them a copy of the opening statement. What I would propose, Ms. Gervais, is that you begin with your opening statement and we then move to questions.

Ms. Linda Gervais (Vice President, Federal Government Relations, Bell Canada): Thank you, Madam Chair, for your kind invitation to appear today to discuss this important subject. Good morning, honourable members,

[Translation]

honourable members.

[English]

I'm particularly pleased to have this opportunity to present Bell Canada's views and observations regarding the Lobbyists Registration Act. The perspective I bring to this review is that of an employee of a major federally regulated Canadian company with deep business relationships in both the private and public sectors of our national economy.

At Bell Canada our approach to working with government has as much to do with sharing technical expertise and information, exchanging views, and building relationships as it has to do with influencing outcomes.

[Translation]

I am here to tell you that Bell Canada supports the objectives of the Lobbyist Registration Act and the approach the government has taken to its implementation. It has been open, thoughtful and consultative, it is an approach that reflects the core principles of the act itself, that is: that free and open access to government is an important matter of public interest; that lobbying public office holders is a legitimate activity; that public office holders and the general public should know who is attempting to influence government; and that the system for the registration of paid lobbyists should not impede free and open access to government.

[English]

We believe the current legislation has made the practice of lobbying more transparent and accountable, criteria fundamental to the exercise of good government. The act has served to remove the aura of secrecy that once surrounded the process.

Before I go farther, allow me to take a moment to comment on Bell Canada, our business activities, and the scope of our relationship with the federal government.

Bell Canada is this country's leading telecommunications provider. We employ more than 43,000 Canadians, primarily in Ontario and Quebec. We provide connectivity to residential and business customers through wired and wireless voice and data communications, high-speed and wireless Internet access, IP-broadband services, direct-to-home satellite television, and e-business solutions. We serve over 11 million wireline customers in Ontario and Quebec. We also serve about 2.7 million wireless customers across the country through Bell Mobility and 800,000 customers through Bell ExpressVu. Last year we invested over $3 billion in the Canadian marketplace to enhance our networks in order to improve and expand the services we offer to Canadians.

Bell Canada is majority owned by BCE, Canada's most widely held, publicly traded company.

The interplay between Bell and the marketplace is as broad and varied as our relationship with the federal government.

[Translation]

As a federally regulated company, the levers of government are significant factors in the business we operate.

• 0910

[English]

From an administrative and regulatory perspective, we deal with federal boards and agencies, such as the CRTC, as you all know; the Competition Bureau; the Canadian Human Rights Tribunal; the Canada Labour Relations Board; the Copyright Board; and the Privacy Commission. Each impacts our business in a notable way.

Government departments exercise a broad range of authority over us controlling access to business inputs that affect our ability to operate and compete in the marketplace; for example, access to radio licences, radio tower site authorizations, spectrum auctions, satellite slots, export permits, environmental assessments, taxation policies, trade policies, procurement policies, and regional economic development policies. All shape our business environment. This is our reality.

Because free and open access to government is as essential to our needs as a business as it is to the needs of the individual citizen, we support the core principles of the Lobbyists Registration Act.

The ability to freely seek and exchange information, to share expertise, and to pursue changes to policy is essential if we hope to maintain a broad and constructive dialogue with government. Mutual understanding and cooperation between government and the private sector lead to better public policy. In this context the Lobbyists Registration Act has made a positive contribution to the open and honest dialogue that Canadians and Canadian businesses require in our relationship with government.

In Minister Tobin's March 9 letter of reference to this committee, he commented favourably on the important changes made to the act in 1995 to improve the transparency of the lobbying process. We support the minister's assessment of the benefits that have accrued to the public in terms of the expanded reporting guidelines, the establishment of a code of conduct, and the implementation of electronic registration.

In turn we offer the following modest observations with regard to the issues the minister asked the committee to give special attention to in this review. The proposal that consultant lobbyists must reconfirm their registrations on a regular basis is an amendment we support. There may be a temptation on the part of some to keep their registration active for whatever reason. Nonetheless, overly delayed deregistration does create the potential for unnecessary confusion and misrepresentation. As a result, an amendment to resolve this administrative shortcoming would be appropriate and would act as a disciplinary mechanism against sloppy deregistration practices.

With regard to the enforcement provisions of the act, Bell is not in a position to judge whether or not the current two-year limitation period is adequate. We leave this point to others who are more knowledgeable on the issue.

You've also been asked to consider whether the registration approach for the in-house lobbyists organization category should be extended to the in-house lobbyists corporate group. At the present time the filing requirement for organizations requires the senior officer of an organization to register when one or more employees lobby. If the sum total of lobbying time for all employees is equal to 20% of one employee, then the officer must list all employees engaged in lobby activity no matter how much time is involved.

Compare this with the current filing requirement for in-house lobbyists corporate, which specifies that everyone must register who devotes a significant part of their duties, defined as 20% of their time, to lobbying.

The possibility that the in-house lobbyists organization standard might be extended to cover in-house lobbyists corporate does concern us. Simply put, we are concerned that the change will increase the administrative burden on companies with no discernible benefit to the public. We do not believe that the spirit or the principles of the Lobbyists Registration Act would be advanced by this proposed change.

I have to believe that the original drafters of the legislation intended to weight their attention more toward in-house organization lobbying, given that the primary function of organizations or associations is to advocate to government on behalf of their clients. In addition, the prospect of adding more administration on the private sector seems to be at odds with government efforts to streamline regulation wherever possible.

[Translation]

In conclusion, I want to reiterate Bell Canada's full support for the Lobbyist Registration Act and the principles underlying it. We believe it has served Canadians well, and will continue to do so.

I thank you again for the opportunity to appear before your committee.

[English]

I thank you for the opportunity to appear this morning, and I would be pleased to answer any questions. Merci.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Miss Gervais.

We'll now turn to questions.

I just want to remind members that we do have other witnesses coming before us in about half an hour.

Mr. Penson, please.

Mr. Charlie Penson (Peace River, Canadian Alliance): Thank you.

Welcome, Miss Gervais.

The area I'm interested in is the reregistration or deregistration. What is the problem? Why are you asking for this?

• 0915

Ms. Linda Gervais: We're supporting the recommendation of the minister, primarily because I've noticed when I've gone through the register from time to time, which is something I do, that in the past some people who have been hired a number of years before continue to list Bell as a client even though that relationship has been terminated for some time. I think it just encourages openness and accuracy. Most people register and deregister electronically, so we think it's a good idea.

Mr. Charlie Penson: So this would be people who are representing companies on a consultant basis?

Ms. Linda Gervais: Yes.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Okay, those are all the questions I have.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Penson.

Mr. Lastewka, do you have any questions?

Mr. Walt Lastewka (St. Catharines, Lib.): Yes, I do.

I was going to ask the same question as Mr. Penson. I understand that many times lobbyists will register because they are representing that company, and then four or five years later it still stays on there because they want to sell themselves as having been lobbyists. Is that why it happens, or does it accidentally happen that they didn't take it off?

Ms. Linda Gervais: I can't really speak on their behalf. Maybe it's just an administrative oversight, but everybody does pay attention to the laws and regulations, and so we think it's a good idea.

I was surprised. Sometimes, for instance, organizations might be hired for a very short and very specific project, and because it involves discussion with government, the onus is to register. The deregistration doesn't always occur as quickly as the registration.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Your corporation is very large. Do you, as a corporation, hire other lobbyists?

Ms. Linda Gervais: Yes.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: So they would then register that they are lobbying on your behalf.

Ms. Linda Gervais: Absolutely.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: All right. So the concern is that two or three years down the road they leave the Bell name on it.

Ms. Linda Gervais: Also—this was something I noticed—for a number of years Bell Canada had handed over the entire responsibility for managing its government relations effort to an association, so very little work was done by Bell Canada itself. That changed about four years ago when I established the department and we started taking on more of the responsibility.

Inside the company, organizations or departments had hired their own government relations expertise for certain projects. There was nobody inside Bell to manage that, and so when these contracts were terminated—and it was all coordinated through my office—the deregistrations didn't always occur as quickly as they might have.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Regarding your remarks on the 20% rule, my discussion with other corporations was that this would also hamper assignments to an individual, because sometimes the assignment might be more on providing information or lobbying and less.... Where's the workload? Is the workload keeping track of what that individual's responsibilities are?

Ms. Linda Gervais: Maybe because Bell is a fairly significantly large company, we have employees in many cities and different provinces—Bell employees. Not all of them are going to be talking to government under the guidelines of the Lobbyists Registration Act where you're trying to influence an outcome.

But if you take an association, it's usually a much smaller entity. Its primary function is to represent and advocate for clients and for its members to government. It may have some other responsibilities, but primarily that's what it is.

For a company, its primary function is to deliver services—in our case, to deliver service to Canadians. In my organization, I have a small number of people who do government relations, who interact with government. I don't worry about whether it's 5%, 10%, or 20%; as long as “government relations” is in their title, they're all registered, because that is our core responsibility within Bell Canada.

• 0920

Anyone else in Bell who might have a responsibility for government relations, even though it's not 20%—and I can think of two others, Bell and BCE—they are also registered. We don't even care about the 20%; we just want to make sure it's consistent.

On some occasions, it could be a phone call, or it could be to negotiate on a complex merger or acquisition. I wouldn't even know about it until we announced the acquisition.

So it's a little more complex, and I think it's because a business is different. Your core function is to deliver a service or manufacture a product, whereas the core function of an association or an organization is really to advocate to government.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Okay, I have one more question.

I want to hitchhike on something that was said the other day about getting contacts. You have some government relations core responsibility for your organization. Maybe you could expand for us on the difficulty of trying to communicate with government. Is it a difficult thing, from your standpoint, to be able to talk to ministers, bureaucrats, or members of Parliament?

Ms. Linda Gervais: In my experience, no. I have found that generally people operate on the basis of good faith. Our system of government is based on openness and consultation, and there is a genuine interest in having discussions and hearing concerns expressed or providing information. So there is that two-way flow of information. My experience is that most people tend to be helpful.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: Thank you, Madam Chair.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Lastewka.

[Translation]

Mr. Brien.

Mr. Pierre Brien (Témiscamingue, BQ): Thank you.

I know the answer, but I am going to put this question to you regardless. Would it not be useful to the public, including the members of Parliament, to have more specific information on lobbyists' activities? For example, whom do you meet with at a given level of the public service? We may know what file you are working on, but it might be interesting to know with whom you are meeting, to know if you are meeting a deputy minister, an assistant deputy minister, some very high-level people at the CRTC or something like that. Do you not believe that would add to the transparency?

Ms. Linda Gervais: The legislation puts the emphasis on lobbyists, who have to register, and I think that the emphasis should remain on the lobbyists. As regards knowing who lobbyists put their questions to, that varies. It could be a fairly low-level public servant, and it might be a deputy minister or even a minister. It depends on the file and on the question. Our policy is not to speak only to people of a certain level in the public service or only to ministers.

Mr. Pierre Brien: I understand. In your work, you gather information, but when you come to the stage where you want to influence, and it's not only a matter of exchanging information, I am convinced that you talk to people at a high level. This might be relevant information. It would be good if we knew who was meeting whom, and not only the subject of the lobbying.

Ms. Linda Gervais: It is very clear to us. We deal with the Department of Industry for most of the policies that interest us. At the Department of Industry, it is clear who has the responsibility in this area. It could be someone else. Are you asking me if I should mention the public servants' names?

Mr. Pierre Brien: Would it bother you to do so?

Ms. Linda Gervais: I think it would be difficult. We were asked earlier if we had any problems getting information, getting people to call us back and presenting our point of view. The answer was no.

• 0925

I believe that if we had to reveal the names of the people receiving our calls, they might not be so open and might hesitate to call us back because they would have certain concerns. We want an open process. I think the results of such a thing would be the opposite of what we are looking for. I think it would be an incentive for some people to not call us back, to not provide us with information and to not be open.

Mr. Pierre Brien: That surprises me somewhat, but—

Ms. Linda Gervais: It is human nature.

Mr. Pierre Brien: I cannot help but make this observation, it will be my final remark.

I am sure that you are very efficient in your lobbying activities, particularly with the CRTC. I am telling you and you can deliver this message back to your office. I am going to do some lobbying now. I find it rather peculiar that a business such as yours still has party lines in Quebec.

Ms. Linda Gervais: Lines—?

Mr. Pierre Brien: Multiple lines, several users on these lines. We are aware of your company's financial status, and everyone is happy that it is so healthy, but—

Ms. Linda Gervais: We project that by the end of the year, we will have completed the project, because we have already—

Mr. Pierre Brien: We've heard that several times.

Ms. Linda Gervais: No, it is true. We have just submitted another proposal to the CRTC called a service improvement plan, for those who do not have service now. We promised that it would be finished by the end of 2001.

Mr. Pierre Brien: We will get back to this.

Ms. Linda Gervais: Give me a call. It is a two-way street.

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Brien.

[English]

Mr. Cannis, please.

Mr. John Cannis (Scarborough Centre, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Ms. Gervais, good morning and welcome to the committee. Let me thank you for your constructive comments and the constructive criticism in your comments as well. Three out of the four questions—mine being the fourth—that have been asked, I think, have to do primarily with the issue of deregistering. Mr. Lastewka asked the question, then Mr. Penson asked the question.

You talk in your presentation about transparency, honesty, being above board, and I agree with you wholeheartedly. You're correct in saying that through this cooperation better public policy is brought forth.

Surely the consultants or the lobbyists that come on to do some work for you or whoever else have an obligation, but they tend to neglect it. As you state here, there may be a temptation “on the part of some registrants to keep their registration active for whatever reason”. It's that “whatever reason” that concerns, I think, all of us. Nevertheless, excessively delayed deregistration does create a potential problem—the impression that sometimes is put out there and the suspicion that is created.

Isn't there an obligation? What do you think? What's your view on this? The company's says “Look, we've taken on ABC Consultants to do work for us for a duration of so-and-so, and they'll follow up on your side.” They say “Look, Mr. X, you've concluded your assignment with us. We thank you. Whether we succeeded or not, our relationship has now ended. We are providing now this timeframe, so that you can indeed meet your end of the bargain.” Would you not say, if we could look forward to something like that between us and you and your temporary employees, if you will, we could ease through this and maybe find something more transparent?

Ms. Linda Gervais: First, it's not a major concern. I've only had experience with it once or twice, and they were companies I didn't hire in the first place.

Second, does the business have an obligation to get back to the company? To suggest that they—

Mr. John Cannis: I'm not implying your company, by the way. I'm just saying it as a—

Ms. Linda Gervais: No. You're absolutely right. In fact that's what we did. We just said, we noticed you were still listed, and as far as we know, you are not doing any work for our company, so perhaps you may want to move forward and deregister. It's not serious. It's just an administrative issue. We did take some action. You're right, I think we have an obligation to do that. However the committee decides to resolve it, the company should do that. I don't have a problem with that.

Mr. John Cannis: Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Cannis.

Ms. Desjarlais

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais (Churchill, NDP): Yes.

On that question, it's the lobbyists themselves who register. It's not Bell registering the lobbyist when that process is initiated?

• 0930

Ms. Linda Gervais: No. I'm registered. That's my responsibility. If I hire a company or an individual, it's their responsibility to register and it's their responsibility to deregister or reregister, as appropriate.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Okay.

I have a follow-up on Mr. Brien's question, because it's actually where I had some concern as well. You've acknowledged that you believe in the four principles: free and open access to government is an important matter of public interest; lobbying public officeholders is a legitimate activity; the public officeholders and the general public should know who is attempting to influence government; and fourth, the system for registration should not impede free and open access to government. So I think there's been fair acknowledgement that there doesn't seem to be a failure of gaining access to government. I think we gather from people who've come before us that people seem to be able to get at government as a whole.

One of the questions has been whether or not the lobbying is happening with public officeholders, as opposed to public servants, that maybe more of the lobbying is happening at the public servant level and isn't being acknowledged. So if you had to do a guesstimate of the amount of lobbying you do with public officeholders—and I'm talking elected officials—as compared to public servants, where would you differentiate between them?

Ms. Linda Gervais: In respect of my function and my office, I would say we probably spend more time at the political level than we do at the bureaucratic level. We're a heavily regulated company, and those activities are not captured under the Lobbyists Registration Act. Those activities are not governed and are not administratively in the company under a government relations function. There we work a lot with quasi-judicial bodies, so the relationship is fairly orderly, shall we say, and subject to public appearances before virtual courts with sworn testimony. So that's a whole different relationship.

As to what we do, I would say we spend more time at the political level—

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Would it be 80-20, 70-30, 60-40, 50-50?

Ms. Linda Gervais: It all depends upon the issue and the time. We don't keep log books, and it's not billable hours, where I'm billing back a department. Our salaries are paid. I would say well over 50% of our time is spent at the political level, and I have divided my office accordingly. I would say for a lot of reasons in the last few years, Bell has had many issues that have come before the members, cabinet, that have been political in nature. The other thing is, as I said, we did have an association manager, a government relations effort, for a number of years, and when we became re-engaged, we realized we had really lost touch at the political level, that this was a critical stakeholder.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: I would like to fit one more tiny question in there.

You did indicate, on Mr. Brien's questioning, that you had some concern over having to make notation or acknowledge who you had spoken to, and that there may be an unwillingness to speak to you. And now you've just indicated that over 50% are public officers. So is it elected officeholders who wouldn't speak to you, or were you talking to public servants who might be a little bit cautious about speaking to you?

Ms. Linda Gervais: I think it was more public servants. I have to say, in my innocence and naïveté, when we registered, I just assumed that any work we did with government, whether it was government bureaucrats or elected officials, I should count. So in my operation I don't make a distinction as to whether this is with an elected official or that is with a bureaucrat in determining the 20%. For me it doesn't matter.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Okay.

When you have the discussions, do you make a note when you're calling someone that this is what you did? Would it not be a business practice, that you'd be making notes to who you're talking to?

Ms. Linda Gervais: Do you mean do I just file a report?

• 0935

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: No, not file a report. I don't know. Most people have something like a journal, or if you're working on a file, you make a notation on the file and jot down so-and-so. I do it with things within my office.

Ms. Linda Gervais: Not really. Not all the time, no.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Okay. Thank you.

Ms. Linda Gervais: If it's just a phone call, I don't, no.

Mrs. Bev Desjarlais: Would you see it as too time consuming to do that?

Ms. Linda Gervais: If the committee decides that's something that is really important to do, then so be it.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Ms. Desjarlais.

Ms. Jennings, please.

[Translation]

Ms. Marlene Jennings (Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Lachine, Lib.): Thank you, Madam Chair. Thank you for your presentation Ms. Gervais. I missed the first part, and I am sorry, but I do have your document.

I would like to come back to the question asked by colleagues on both sides of the room concerning the disclosure of contacts with members of the public service, with deputy ministers, with assistant deputy ministers—[Editor's Note: Inaudible]

It does not bother me that you, as a lobbyist, would not necessarily keep notes or specific files on each and every telephone call that you make or on each meeting that you have. But do you not believe that it would be of interest to have access to information on the contact that deputy ministers or other senior public servants have with lobbyists, and that these public servants should make this information available?

Ms. Linda Gervais: I believe this should be the responsibility of lobbyists, and not of the public service.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Why?

Ms. Linda Gervais: Because normally, we are the ones who make the calls and are trying to get information. I don't know what the interest or objective would be in knowing... Are you referring only to deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers?

Ms. Marlene Jennings: I'm talking about high level, senior management people in the public service. I will give you an example.

Imagine that there is a government policy that stipulates that every company that manufactures hammers must register yearly, and that the cost of this registration would be $300 or $300,000, and that there is a registration process, etc. The companies manufacturing hammers would say that this does not make any sense, that this would be a hindrance to their competitiveness vis-à-vis American companies who are not subject to such a regulatory process. But if Canadians had decided that this is the way things would be, perhaps this would even become a political issue during an election campaign, and the party that would promise to provide such regulation would win the election. The companies would then begin lobbying. I would expect these companies to do so. But if ever the deputy minister, the assistant deputy ministers, the directors general, regional or otherwise, met with lobbyists hired by the companies concerned or met with consultant lobbyist companies, I would like to be aware of that, because I represent many Canadians. These bureaucrats in fact do have the power to recommend changes or amendments to policy to the minister, or even legislative changes. I would want to know if this person had met with representatives of this company, that association, etc.

• 0940

I do not need to be informed by the lobbyists. The simple fact that you are registered as a lobbyist tells me that you are going to be lobbying. I would like to know who has been meeting with the public servants who have the power to make recommendations or decisions. That is why I am wondering if we should not change our perspective, so as not to give lobbyists responsibility for disclosing this information.

Would that not actually, be the officials' responsibility? Thanks to modern technology, most people have an electronic agenda. It is even possible to go back a year, two years or three years to see who meetings were held with. If anyone does not know how to do that, I can send them one of my assistants to give them a little course on it.

That was my question.

Ms. Linda Gervais: I am not in a position to answer for the officials, since I am not an official.

I would like to point out that many contacts with deputy ministers and assistant deputy ministers are not lobbying as such, that is, an attempt to influence decisions on certain projects. So we need to make a distinction between lobbying and calls or meetings aimed simply at exchanging information and gaining a better understanding of what is happening.

If I wanted to change something, a regulation, for example, I would never start by contacting the deputy minister or assistant deputy minister. I would start at a lower level.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: At what level?

Ms. Linda Gervais: It depends on who is responsible.

Ms. Marlene Jennings: Give us an idea.

Ms. Linda Gervais: I could get in touch with an employee at a fairly low level, for two reasons. I would first want to get more information so as to understand the purpose of the regulation.

Then I would want to understand the impact of the regulation on my company, the impact in terms of jobs and investment, and whether that might force me to move to another country or another province.

I would therefore start by exchanging information, in order to assess the impact of the regulation.

The Chair: Thank you, Ms. Jennings.

[English]

And lastly, I have Dan McTeague, who wants to ask some questions before we move on.

Mr. Dan McTeague (Pickering—Ajax—Uxbridge, Lib.): Yes. Good morning, and it's good to see you again, Linda.

Ms. Linda Gervais: It's nice to see you.

Mr. Dan McTeague: The same goes for your friends and cohorts. I think you have more than lived up to the comment about being political in nature. Some of us here, certainly on this committee, have advantageously experienced the wonderful and rather productive efforts of Bell Canada, certainly in terms of policy. I'm sure there will come a time down the road when we will be interacting once again on some very interesting grounds.

I wanted to ask you, if I could—

Ms. Linda Gervais: I'm looking—

A voice: I think that's a compliment.

Mr. Dan McTeague: Yes, it is a compliment. It's backhanded, but it's nevertheless a compliment. Take it how you will.

I have an interest in—

Mr. Linda Gervais: Coming from you, Mr. McTeague, it will be taken as a compliment.

Mr. Dan McTeague: Thank you. It's a new day.

I wanted to ask a bit about senior public officeholders. Perhaps you might be able to give an illustration or explanation to this committee as to the number of members who in registering may also have had to ensure that they satisfy the conflict of interest codes and guidelines. I'm particularly referring to former senior public officeholders who are now working with Bell Canada. Can you tell this committee how many such lobbyists work on behalf of Bell or have been hired by Bell Canada for whatever purposes—CRTC? You've gone through a list of these, people who may have begun with Bell Canada. Do they as a matter of routine begin on the first day they're eligible under the code, the first day of the first year in the case of anyone below a minister of the crown or a senior public officeholder?

Ms. Linda Gervais: Okay. I really want to make sure I understand this question properly. When you're talking about senior public officeholders, are you talking about elected representatives in government who end up working for my company?

Mr. Dan McTeague: Correct, but they would have had a cooling-off period of either one or two years, depending on the seniority of the office once held. This doesn't just mean elected officials; it obviously includes people who may have worked for cabinet ministers as well as individuals who may have worked at some point in the PCO or the PMO and who may now be working with Bell Canada or acting on its behalf in terms of public policy advocacy.

• 0945

Ms. Linda Gervais: Okay. I'm really stretching into my corporate memory here. We did hire a former minister of the Quebec government who had had nothing to do with communications. He had resigned on a question of principle concerning Bill 101. He went to work for another company and ended up coming to work for us for a period of time. As for a cooling-off period, there was probably one. I'm not sure it was necessary because he had nothing to do with communications, and communications is federally regulated. That's the only kind of senior public official I can think of, an elected official who had been a minister in a government.

Mr. Dan McTeague: How about unelected officials, as I indicated in my...?

Ms. Linda Gervais: I'm getting to that in my next point. We have never hired anyone who has worked in the Minister of Industry's office, which is the one that is most relevant to us. I've hired two people who have worked in Liberal ministers' offices, but never ones whose jobs were directly related to anything we really did. They didn't come...one did; he had lost his job. I hired him, but again there was no conflict because there was nothing.... We don't have a lot to do with the ministries he had worked in.

I had one who had worked in the Prime Minister's office a long time ago and had gone to work for another company for a period of four or five years.

Mr. Dan McTeague: The interpretation of the conflict of interest guidelines says:

4.(1) For the purposes of this Part...“public office holder” means:

(a) a Minister of the Crown, including a Secretary of State;

(b) a parliamentary secretary;

(c) a member of ministerial staff, except public servants;

(d) a full-time Governor in Council appointee,

They don't necessarily have to be of the same discipline or the same ministry with which the new employer—in your case Bell Canada—has some relationship.

Ms. Linda Gervais: Let me just point out one thing, Mr. McTeague. There is a code governing conflict of interest in the government, and we also have a very extensive code for Bell Canada employees. The document is very thick. It is something employees must read and sign once a year, and they must adhere to its tenets. It's audited, and for officers of the company—

Mr. Dan McTeague: I understand that, but I meant with respect to lobbyists who you hire for advocacy on behalf of Bell Canada and with respect to our code for conflict of interest.

Ms. Linda Gervais: I think they have adhered to your code of conduct.

Mr. Dan McTeague: Okay, but are they hired the day after the one-year cooling-off period or the two-year cooling-off period, depending on their seniority with government?

Ms. Linda Gervais: That hasn't been a factor because it hasn't applied to people we've hired.

Mr. Dan McTeague: My final question—with your indulgence, Madam Chair—concerns the fact that there are some here who have suggested in the past that there should be an extension of the cooling-off period, particularly if someone has been working at senior levels of the executive. If I'm to accept what Sean Moore said yesterday—and I realize he didn't have the benefit of hearing that public officeholders in terms of...perhaps a legislative body is not as important—

Ms. Linda Gervais: You know I would never think that.

Mr. Dan McTeague: I know that personally. I wanted to ask if you would support or have any comments on the idea of extending the cooling-off period to five years in the case of those who are governed by a two-year cooling-off period—as is the case in the United States—and to two years from one year for those who are at a lower level within the public service.

Ms. Linda Gervais: As I said, we don't hire a lot of people who have been in those offices. You may think we do, but we don't.

Ms. Paddy Torsney (Burlington, Lib.): Dan is looking for a job opportunity.

Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

Mr. Dan McTeague: What are the possibilities, Linda?

Ms. Linda Gervais: For someone of your talents, they are always good.

Mr. Dan McTeague: I'm going to try the oil companies after I try you.

I'm sorry.

Ms. Linda Gervais: To return to your question, I can't comment on that. I don't know. I think the impact is much more directly felt by people who are looking for jobs than it is by the companies looking to hire people, to be quite honest.

Mr. Dan McTeague: Thank you.

The Chair: I want to thank you very much, Ms. Gervais, for being here this morning. We appreciated your comments. It has been an interesting discussion, and we look forward to meeting with you again in the future on other issues.

Ms. Linda Gervais: Thank you very much.

The Chair: We're going to suspend the session for about sixty seconds while we exchange witnesses. We have our second group of witnesses waiting. Thank you very much.

• 0950

• 0953

The Chair: I'll call the meeting back to order.

We're very pleased to have our next group of witnesses here. We have Mr. Pierre Morin, president of Pierre Morin Conseils Limitée; we have Mr. Peter Clark, president of Grey, Clark, Shih and Associates Limited; and from Hillwatch Inc., we have Mr. Scott Proudfoot and Mr. Michael Teeter, both co-chairs.

I would propose we begin with opening statements for everyone, and then we'll move to questions. I would propose we begin with the order I just listed unless we agree on something different, beginning with Mr. Pierre Morin, president.

[Translation]

Mr. Morin.

Mr. Pierre Morin (President, Pierre Morin Conseils Limitée): Good morning, Madam Chair.

Yesterday afternoon, I did not yet have an opening statement, but when I was trying to find the letter that the Minister of Industry sent to you, I contacted the clerk who, I should say, sent me the letter, but also told me where I could find the letter on the Web site of the ethics counsellor.

That gave me pause. In a capital where symbols mean so much, the terms of reference given by a minister to a parliamentary committee was to be found not on the minister's site, not on the parliamentary committee's site, but on the site of an official. I will let you deal with the symbolism of this, but outside Ottawa the perception is that the officials are running the show, and I can tell you that you are doing nothing to correct this perception. The situation I have described does nothing to correct it.

• 0955

My other point is more or less in two parts. I was here in 1995, appearing before the Zed subcommittee, and I happened to say that when a provincial premier who belonged to the same party as the prime minister pleaded for more program resources, the prime minister might be playing a role more of party leader than head of government. The head of government is exempt under the act; the leader of the party does not seem to be exempt. However, none of them are registered.

I would also say that if there is a group that is trying to influence government policies and programs, it is the apparatus and all the permanent members of political parties. I would ask you to check your list. I believe you will not find their names anymore than mine. This raises certain questions.

Again in the interest of having an act that applies broadly, one that applies to everyone and reflects a desire for transparency, there are questions that I am raising and that should be looked at. There is also an intrinsic problem with the act itself. Lobbying is defined as actions taken to try to influence policies and funding. I know that the legal advisors from the Department of Justice have told you that there is some difficulty with evidence. That is the legal aspect. I have some problems simply understanding what it means to try to influence.

If a client makes representations dealing exclusively with a government aid program that has eligibility criteria and if the client submits a fully eligible proposal, does that constitute an attempt to influence? The question arises, and since you are reviewing the act, I simply want to bring it to your attention.

My final comment is related to the question that Ms. Gervais was asked. I would like to support what she said. If you do target officials who are approached in an effort to influence policies, those in question are rarely senior officials. You need to realize how government works. There are people, often professionals, who put information together and assess the status of the situation. To my mind, that is the best place to influence developments. Afterward, efforts to influence things are aimed much more at trying to prevent something from happening, that is, at trying to get an elected representative or a senior official to veto something, then at trying to push things in the direction that they are going, except in certain cases, of course. But I am talking in general terms here.

Generally speaking, once the assessment and the problem analysis has been done at a relatively low level, but at a level that is very well informed, of the government administration, the file makes its way forward and, as you know, the decisions are made somewhat by osmosis. The osmosis started much lower and that may be where action should be taken, something I would not like to see, since I would not like us to be bound by a system like they have in France, where everything is controlled.

• 1000

Thank you, Madam Chair.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Morin.

Before I move to our second witness, I want to clarify that one of the reasons the letter is posted on the website of the Lobbyists Registration Act and the ethics counsellor has to do with the fact that 98% of all registrations are done via the Internet, and that seems to be the best place for most people to find it. I've also asked the clerk to provide it to all the witnesses, and I will make the recommendation to the House that it would be great if we could have more resources to have a much more detailed website. So far, we're bound by what we can do as a committee. But I will make the recommendation, because I think it is a good one, that we have larger websites available to us. I appreciate that.

Mr. Pierre Morin: Thank you very much, Madam Chair.

I must say that I wasn't holding it against you, but there is room on the ministry site in the corporate governance section, which of course covers this specific issue. There are press releases there, but not a word about the current review.

The Chair: I appreciate that.

I am now going to move on to Mr. Peter Clark from Grey, Clark, Shih and Associates.

Mr. Peter Clark (President, Grey, Clark, Shih and Associates Limited): Thank you, Madam Chair.

Our firm is an international trade consultancy. We do trade consulting, and we are also consulting lobbyists. Our clients include governments, as well as Canadian and foreign corporations, trade associations, hundreds of thousands of Canadian farmers, and a variety of farm groups and associations.

I've been following the debate here in your committee with some interest, and I thought it might be useful, instead of addressing some of these issues from the broad perspectives of the horizontal associations that have been appearing before you to date, to maybe get down into a little more detail on how it actually works from day to day, to help you to understand where we come from in this business. I'd also like to address the issues that were raised by Minister Tobin in his letter to you, and a number of other issues that have come up before the committee.

With respect to the requirements on tier II lobbyists, I would say that with respect to trade associations I think the reporting requirements as they currently exist are adequate. First, if it's a trade association, you generally know where they're coming from, and if it's a vertical association, you know who its members are. I think the reporting and listing of staff who are engaged in lobbying is quite adequate.

I have to say that I don't necessarily agree with Jayson Myers with respect to corporations—400 to 500 hours of an individual's time is an awful lot. The more senior the individual, the less time he will actually spend on reportable or registerable activities under this act, and I think there is an imbalance. I don't know exactly what the solution is, but you can have short-term problems. As we get into discussion today, hopefully we'll be talking about how this industry—and lobbying is an industry—is evolving, both with computerization and with specialization in structures, so that specific limits really can be avoided if people want to avoid them. I'm not suggesting they do, but that is potentially a problem.

But I do agree with Jayson Myers in his submissions about the inadequacy of reporting by non-governmental organizations or NGOs. Quite frankly, it's very bizarre to me that a highly active and visible lobbyist like, for example, Maude Barlow is not now and has never been registered under the Lobbyists Registration Act. In fact, the registration for the Council of Canadians lapsed nearly a year ago. If transparency is the whole purpose of this exercise, transparency has to apply to everybody. These organizations are not substitute governments.

I was telling Mr. Bélanger that he is my lobbyist; he's my member of Parliament, and members of Parliament represent civil society. I have told parliamentary committees that on trade matters.

These people should be registered. You should know where their money comes from. You should know whether they are funded by government in any way, and by how much. The fact that some of them don't register on the pretext that there's no formal salary structure and they don't get a salary, that they're volunteers, I think is very dangerous. It's a loophole that would permit those of independent means to avoid obligations imposed on taxpayers who work for fees or a regular paycheque.

• 1005

As I indicated, these organizations should also be required to disclose the source of their funding, and this brings me around to two other points.

We have seen over the last few years more and more lobbying done through the technique of op-eds, editorial pieces beside the editorial page. In many cases we find that these op-eds are written by people who are lobbying for a fee, and they are not disclosing who their client is or the fact that they're lobbying for the fee. Members of Parliament, elected officials, and bureaucrats read those articles, and they are not registered. That is a potential problem. I think it's something you might want to think about.

I don't have a prepared text or anything to put around; you have a transcript, so you're going to know what I said. Another point that concerns me is not about a lobbyist who hasn't registered—I'd like to make that clear—but about a lobbyist who has registered.

We have situations where people who are influencing public policy, who are very effective spokespersons, who are politically astute, are funded anonymously. I gave the clerk a newspaper editorial from the National Post that indicated that an anonymous foreign donor provided $1.6 million to Dalhousie University for their health sciences faculty on condition that they hire a person as a professor. That person is Elizabeth May, who is executive director of the Sierra Club of Canada. I have the greatest respect for Elizabeth. She is very effective, and she is registered as a lobbyist for the Sierra Club of Canada. But we don't know who has funded that activity at Dalhousie University. That causes problems.

I think what we really have to look at here in terms of disclosure and transparency is that you can't have a different standard for profit-oriented organizations and not-for-profit organizations. More and more, these non-governmental organizations, civil society, are being consulted, are getting involved in the decision-making process, and the same standard should apply to them as applies to business organizations.

With respect to the question of additional reporting, I'd be happy to field any of your questions on that. I'm a frequent user of the current database. I check regularly into the most recent reportings and other things so that I can advise my clients if there are people who are either supporting them on issues or who are joining the debate on the other side. I find that it works pretty well. I feel that the office of the ethics counsellor, in administering this program, has brought innovation to the process, and I look forward to the further innovation that's promised.

I'm not sure what value there would be in providing details of every contact. Do we keep track of every contact we have? Yes, we do. Could we tell you everybody we met on a registerable activity? Yes, we can. Can we tell you about every phone call? Well, I can tell you about every one of my phone calls. Sometimes I have a little bit of a problem with the other eight or nine people on my staff in terms of determining exactly who they spoke to in a department when we look at their time sheets maybe 30 or 40 days later, but usually we can reconstruct it pretty well.

I'm not sure what real value it has. There is information of a general nature in the database. I was hoping Mr. Alcock would be here, because I wanted to talk to him about information overload. The information is useful if it's accessible. It's also useful if it's usable, and I'm not sure that too much information would be usable.

With respect to fees, I'm not sure about that, given the nature of how the business is evolving. When you're dealing with a representation to a government, you're not necessarily dealing with one lobbyist and one company and one government official. More and more the people who market these services are marketing a team approach, and it's fairly easy to structure within the team so that the bulk of the activity would be non-reportable or non-registerable. So you would just be seeing the tip of the iceberg.

I'm not sure how valuable it is to provide information about fees. There are always concerns from people in business about the competitiveness of their business.

• 1010

The second thing is that, because of the way the requirements of the act are structured, there is a tendency in our system—and this is why we have such extensive reporting, because it is an offence not to register—for people to be overly cautious in registering.

Many of the activities I engage in, like the first witness from Bell Canada indicated, are before regulatory boards, commissions and agencies, where these are a matter of public record. Quite frankly, I don't have to register with respect to those activities, but if, in connection with any of those activities, I arrange a meeting with an officeholder who may or may not be directly on point, then I have to register. So in the event that I may have to arrange a meeting, I register.

My clients don't operate on contracts based on terms of one, two, or three months. I've had clients for fifteen years and twenty years. Our arrangements with these people are continuing.

Trade negotiations are in continuous evolution. Trade policy is in continuous evolution. Our trade policy people will tell you it's not written down anywhere. It's ad hoc. It deals with problems as they arise. So there is a tendency, particularly in my business, to register in case you may engage in reportable activity.

I think if you put too many conditions on people, it becomes too burdensome. There might be an inclination to be much more cautious and much more selective about what's registered.

I'd be happy to answer any questions you have.

The Chair: Thank you very much, Mr. Clark.

We're now going to turn to Hillwatch Inc. We have both Mr. Scott Proudfoot and Mr. Michael Teeter.

Mr. Teeter.

Mr. Michael Teeter (Co-Chair, Hillwatch Inc.): Thank you.

Scott and I have been in the business of tier I and tier II lobbying for about twenty years each. We'd be prepared at any time in the question period to talk about the business issues of lobbying, but we were really asked to talk about the Internet and lobbying, which is something we specialize in. So we're going to do that. We've already done it in our submission, so we'll just do a brief outline here.

In the last three or four years, what we've found is that the Internet is becoming more and more central to the way we communicate, the way we organize people, and the way we sometimes lobby governments. It's particularly pervasive in the United States for people to study this issue. What this means at the same time is that the Internet will open up the lobbying process and will make it more transparent to anybody who is interested.

We said to ourselves that rather than bucking this trend, we should get on this bandwagon. That's a little different from a lot of lobbyists who think it's really all about backroom deals and not telling anybody. What we're saying is, hey, wait a minute, that's not really what lobbying is all about. Lobbying is really about taking private interests and making them merge with the public interest, while being totally transparent about that and, at the end of the day, creating win-win scenarios. The Internet is a key factor in making that happen today.

We built a community around Hillwatch.com. It's what we call an e-community, which is for people like you and us. I'm not going to go into that, but on our site there's a functionality, there's a section called “Lobby List”. The lobby list really is a bunch of links to people who are lobbying, whether they are, for the most part, organizations....

The theory behind this is that if you really want to know who's saying what on the issues you're debating, and what issues are being debated inside governments and so on, you really can go to the Internet to find out. If you put them together in an organized fashion and in a meaningful fashion, think of what it gives the public. Think of what it gives you in terms of making your job more meaningful. If you wanted to find out what's going on with GMO foods, you could find all the representations that have been made on GMO foods over the last years, and all the converging and the diverging points of view.

What we're saying is that this is a positive, beneficial development. It should be encouraged, not discouraged. We think there's a critical role for government and for this institution to make sure it happens in a meaningful way.

Scott.

Mr. Scott Proudfoot (Co-Chair, Hillwatch Inc.): The power of the Internet to really shape a lot of public policy discussion really arrives from the fact of where people go first for information. Increasingly, with over 50% of the Canadian population connected, with the people involved in the press, with people involved in public policy discussion, with association executives, I think you'll find the rate of connection is probably around 80% to 90% in many instances.

• 1015

Increasingly, if you ask these people where they really do go first for information if they have an issue, they all go to the Internet first. If we asked all your staff that question, I'm sure I'd get at least an 80% return. If we asked the media, then according to some statistics, it's over 90% there. What that really means is that if you want to get these people's attention and you want to promote your ideas, you have to be in that cyberspace and you have to be easily accessible. What this is doing is really pushing people to be more public about their positions.

The groups that have understood the value of the Internet as a campaign tool, as a tool to promote their points of view, have been the civil society groups. It's not that they're smarter than anyone else. In fact, they have less resources. They therefore figured out that the Internet is sort of a tool that allows them to do stuff online better, more cheaply, and quicker, and they've gravitated to this. I've referred to the Internet as sort of the Swiss Army knife of campaign organization. You can do a lot of things with it.

These groups have gravitated and they've used it very effectively. We've seen it in the case of the recent Summit of the Americas in terms of how the groups organized themselves on the Internet to protest the event. In terms of what it has really done, though, it has pushed the other groups, which the civil society groups are by and large attacking, to come on the Internet, too, to defend their points of view.

A very good example of this is the GMO food debate, which Michael referred to. You can find plenty of information about it on our site. The anti-GMO food activists use the Internet to attack the mainstream corporations. The mainstream corporations, which didn't know what hit them, frankly, all of a sudden found they had to really respond in public and defend their position. If you go to their corporate sites now, or if you go to their association sites, there's a lot of good, reliable information, there's a lot of self-interested information, there's a lot of scientific evidence, and there's a lot of fear-mongering. There's a whole potpourri of information that you can find on the issue. Four or five years ago, you wouldn't have seen any of this information. Now it's all largely publicly accessible. Basically, beyond the Lobbyists Registration Act, we think the Internet is really pushing the whole industry to be a heck of a lot more public and transparent where people can find it.

Some of this comes with some downside. One of the downside effects is that you, as members of Parliament, are going to be subjected to a heck of a lot more of what I call political spam. We just saw a recent report that senators in the U.S. are getting 55,000 e-mails a month. House representatives are getting 8,000. I don't know what the numbers are in Canada, but I can assure you that the flood is coming. You're not going to like it, and it's a real problem. How do you manage it? That's a real issue for you, because this is the way a lot of people expect to be able to communicate with their members of Parliament.

The other aspect that trails into the point that Mr. Clark made, to some extent, is that the Internet is a really immature political medium. You can see some very professional-looking sites, and the question often is who these people are. Is this a legitimate group representing broad interests, or is this just Larry, Moe, and a few of their friends who know how to put together a really good site and can argue their case? There really aren't any strong ground rules in terms of there being more disclosure on the Internet.

Over time, in the same way that we've seen the demand for trustmark programs or rules of disclosure in consumer e-space, I think we're going to see a lot of push probably from representatives like you. Over time, you and others will say that if someone has an Internet site and is promoting a policy position, you'll want to know more information about who that person is. I think we'll have to look toward voluntary codes and activities like that.

If we think it's getting interesting now, I think it's going to get even more interesting in the sense that, with the new technologies that are out there—pier-to-pier commuting, cheap digital cameras, broadband coming in, digital television—interest groups will have the capacity essentially to ask their volunteers, their members, their supporters, to lend them excess computing power in a few years, so that they can power their own digital television station and promote their point of view.

A lot of people want more direct democracy. They don't just want to replace representatives; I think they want to replace the media, too, if not more so. What you're going to get is the “Animal Rights Supper Hour” or the “Anti-Globalization Evening Show”. That's really where it's going. It's going to be a very different world that's going to force all of us to adjust in a fairly major way, but I think there are really positive ways to deal with that—and Michael will cover those.

• 1020

Mr. Michael Teeter: Some people find the notion of e-communities kind of scary, but we find it kind of exciting. One thing the Internet does is allow people all over the world to very cheaply, effectively, and efficiently congregate, communicate, get together, and form common points of view. And incidentally, some organizations—again, particularly government organizations in the United States—are on the driving edge of forming e-communities, and they are doing it very effectively.

Now, what do these e-communities do? The good news is that they learn a lot more about what's going on in the world, and they learn a lot more about each other. For you folks, perhaps, I think the bad news is that they're putting pressure on governments a lot of the time. They're organizing to put pressure on governments. That's what they do. They are lobbyists, but they're not just one person representing somebody behind the scenes and having to register. You're talking about millions using the Internet to organize themselves.

The other thing is something they don't have but which associations do. Associations have structures, they have laws that regulate their incorporation, and so on. But these don't. They don't have leadership, they don't have mandates, and they don't have rules that govern their behaviour. A key challenge for governments will therefore be what to do with these things. What do you do with these communities that are putting pressure on you?

I'll give you another fact. The very officials we're talking about now who are being lobbied by lobbyists form e-communities of their own. E-communities are being formed inside government as we speak, and these communities are taking policy positions and so on.

So we think it's a key challenge for government to try to manage these e-communities in a legitimate way.

Mr. Scott Proudfoot: The Lobbyists Registration Act is really about transparency and making public advocacy more transparent. While the act is, in our experience, well run and meeting a real need, to some extent I think there really are bigger things going on. In fact, there are things government can do to really open up the process a heck of a lot more, beyond the Lobbyists Registration Act—and what we're really talking about is the public consultation process and how it works.

We do public consultations all the time with our clients. I'd love to tell you they're all really well run, but very few of them actually are. A lot of them are not open, a lot of them are not transparent, and a lot of them are not inclusive. A lot of times you wonder if the people who are running them can put together a hot lunch. So our experiences haven't been really great, and maybe that's affecting our perspective a little bit.

There is a way of using the Internet to open up the process a heck of a lot more. In fact, the U.K. government has done it, and we're really suggesting that you copy it. If you go over to the U.K. citizen portal called UK Online, and if you go into part of the portal called Citizen Space, they have a button labelled “Consultations”. That takes you to a central registry, where you can find all the consultations going on in the U.K. government. You can then link to background information that's provided by officials on those consultations, and you can find out who to contact and where to send your submission.

What this central registry really does is link up departmental registries, and in the good departmental registries, you can go to the departmental sites. In the individual sites, on the front page or second page, usually there's a button that says “Consultations”, and it takes you to their registry.

Usually, what those sites do is give you information on which consultations are live and which have just closed. For the ones that have closed and for which the government has rendered a decision, they give you a summary of who appeared, what they said, and what the government's decision was. This is all laid out in a consultation code of practices that, again, is public and on the Internet.

We think it's a heck of a good idea. People would have more incentive to get involved, to be included, to find out what's going on, and we'd recommend that you just go over there and steal the idea, holus-bolus, and apply it in Canada.

Now, because we're Canadian, we think we can improve on it. There are a couple more things we think you should do with it. First, I don't know why people can't get e-mail notifications when a consultation comes up. For example, all you have to do is create, as part of a consultation registry, a list of thirty or forty key topics. Are you interested in these topics? Put in your check and put in your e-mail. We'll then send you an e-mail to tell you when a consultation comes up. You can then go to the consultation site, get more information, get the background, and get involved if you want. It's very simple, cheap, and easy technology.

Secondly, why can't I find out what submissions people have made to a consultation and read them? What's the big deal about that? If you have a consultation registry, why not have a submission button? Have a list of people who have made submissions. They could provide the links to the material on their sites. The could provide the links to the material on the site where people can view it, or the government could provide some sort of central registry with a searchable database.

• 1025

Again, this stuff is pretty simple technology—it's all there already—and it would make the process incredibly public in terms of what positions people are taking.

Now there is one important caveat here: I think it has to be voluntary. There are times when we're involved with clients and the information is confidential—we shouldn't be giving away information we wouldn't want their competitors to know. I think people have to have the right not to volunteer information. But I think most people would participate.

Finally, as we see e-government evolve—once government gets it right and we get into areas like public consultation—I think people are going to be really happy. They'll be happy to deal with websites and to interact with government in that fashion, because if it's done right it's going to be easier and quicker.

But when people start interacting with websites, what happens is they start talking back to them. That's a very interesting phenomenon we found on our site. We've been asked questions to help kids with their homework—which is not necessarily what we anticipated when we put the site up. People come back to you on their own terms, in their own ways, with their own issues. What will happen over time is that government websites will become interactive mechanisms, with feedback loops to handle public input.

So the question is, where is the elected member of Parliament in all this? To some extent, you can be left out of the process. As we talk about consultative mechanisms and e-communities, I think we have to think about how to build elected representatives and democratic accountability into the process.

If you like our idea about public consultations—and we hope you do—then I suggest that wherever these mechanisms are, there should be a button that says: “Contact your MP. If something is important to you, send your representation to your MP.” You have to build that in.

As e-government evolves, you have to look for other ways to build MPs into the process. I'd be very concerned if we didn't make that a major priority.

Thank you.

The Chair: Thank you.

I want to thank everyone for their opening statements. We are under a time constraint. I want to remind everyone we are finished here at 11 a.m. There is another committee coming in here.

We'll begin with questions, starting with Mr. Penson.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Thank you, Madam Chair.

I'd like to thank the group for coming this morning. That was a very interesting presentation.

Gentlemen, I think you're right. I think the public does want to be more involved. That's pretty evident from what's happening with the civil society debate, Mr. Clark. We're being flooded with information e-mails right now. That's part of the new information age, and we have to deal with it.

It seems to me that rather than trying to register everyone for lobbying, let's just assume that we'll be lobbied by everybody. That's really what it comes down to in the end. It seems to me that's a better process than trying to build too many parameters around this Lobbyists Registration Act aspect.

We could keep expanding it to include the United Church and all the different civil society groups. But what about the guy who e-mails every day on different things he just wants as an individual? We're going to have to learn to deal with it.

By the way, it's interesting, you start exchanging e-mails with constituents and pretty soon you have the guy telling you he shot a six-point buck yesterday and could you come out and look at his trophy. It becomes almost more of a friendship than a relationship with a member of Parliament.

I guess that's where I'm going: isn't it better to trust the judgment of those of us who are being lobbied? We know we're being lobbied, and we have to sort the wheat from the chaff. I think we should stop trying to put artificial parameters around who can do it.

Mr. Peter Clark: Mr. Penson, I wasn't suggesting we should expand the parameters. I was suggesting that the parameters are there and they're not being respected. It doesn't make any difference to the process whether the lobbying is coming from a business, a farm group, one of my cattlemen out in Alberta, the corn growers in Ontario or Manitoba, or from the Council of Canadians. I don't think it makes any difference.

But I do think that if they're going to take a high-profile role, they should tell the rest of the country. Because not everybody agrees with what they're lobbying on and who's doing it. That's all. I'm not suggesting there will be a lot of extra reporting.

• 1030

Mr. Charlie Penson: I agree with that. There needs to be a level playing field. But I just say we should maybe step the level playing field down a bit, so everybody doesn't have to meet all those requirements.

Mr. Peter Clark: Well, only if they engage in that type of activity. You know, the United Church and the other groups you talk about generally come in here and talk to parliamentary committees. They don't have to register to do that.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Mr. Clark, when the firefighters' group stormed the Hill and talked to everybody—how do you handle that?

Mr. Peter Clark: I guess that's a difficult one to deal with.

Mr. Charlie Penson: They were lobbying. Isn't that what they were doing?

Mr. Michael Teeter: In a case like that, their association executives are probably registered, though the members would not be.

My feeling is that we shouldn't discourage this; we should encourage it. It's important to democracy. But for officeholders, elected or otherwise, I think the important point always is, who are they and who do they speak for?

I can tell you that's the first thing I myself say to any government official who doesn't know who I am or who I represent. I tell them what my name is and who I represent. Most of them expect that.

So I would say that's a good way for you to better understand who's lobbying you. At the end of the day, we're never going to register everybody—and we shouldn't. That would be a big mistake.

One point I'd also like to make about the Internet is that when people communicate with you as MPs via the Internet, from your constituency or otherwise, you should look on that as an opportunity to capture data. Once you learn something about a person, that person essentially becomes a volunteer.

American politicians have perfected this, and it's coming to Canada. At the end of the day, I can tell you that you'll be able to separate really good MPs from not-so-good MPs by how well they do this.

The Chair: Before we go on, Mr. Morin, did you wish to add anything?

Mr. Pierre Morin: Only the fact that we're concerned here about someone coming up to the Hill. But what about some people—a group of truckers, or farmers, or whatever—blocking the 417? You may not feel it's directed at you, and yet it is directed at you and your policies.

The Chair: Last question, Mr. Penson.

Mr. Charlie Penson: I agree. But I think it's really up to people to use some common sense to sort that out.

Now I know Bell Canada is lobbying. Well, so what? I knew that before Bell Canada ever had to register as a lobbyist. I guess what I'm saying is what's the point of all this? We know that's happening.

Mr. Pierre Morin: I think you're trying to solve a 1988 problem in 2001.

Mr. Charlie Penson: Can you elaborate on that?

Mr. Pierre Morin: Well, initially the act came about because of so-called scandals, carried over after the general election in 1993. That brought the revision of the 1988 act into its current version. But you're still trying to resolve the 1988 issue.

Maybe you should look at it this way: what are the issues in 2001? What issues—such as the e-community—are before you here? That's really the issue. Don't try to resolve the scandals in 1988. They're long gone.

Mr. Charlie Penson: That's a good point, and I agree with it.

The Chair: Your last question, Mr. Penson.

Mr. Charlie Penson: To pick up on that, the gentleman there talked about Internet lobbying and how that has opened up. With convergence and so on, there are going to be a lot of specialty channels—and I welcome that; I think that's a good thing.

In that, I'm in opposition to to Tom Kent—of the old Kent commission from the 1960s—who was here before this committee last year. He was bemoaning the fact that some of the news services now don't have enough staff to do anything but report the facts. Well, that's what a lot of people want. They want the opportunity to change the channel if they don't agree with what's going on, or else to watch it and make the decision themselves.

So I welcome what's happening, and I think it's up to Canadians to sort out what they want from the whole convergence issue.

• 1035

The Chair: Thank you, Mr. Penson. Mr. Lastewka.

Mr. Walt Lastewka: I've just got one question, and I think Mr. Morin just hit it on the nose. We live in the times we are in today, and I don't want to go back. I want to look at the lobbyists act the way it's written and see how it applies today and in the next few years, before we get too much more change.

My question to the witnesses is, what has to be changed in the lobbyists act to make it relevant to the world we live in today? Are there things that need to be removed because they don't apply any more? Are there things that need to be added because of what we have today? That's very clear and simple, right to the point.

The Chair: Mr. Clark.

Mr. Peter Clark: Thank you. I think I agree with Mr. Morin about the different environment we operate in today. In my opening comments, when I talked about trade policy—which is one of my focuses—I said that the business is evolving rapidly and continuously.

But today we're not dealing with a statute that was essentially designed to guard against influence-peddling and the selling of contacts, to put it bluntly. That's why we have to report every meeting we arrange, when before it didn't matter whether it related to the previous criteria in part (a).

What we're dealing with now is a government that's based far more on transparency. Because of the Internet, we have to deal in information; we can't deal in influence. Governments have to base policies on information.

But what we need to know is, where is the information coming from, and who do the people represent? How would we register a meeting? We have to understand that. A meeting can be face to face. But setting up a conference call, or taking people from different parts of the country or the world into a teleconference area and putting them on television screens, that's also a meeting, in my view.

We have to make sure those points are very clear to people, so they don't try to use those techniques to get around reporting. I think the key thing is that we have to know who's making the presentations and who they represent. We need to have full reporting. That's all we need, because people will then be able to base their decisions on quality information and attach proper weight to it.

As for Michael's and Scott's suggestions about having databases in places that can be accessed—the WTO has already started to do that. At FAIT we have position papers up on the web.

That can be done, and I think there will be much better input and much better decision-making if it is done. I think this has to be an evolving situation. I don't think we should focus so much on whether people deregister in 30 days. Give them a statement every six months or every year asking, are you still working for these people? If not, they're off.

The Chair: Mr. Teeter.

Mr. Michael Teeter: Once you enter into a regulatory framework, which is what we have here, it's a slippery slope. The issues the minister has proposed really come from people who are complaining that there's no equity, let's round out this corner, let's do that, etc. As long as you maintain the regulatory framework, that's going to be a reality.

I recommend that you certainly deal in good conscience with the questions posed to you. But if you want to make a meaningful contribution to transparency, openness, and so on—which is really what the Lobbyists Registration Act is all about—I would venture off a little bit into the space we're talking about. I'd start talking about how the Internet affects transparency, how the whole business of consultations and open government can be merged with what you're trying to do with the Lobbyists Registration Act.

If you do that, I think you'll really add a lot of meaning to the debate.

A closing point: Finance Minister Martin gave a speech at the Crossing Boundaries conference, which Reg co-chaired a couple of weeks ago, in which he made some very profound comments about the role of the Internet and the way young people in particular expect to deal with government using, the Internet, and how critically important it is for governments, but also members of Parliament, to have the tools to deal with young people in the way they want to be dealt with, and that is using the Internet. So I think there's enough out there for you to pick from to make a meaningful statement about the future.

• 1040

Mr. Walt Lastewka: I didn't want us to go out and design that and then have you come back and criticize it. I wanted you to tell us what it should be, because you have a heck of a lot more experience than all of us put together.

A voice: Hire him!

Mr. Scott Proudfoot: In regard to what the minister put before you, I think the suggestion of a six-month “go in and clean up your registration, boys and girls” is a good idea, because if you don't tell them to do it, some people seem to get slack about it. So why wouldn't you do it and why shouldn't we do it? But as for asking us to do it every month, it's a pain in the ass to use that program. So six months is enough pain, I think. It takes time and it's hard to get in after 9:30 a.m. I don't know if they have the oldest server in the building or what, and it's really old technology. Anyway, that's my little rant. Let me go in once in a while and deal with the aggravation, get it over with. Don't force me to keep going at it.

The point is, right now we're talking about spending what will turn out to be billions of dollars on e-government, and all the officials who are working on these programs and planning them, and the Pathfinder programs, are not really thinking about digital democracy. They just don't see that as part of their mandate. They're thinking about getting services on line. So if they're not thinking about digital democracy and they're not thinking about opening up the system, who in the heck is? And if you're not, I don't think they're going to jump in and take the lead.

So there are a lot of ways, but I'll make a final point. When it comes to the Internet, I think a direct regulatory approach often doesn't work, because it's international, it's global, which is why you're seeing all this talk about voluntary standards and coming to a consensus—it's the only thing that seems to work in that medium. So if there is a concern about disclosure and the lack of disclosure with these groups, they all have websites. If we could get them to agree on a good code of practice voluntarily, I'm sure most of them would voluntarily submit to it and would be part of it. I think that would solve a lot of the problems.

The Chair: Okay. Thank you.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Morin: I will be brief. I would suggest that some thought should be given to whether the bill is consistent with recent court rulings, even if you address all the issues raised by the minister. The courts have ruled that groups other than political parties could intervene during election campaigns in order to influence the election outcome.

That is basically lobbying in its purest sense. These people do not have to register. It comes down to a question of consistency. Mr. Clark is quite right when he says that you are dealing with legislation that would have been good in 1988. The situation has changed a lot since then. It is no longer a case of exercising influence but of transmitting information, and it is generally those who transmit the most credible information that carry the day. In any case, that is my livelihood now, nearly full time.

[English]

The Chair: Thank you.

I have to apologize, I have to move on. We're really running out of time here.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Brien: Thank you. We have heard some extremely interesting things and some viewpoints that have not been raised before. However, Mr. Morin, there is something about your approach that I do not understand. You talk about pressure groups: people who block roads or take part in election campaigns. Those things are done openly. People can see them. It does not matter to me whether they are registered or not. Their actions are public, and open for everyone to see. Their actions are normally aimed at getting public attention. That side of things does not worry me. What I worry about is what we do not see.

• 1045

In your opening remarks about access to information, you said that what was happening here and what was available on the Internet gave you the impression that the officials are running things. You are not the only one who has that impression. We also have that impression to some extent. I have the feeling that I do not know enough about what they are doing and I would like to know a little more.

You asked whether, when you intervene in a standard program, you should be reporting this type of activity. My question pertains to the client who hires you. Does he hire you because of your potential influence or simply because you are going to help him understand how the process works?

Mr. Pierre Morin: If I planned to have any influence, I would be violating the Criminal Code. What happens most often—I am referring to my experience in particular—is that I devote much more of my time to my client rather than the government apparatus. Indeed, I teach my client how to manage his relationship with the government. I help the client go through the process rather than doing everything myself. Sometimes the client asks me to fill out a request, such as a request for a grant in a standard program, and I fill out the form. I do not make any representations. I do not try to change or amend the standards or obtain anything else that is not provided by the program.

Mr. Pierre Brien: Without limiting yourself to your case, do you not think that there are some corporate clients who hope, when they are dealing with a public relations or lobbying firm, that it will have some influence because it has access to privileged information since it knows certain public officials who know when the deadlines are going to be set, when the application has to be submitted, etc.?

Mr. Pierre Morin: At the risk of sounding cynical, I adore these clients. When they say that they know such and such a minister, I tell them to proceed and to come back and see me once they realize that this doesn't work.

Mr. Pierre Brien: I was not talking about the minister, I was talking about...

Mr. Pierre Morin: Whether it be the minister or the deputy- minister, they all have a colleague with whom they went to school and who was very influential within the government. I tell them to go ahead and to come back and see me. And they do come back. But I will answer your question. This is a parliamentary committee. Indeed, you are authorized to summon any public official to appear in order to ask him what he is recommending, why and what influence he was subject to. Do you do this? You can ask us if we try to influence...

[English]

The Chair: Monsieur Morin.

Mr. Pierre Morin: Oui.

The Chair: We have a certain mandate at this committee. We have the ability to call and ask certain people to come to this committee who fall within that mandate. We can't just call anyone up and ask them anything.

Mr. Charlie Penson: We think we should be able to.

The Chair: Mr. Brien, did you have another question?

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Morin: Madam Chair, you have this authority when you examine the votes.

[English]

Mr. Charlie Penson: Yes, that's my point.

The Chair: I just wanted to clarify that we do have a mandate and we have certain estimates that are part of this committee. Under those estimates we can call certain people, and we have done that.

[Translation]

Mr. Brien, please.

[English]

Your last question?

Mr. Pierre Brien: No.

The Chair: Ms. Torsney, please.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: Thank you.

To pick up on another point you made, Mr. Morin, during the election campaigns we are all asked to fill in survey after survey after survey on our position. In many of them you're warned that these will be made public and if you don't respond correctly, endorsements and everything else are at stake. It's actually a bit of a business now, I think. You need to assign someone just to do surveys during the election campaign. Clearly they are lobbying for their perspective.

I had a couple of questions, one for comments on the cooling-off period. There's been some interest in having, instead of one-year, two- and five-year cooling-off periods. I wondered what your comments would be on that.

• 1050

Second, there are lots of non-profit organizations and associations that are funded in fact by companies, by different individuals who have a perspective. I think, Mr. Clark, you were alluding to some of those. Where do you see the disclosure of where they get their moneys? Is it through the Lobbyists Registration Act, or should it be somewhere else?

Clearly a really good one adopts a very helpful name that would seem motherhood-ish, and who could have disagreed with them? But they could be funded by a very specific point of view, which would be out there to influence public policy. There could be nothing wrong with it. Some people would probably want to know a little more about who was operating them. How do you see that? Where do you see that disclosure? Would it be in the payment of fees? Clearly with this mom and pop organization spending a million dollars on lobbyists, there's something going on there. How do you see it working?

Mr. Peter Clark: The Council of Canadians, when they did register, in their last expired registration, made a very clear statement that none of their funding came from corporations or governments.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: Okay.

Mr. Peter Clark: For associations, it could be requested that they indicate the nature of their funding, where it comes from. I don't see a problem with that.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: No, but....

Mr. Peter Clark: We understand in some cases that.... Greenpeace International, which has all kinds of money, but which has been deregistered as a charity in Canada, because it doesn't, apparently, act in the public good necessarily, does do some of this funding, and that's some of the.... We would really like to get at whether or not some of these organizations are being used as fronts. But a request in the registration to indicate the nature of the funding and if it's not from membership fees, to identify the major contributors I think would be useful.

Ms. Paddy Torsney: Okay.

Mr. Michael Teeter: On the five-year issue, I think it's too long, frankly, and unfair to people who want to make a living or have to make a living when they leave public life or office. You don't have to lobby, as Pierre says, to be effective. Lobbying, as defined, means you have to influence. Well, what's influence? At any rate, people will make a living. Rather than putting up the charade of saying five years and thinking that's meaningful, I wouldn't bother, frankly.

With the issue of funding and disclosure, I would say the same thing. If the funding of the organization comes from a corporation that wants to remain anonymous and is using this technique in order to influence—I don't know of any, frankly, and I find it rather sad, if it's true—my guess is that rather than registering that relationship, the corporation would say, assuming that situation exists, well, don't lobby then. Because really what you're being paid to do is to make public utterances, public statements, media profiles, and so on. That has nothing to do with lobbying. I want to keep my relationship with you confidential and private, so that would be the end of it. They'd still be very effective I'm sure, or more effective than they would actually calling you up and saying “Do this”, which is really what has to be done in order for that registration process to be valid.

Mr. Scott Proudfoot: I'll just make a couple of quick points. With the cooling-off period, in the real world anything you know when you leave a job is known on the street within six months. So whether it's procurement, whether it's something else, everyone knows it after six months—cabinet secrets, whatever. It's all in the public domain. So realistically, that knowledge edge has dissipated. In some cases it's gone in two weeks. I think I can assure you that in most cases you don't know anything that most people who really want to find out and are working the system in any sort of assiduous fashion haven't figured out after six months.

• 1055

So I really think you have to sit there and ask, what are you really trying to do—just really punish people? Do you really want to sit there and say to people, look, if you've been a successful lawyer, and you've had a practice in a certain area, we're going to make it as hard as hell for you to go back to that area and practice after you leave public life to make a living? Why would I run for office? You have to sit there and ask, in how many ways do we discourage people from coming into public life? We're really coming up with new ones all the time, and I think instead we have to encourage people to be in public life.

A lot of times, when you look at attitudes vis-à-vis the way people approach lobbying and the issues, it's almost like they want to go down to...and a lot of times they used to say to public servants, “We don't trust you”, and to elected officials, “We don't trust you; we're going to stamp a big sign on your forehead that says we don't trust you.” Frankly, you can trust just about everyone there, with very few exceptions, and to have everyone operate under suspicion is really not healthy and is actually terribly expensive and costly when you look at where it leads to. That's my little rant, sorry.

[Translation]

Mr. Pierre Morin: I totally agree with Mr. Proudfoot. His comments are quite accurate. As we discuss this issue, I can't help thinking that if I were ever to hire a senior official or an elected member, it would not be to ask him to represent me as a company. I would hire this person to advise me, to find out how you think. It's not about trying to get information or getting something. It's about trying to understand how you think, how things evolve and I would send somebody else. What do you mean by a cooling-off period? All that it means is that I will not hire someone so that he comes back here to see you. That would be rather gauche.

[English]

The Chair: Actually we have the procedure committee just waiting outside for us, so—

Ms. Paddy Torsney: Well, I wonder if you would just let us know, in your experience with firms, if it is in fact honoured because I did have some experience with it, and I remember people actually saying, “You can't talk to me about that. Come back next month when my cooling-off period expires.” Is it honoured?

Mr. Peter Clark: Our experience has been that it's respected. I have been in this business a long time. I haven't run across any cases where it hasn't been.

The Chair: I want to thank the witnesses for being here, and I appreciate not only your opening statements but the conversation we've had. Mr. Teeter, if there's a way to tell me where those e-mail people in my riding actually live in my riding, I would love to know. That is one of my concerns about doing communication by e-mail.

A voice: I won't answer until I get an address.

The Chair: Exactly. If you can come up with a quick way for me to get an exact address, I would love to be able to incorporate that into all my records.

Mr. Scott Proudfoot: We'll show you how you convince them to give it to you.

The Chair: We try.

Thank you very much. The meeting is adjourned.