This House of Commons committee (ETHI) meeting on April 23, 2026, studied the statutory review of the federal *Lobbying Act*. Appearing were former MP and current consultant lobbyist Hon. Joe Jordan (as an individual), Dan Hurley (Board Director and Treasurer, Public Affairs Association of Canada), Jean-François Routhier (Commissioner of Lobbying, Lobbyisme Québec), and Cathryn Motherwell (Integrity Commissioner of Ontario).
Joe Jordan stated the current system is working well and is ranked in the top tier globally by the OECD, but he offered cautions on several of the federal lobbying commissioner’s recommendations. He supported clarifying that board directors be treated as employees under the Act but warned the term “employee” could create conflicts with other laws, suggesting a different term be used. He argued the five-year lobbying ban for political staff is punitive and should be removed entirely if the governing party changes, aligning post-employment restrictions with ethics rules rather than adding a second set. He opposed expanding the “designated public office holder” category to director-general-level positions, calling it an administrative burden without proven benefit, and warned that expanding monthly communication reports to include communications initiated by MPs would infringe on parliamentary privilege.
Dan Hurley, presenting survey results from the Public Affairs Association of Canada, reported strong member support for transparency but highlighted ongoing ambiguity in key statutory concepts like “significant part of the duties,” “arranged communication,” and “grass-roots” lobbying. He noted that monthly communication reports can be administratively burdensome, especially for smaller and non-profit organizations, and warned of a potential chilling effect that could discourage engagement with government or volunteer participation in governance roles. PAAC recommended clarifying definitions, modernizing the Act for virtual meetings, reassessing proportionality, and focusing enforcement on unregistered or bad-faith lobbying rather than technical errors.
Jean-François Routhier argued that any registration threshold based on time or intensity, such as “significant part of the duties,” is almost impossible to apply and verify, creating a permanent grey area that undermines transparency. He identified a major gap in the federal Act: lobbying related to government contracts, especially sole-source contracts, is not captured, which he called a clear shortcoming given the billions of dollars involved. He advocated for giving the commissioner a full range of proportional administrative powers—including investigation, administrative monetary penalties, and temporary prohibitions—rather than relying almost exclusively on criminal penalties, and stressed that obligations and penalties should fall on entities, not just individuals.
Cathryn Motherwell explained that Ontario uses a 50-hour registration threshold for in-house lobbyists, which resulted in 50% more registrations after it replaced the “significant part of duties” threshold, and she supported eliminating the federal threshold entirely. She noted that Ontario’s Act prohibits lobbyists from placing a public office holder in a conflict of interest but lacks a code of conduct, and she recommended that conduct rules apply consistently to all lobbyists and senior officers. She supported giving the federal commissioner additional compliance tools such as mandatory training and administrative monetary penalties, noting that Ontario’s current penalties—naming publicly or prohibiting lobbying for up to two years—have been used sparingly.
After the witnesses’ testimony, the committee moved to committee business. Michael Cooper (CPC) attempted to give a preamble linking the study to a government motion he said would gut committee oversight, but was repeatedly interrupted by Liberal members on points of order. He then gave notice of a motion rejecting the government’s plan to impose a Liberal majority on the committee. Later, Michael Barrett (CPC) moved a detailed motion requiring the Privy Council Office to provide monthly reports on every assessment related to the Prime Minister’s conflict of interest screen, including summaries, outcomes, notes, and all correspondence, and to produce the Prime Minister’s international travel itineraries and meeting attendees since he took office. Liberal members spoke at length against the motion, arguing it was redundant because the Ethics Commissioner and senior officials had already confirmed the screen works well, that the information was already being provided quarterly, and that the request was overly broad and would impose a significant administrative burden. The debate was suspended and resumed at a later meeting.
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