Ms Sherry Perreault:

I am just jotting down those points so that I do not miss any. The commission has not ranked the priority of the recommendations it has made but it has commented on the issue of post-employment provisions and the lack of enforcement powers in that regard on a number of occasions. That presents a real dilemma for the commission as to how it can effectively oversee the administration of those provisions. All of the other key provisions of the legislation, including the requirement to register and to submit returns, are enforceable. The commission has certainly undertaken enforcement activities, where necessary. With regard to the post-employment provisions, I am pleased to say that we have had numerous applications to waive or reduce the cooling-off period. The commission notes that those people who have approached the commission seeking such a waiver or reduction are complying with their obligations under the Act to seek the consent of the commission. That is heartening.

The fact is that where a person fails to comply either with the application process or with the provisions of any consent given or refused by the commission, there is nothing in the commission's powers, under the legislation currently, that will allow it to enforce the legislation. It remains the view of the commission that that is a key priority area for amendment in the Act.

In respect of an anti-avoidance clause, it would probably operate in conjunction with other potential offences under the legislation. Somebody who is investigated for non-compliance, lobbying without registering or failing to disclose all of their lobbying activities in a return, for example, might obstruct the investigation in some way or fail to comply with a order of an officer, which are already offences under the current legislation. An anti-avoidance provision captures the aspects that do not currently fall within any of the other provisions of the legislation. For example, where somebody set up a company in order to ensure it does not meet the qualifying provisions of the legislation, it would, therefore, fall outside of scope. Somebody could target their activities through an organisation so that would deliberately fall outside of scope or they could ask their unpaid officeholders to conduct their lobbying activities instead of their paid employees and so on. There are activities or actions that people may take to avoid their obligations. We are of the view that those should be captured where it is a deliberate attempt to circumvent the purposes and transparency that is sought by the legislation.

In respect of the question on email accounts and violations of the code of conduct, that would be outside of the scope of the Regulation of Lobbying Act. The Act is meant to make lobbying activities transparent. The onus is on the lobbyist, the person who conducts the lobbying activities, to register and submit returns.

Designated public officials are subject to other legislation, including freedom of information, which is outside our remit and not something I can comment on. Those are things that are for a different conversation on another day in terms of how those could be captured. At present, there are no obligations directly on designated public officials in the legislation. One of the recommendations we have made is that designated public officials should have the obligation to refuse further communication with somebody where they know that person to be non-compliant. If somebody is non-compliant, or fails to register and submit returns of their lobbying activities, then their access to decision-makers should not be unimpeded in the way people who are compliant have unimpeded access.