ARCHIVED - Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada

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Commissioner's Message

On July 2, 2008, the Lobbying Act (the Act) came into force, creating the position of Commissioner of Lobbying and the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying (OCL). As Commissioner, it is my privilege to produce the first Departmental Performance Report for this Office. This report provides a concise, reliable and balanced chronicle of the OCL's performance with regards to its plan, priorities and expected results over the last fiscal year.

As the Commissioner of Lobbying, I am responsible for administering and implementing the Lobbying Act. My mandate, which is set out in the Lobbying Act, includes maintaining the Registry of Lobbyists (the Registry) that is readily accessible to lobbyists and the public, developing and implementing educational programs that will foster awareness of the Act and ensuring compliance with the Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct (the Code).

The Registry is the primary tool used by the OCL to ensure transparency in lobbying activities conducted at the federal level. The complexity of new reporting requirements such as the monthly communication reports under the Act required a complete overhaul of the Registry's business processes. This resulted in significant changes and major improvements to the Registry, making it more adaptable and responsive to its users. These major changes were brought in on time, within budget and with no major technical problems.

Promoting awareness of the Act is essential to ensuring compliance. As such, one of my objectives was to improve the understanding of lobbyists, their clients, public office holders and others interested in lobbying activities, about the rationale and the requirements of the Act. To achieve this objective, various products and means of communications were used, such as direct communications, information sessions and on-line multimedia tutorials, to name but a few.

During this reporting period, allegations of non-compliance with the Act and Code continued to be pursued. The Act changed a number of things for the OCL in terms of compliance. Therefore, significant effort was spent this past year to incorporate these compliance changes into our established processes and develop new ones to deal with such issues as the exemption process from the five-year prohibition on lobbying.

In closing, many great things were accomplished by this Office in the past year in preparing for and implementing the Lobbying Act. I am confident that this work, as well as other results achieved by the OCL, will contribute in an important way to enhancing confidence and trust in federal government decision-making.

Section I – Departmental Overview

Raison d'être

Responsibilities

The Commissioner of Lobbying is responsible for the implementation of the Lobbying Act. The authority of the Commissioner, who is an independent Officer of Parliament, derives from the Act.

The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying administers the Lobbying Act (the Act), which provides for the establishment of a Registry of Lobbyists that seeks to improve transparency and accountability regarding communications by lobbyists with public office holders. This contributes to increasing the public's confidence in the integrity of government decision-making.

The primary activities to support the mandate of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying are threefold. They are to establish and maintain the Registry of Lobbyists, which contains and makes public the registration information disclosed by lobbyists as well as their monthly returns regarding communications with designated public office holders; to develop and implement educational programs to foster public awareness of the requirements of the Lobbying Act; and to ensure compliance with the Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct.

The Commissioner of Lobbying has received new authority under the Lobbying Act to grant exemptions to designated public office holders subject to a five-year prohibition on lobbying activities along with the ability to review allegations that lobbyists have been provided with fees contingent upon the success of their lobbying activities, the payment of which is now prohibited.

The Commissioner reports annually to Parliament on the administration of the Lobbying Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct and is required to table reports on any investigations conducted in relation to the Code.

Strategic Outcome and Program Activity Architecture (PAA)

In order to effectively pursue the mandate, the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying (OCL) aims to achieve the following strategic outcome:

Program Activity Architecture

The Program Activity Architecture (PAA) for the OCL is its basis for reporting to Parliament. The PAA describes the relationship between the activities the OCL undertakes and the strategic outcome it is working to achieve, in order to produce results for Canadians. In addition, the PAA also provides the framework that links the expected results and the performance measures to individual program activities, clarifying why the OCL does what it does and how it will measure the results achieved. Finally, the PAA also serves as a framework to link the financial resources to each program activity, indicating how the OCL manages the resources under its control to achieve its intended outcomes.

[D]

Performance Summary

2008-09 Financial Resources ($ thousands)

Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending
4,513	4,894	4,466

2008-09 Human Resources (FTEs)

Planned	Actual	Difference
28	25	(3)

Strategic Outcome: Transparency and accountability in the lobbying of public office holders contribute to confidence in the integrity of government decision-making.

Performance Indicator	Target	2008-09 Performance
The level of compliance with the Lobbying Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct	100%	The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying continued its progress towards transparency and accountability in lobbying by effectively implementing the Lobbying Act's registration and compliance requirements.

($ thousands)

Program Activity	2007-08 Actual Spending	2008-09				Alignment to Government of Canada Outcomes
		Main Estimates	Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending
Registration of Lobbyists	2,489	1,900	1,900	2,251	2,064	An accountable transparent, and responsive government
Education and Research	881	987	987	1,214	1,126
Reviews and Investigations under the Lobbying Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct	817	1,626	1,626	1,429	1,276
Total	4,187	4,513	4,513	4,894	4,466

Contribution of Priorities to Strategic Outcome and Program Activities

Operational Priorities	Type	Status	Linkages to Strategic Outcome
Implement the new Lobbyists Registration System	Ongoing	Successfully met During 2008-09, the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying (OCL) focused its efforts on the development, launch and technical optimization of the Lobbyists Registration System (LRS) to allow for implementation of the Lobbying Act (Act).	An effective and efficient LRS is the key to ensuring transparency and accountability in the lobbying of public office holders. Making information about lobbying publicly available, in keeping with the enhanced registration requirements of the Lobbying Act, contributes directly to increased confidence in the integrity of government decision-making. Improvement: Ensure that the evolution of the LRS continues to accommodate the registration requirements of the Act and the needs of its users.
Promote awareness of Act and Code requirements	Ongoing	Successfully met Through various means of communications (e.g., information material, advisory letters, website, formal presentations at national, provincial and international conferences and meetings, speeches, appearance before Parliamentary Committee, etc.) the OCL worked to ensure that lobbyists, their clients, public office holders (POH) and designated public office holders (DPOH) were aware of their obligations under the Act.	Enhanced awareness of the Act and Code is an essential component of ensuring that all interested parties are fully informed about the registration requirements of the Act. Improvement: Expand our communications activities to ensure we are capturing as many relevant groups as possible in our promotions.
Pursue enforcement of the Act and the Code and communicate the results	Ongoing	Successfully met Thirteen allegations of non-compliance with the Lobbying Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct (Code) were brought to the attention of the Investigations Directorate and administrative reviews were commenced on all 13 allegations.	Adherence to the Act and the Code ensures that the lobbying of public office holders is done transparently. Public office holders, lobbyists and their clients are made aware of the importance of adhering to the legislation and that there are consequences to non-compliance. Reviews and investigations of alleged transgressions promote awareness of the OCL's enforcement efforts. Improvement: Better case management to improve processing of reviews and investigations.

Risk Analysis

The coming into force of the Lobbying Act (the Act) on July 2, 2008 increased the need for transparency and accountability in lobbying registration and registrant compliance. The OCL upgraded its registry, its education and research functions, and its compliance resources to deal with the challenges brought by the Act.

The core instrument of the OCL is its Lobbyists Registration System and its public interface, the Registry of Lobbyists. It is available to registrants 24 hours a day, seven days a week. We avoided major interruptions and shutdowns of the system throughout the year as a result of our many safeguard measures. Any temporary shutdowns experienced during this reporting period were of the shortest duration (never exceeding an hour) and did not result in measurable inconvenience to our users.

During the development phase of the new Lobbyists Registration System, technical risks were lessoned by a responsive, project management methodology which responded to system difficulties at each project iteration stage. Financial and human resources risks associated with the project were also minimized through multi-level reporting and planning processes.

The Lobbying Act requires monthly reporting of certain communications with designated public office holders. This reporting requirement is done on-line without OCL vetting and carries with it the possibility of undetected input errors. Such errors could not be fixed by the users on-line, thus requiring assistance from OCL staff. The OCL educated lobbyists and designated public office holders on how best to report monthly communications with as few errors as possible, but monthly reporting input errors still occurred. The OCL verified 327 monthly communication entries¹ of which 298 (91%) were accurate and 29 (9%) had errors. The errors included such things as incorrect spelling, wrong dates, and wrong subject matters. To solve the problem, OCL began the development of a new registration function in 2008-09 which, once completed, will permit users to change incorrect information on-line without the need for OCL involvement.

The OCL endeavored to minimize the factors that led to time-consuming litigation by conducting comprehensive investigations and reviews and ensuring that files were well documented. Given that the Lobbying Act permits applications for exemption from the five-year prohibition and that these applications may also be challenged in court, the same methodology was used for documenting the exemption files.

The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying is a small department dependent on other federal institutions to act as service providers for a number of its corporate services, including information technology, human resources and financial services. Service agreements with other federal organizations were monitored carefully and OCL ensured that all practices and services were consistent with its requirements and standards.

Expenditure Profile

[D]

OCL's actual and planned spending increased over the last two fiscal years. These increases reflect additional funding required for implementing the Lobbying Act. With the coming into force of the Lobbying Act, major changes were required to the Lobbyists Registration System to incorporate the new requirements of the Lobbying Act.

In 2008-09, the variance between actual and total authorities is mainly due to vacant positions being staffed throughout the year, as well as employees on parental leave.

The planned spending reflects the funding OCL requires for delivering its mandate with a full complement.

The variance between planned spending and total authorities resulted mainly from funding received due to ratification of collective agreements.

Voted and Statutory Items
($ thousands)

Vote # or Statutory Item (S)	Truncated Vote or Statutory Wording	2006-07 Actual Spending	2007-08 Actual Spending	2008-09 Main Estimates	2008-09 Actual Spending
45	Program Expenditures	2,858	3,886	4,097	4,098
(S)	Contributions to employee benefit plans	245	301	416	368
Total		3,103	4,187	4,513	4,466

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