Annual Report 2009–2010

Transparent Lobbying

The Registry

Transparency in lobbying activities is a key principle of the Lobbying Act (the Act). Public office holders and the public should know who is engaged in lobbying activities with the federal government. By establishing and maintaining a Registry of Lobbyists (the Registry), which is accessible 24 hours a day, seven days a week on the website of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Office ensures that Canadians can easily access this information.

The Lobbyists Registration System (the LRS) is the tool used by lobbyists to register their lobbying activities conducted at the federal level. The LRS consists of a database coupled with a web-based interface application that lobbyists use to disclose their lobbying activities and meet the requirements of the Act. The LRS also enables users to perform other registration-related transactions, such as modifications, updates and terminations.

The LRS is an interactive online system that validates basic data, such as names and addresses, reminds lobbyists to complete all required information and permits them to easily edit their information. All the data contained in the LRS and collected under the Lobbying Act is a matter of public record. Once verified by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, the data on lobbyists and their activities is moved to the Registry.

The Registry ensures that Canadians know who is being paid to communicate with federal public office holders and on what subject matters. It is a key resource to obtain information about organizations, corporations and individuals who lobby the federal government.

The information contained in the Registry is searchable using a full-text keyword search engine. Certain standard reports can be produced through the web-based interface. The publicly available information in the Registry may be searched to find information about:

• who lobbies for which firms, corporations, organizations or associations;
• which parent and subsidiary companies or corporations benefit from lobbying activities;
• the organizational members of coalition groups;
• a general description of the subject matter of lobbying activities, as well as additional particular details;
• which Government of Canada departments or agencies are being contacted;
• the names and descriptions of the specific legislative proposals, bills, regulations, policies, programs of interest and grants, contributions or contracts sought;
• the positions former public office holders have held within the Government of Canada before they started lobbying; and
• certain details regarding oral and arranged communications with designated public office holders.

The public can produce print copies of individual registration forms directly from the Registry. It is also possible to obtain a list of recent registrations that includes new registrations, updates and terminations that have been processed during the previous 30 days. Data can be searched and retrieved at no cost from any personal computer connected to the Internet.

There has been a decrease in the number of registered lobbyists since the coming into force of the Lobbying Act in 2008. Some in-house lobbyists have indicated that the additional reporting requirements introduced in 2008 led corporations and organizations to rationalize their approach and reduce the number of employees engaged in lobbying activities. In addition, the reporting requirements have caused some corporations and organizations to reassess whether they meet the "significant part of duties" threshold set out in the Act. The "significant part of duties" threshold has been interpreted to be equivalent to 20 percent of one employee's overall duties. Once lobbying activities constitute 20 percent of an employee's duties, the corporation or organization must register. Some organizations and corporations, upon examination of time spent lobbying, have decided not to register. This, combined with the impact of the economic downturn, may explain the reduction in the number of registered lobbyists.

The following tables indicate the number of individual lobbyists listed on all active registrations for the three types of lobbyists, as well as the total number of active registrations for the three types of lobbyists, over a three-year period.

On March 31, 2010, 753 active individual consultant lobbyists were registered compared to 873 registered the previous year. These consultant lobbyists work primarily for firms active in areas such as government relations, law, accounting, strategic advice and other professional services that provide lobbying services for their clients.

For in-house lobbyists, a total of 1791 individual corporate in-house lobbyists were registered in the Lobbyists Registration System, representing the interests of 291 different corporations. The number of organizations registered by the most senior paid officers of non-profit organizations and interest groups, as well as business, trade, industry and professional organizations or associations, was 434. These organizations listed a total of 2725 individual in-house lobbyists.

In accordance with the Act, registrants must file a monthly communication report listing all oral and arranged communications with designated public office holders. The following table shows the number of such meetings with designated public office holders that were filed each month in 2009–2010.

Upgrades to the Lobbyists Registration System

This year, the Office continued implementing the changes in reporting requirements that resulted from the 2008 amendments to the Act. Lobbyists are required, under the Act, to disclose more information than was required under the previous legislation. This increase in disclosure requirements has resulted in an increase in volume and complexity of returns. In order to support registrants in filing complete and accurate disclosures, the Office invested considerable effort to provide guidance to registrants to enhance the quality of their returns.

The Office continued to update the LRS to meet the needs of registrants and to make the Registry as user-friendly as possible. This year, various corrective and adaptive maintenance initiatives were implemented to fine-tune the system's operation.

The major improvements made to the Lobbyists Registration System this year include the following:

• integrated user interface for correcting or deleting monthly communication reports;
• complete overhaul of the Office's online multimedia tutorials that give step-by-step instructions on how to use the LRS;
• easier process for changing the responsible officer for corporations and organizations; and
• more efficient process for switching between official languages.

In addition, analysis began this year to determine ways to optimize the LRS to achieve improved management and monitoring of submitted disclosures. Work has also begun to improve how the Office measures the system's performance.

Client Service

The Office takes pride in the professional client service provided by its staff in responding to registrants' questions and facilitating the filing of registrations. The influx of new and updated disclosures created a backlog of registrations with the coming into force of the Act. This backlog was fully eliminated this year.

Technical and other support to registrants is provided by telephone assistance, direct correspondence, online Registration Tips, on-site training and web documentation to reduce the number of filing mistakes in their registrations and monthly reports. Registrants also receive support through self-guided online tutorials which walk them through the steps needed to complete transactions in the LRS. In the coming year, a call distribution and management system will be implemented to better manage telephone information requests.

While the numbers of registered lobbyists have decreased, the number of transactions within the LRS has increased this year. Transactions include the filing of initial registrations, making modifications, inputting monthly reports, and terminating registrations.

Overall transactions in the Registry in 2009–2010 reached 27,760. This figure captures all transactions related to registrations such as approvals, requests for corrections, modifications and rejections, as well as certifications and modifications of monthly communication reports. Of those, 12,513 registration transactions were completed, including 8,587 related to consultant lobbyist registrations, 1,556 to in-house lobbyist (corporations) registrations and 2,680 to in-house lobbyist (organizations) registrations. Registration transactions include all actions related to registrations that would usually require the intervention of a Registration Advisor for analysis, correction and approval of a registration.

The Office handled 6,483 calls during the fiscal year, a slightly higher number than was reported for 2008–2009 (6,309). The callers were divided by category as follows:

The majority of the calls received this year concerned the Lobbyists Registration System and the lobbyist registration process. Calls were divided by topic as follows:

Overall, 82% of the callers used English in their communications with the Office, while 18% used French. All were answered in the official language of the caller's choice.