ARCHIVED - Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada - Report

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Message from the Commissioner of Lobbying

I am pleased to present the Departmental Performance Report for the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying for the fiscal year ending on March 31, 2010.

My activities focus on the administration of the Lobbying Act, which is intended to ensure that lobbying activities are transparent and contribute to increasing Canadians' confidence in the integrity of government decision-making. My Office maintains a publicly accessible registry of lobbyists, promotes compliance through an education and outreach program, and monitors and enforces compliance with the legislation and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct.

Our Web-based registration system is a model for lobbyists' registries. This year, further improvements have been made to make it simpler for lobbyists to use, and easier for Canadians to access and search for information. More specifically, a number of new features have been added to the Lobbyists Registration System to facilitate the registration process. The quality of client services has also benefited from the implementation of a new system to manage telephone enquiries.

In my experience, greater awareness of the Lobbying Act's requirements leads to greater compliance. Therefore, I am increasingly investing time and targeting my efforts to inform and educate lobbyists, public office holders, parliamentarians and the Canadian public about the Lobbying Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct. This past year, in addition to increasing my outreach activities towards lobbyists, I reached out to designated public office holders in the 20 most-lobbied federal government institutions, with excellent results in raising awareness.

In 2009–10, my Office continued to monitor lobbying activities and conduct Administrative Reviews and Investigations. Efforts to streamline our approach to compliance continued in order for the Office to keep pace with the growing volume of compliance activities. New processes have been implemented to help improve the accuracy of the information contained in the Registry. Examples include mass communications (primarily via e-mail) to inform registrants of common reporting errors, and targeted sampling to verify monthly communication returns. These new methods have led to significant improvements in accuracy, at a relatively low cost to the organization.

In 2010, the Lobbying Act is eligible for legislative review. I hope to work with parliamentarians, when called upon, to provide insights into my experience in administrating the legislation and into amendments that may be considered by Parliament. My goal remains to ensure that the Lobbying Act is administered in a way that supports greater transparency and higher ethical standards in lobbying activities.

Section I: Departmental Overview

Raison d'être

The mandate of the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying is derived from the Lobbying Act (the Act). Its purpose is to ensure transparency and accountability in the lobbying of public office holders in order to contribute to confidence in the integrity of government decision-making. The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying supports the Commissioner in fulfilling her mandate.

Responsibilities

The Commissioner of Lobbying is responsible for the implementation of the 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 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 public 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 available to the public, the registration information disclosed by lobbyists as well as their monthly returns regarding communications with designated public office holders; to develop and implement research and educational programs to foster awareness of the requirements of the Act; and to monitor and ensure compliance with the Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct (the Code).

The Commissioner of Lobbying has the authority under the Act to grant exemptions to former designated public office holders subject to a five-year prohibition on lobbying activities.

The Commissioner reports annually to Parliament on the administration of the Act and the Code and is required to table reports on any completed investigations.

Strategic Outcome

In order to effectively pursue its 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 of the OCL 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 expected results and performance measures to individual program activities, clarifying why the OCL does what it does and how it will measure expected results. Finally, the PAA serves as a framework to link financial resources to each program activity, indicating how the OCL manages the resources under its control to achieve its intended outcomes.

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Performance Summary

2009–10 Financial Resources ($ thousands)

Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending
4,574	4,827	4,179

2009–10 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	2009–10 Performance
The level of compliance with the Lobbying Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct.	100%	The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying contributed to the transparency and accountability of lobbying activities by effectively implementing the registration and compliance requirements of the Lobbying Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct and by undertaking an education and research program.

($ thousands)

Program Activity	2008–09 Actual Spending	2009–10				Alignment to Government of Canada Outcomes
		Main Estimates	Planned Spending	Total Authorities	Actual Spending
Registration of Lobbyists	2,064	1,541	1,552	1,357	1,256	An accountable, transparent, and responsive government.
Education and Research	1,126	1,084	1,097	1,103	943
Reviews and Investigations under the Lobbying Act and the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct	1,276	1,023	1,041	1,033	886
Internal Services1	—	880	884	1,334	1,094
Total	4,466	4,528	4,574	4,827	4,179

Contribution of Priorities to Program Activities

Operational Priorities	Type	Status	Linkages to Program Activities
Continuation of implementation and maintenance of the Lobbyists Registration System	Ongoing	Met all. The OCL has implemented an annual maintenance program for the Lobbyists Registration System. The program included a series of adaptive and corrective functionalities aimed at improving the registration process and facilitating compliance with the Lobbying Act.	The Lobbyists Registration System (LRS) is the cornerstone of the registration process. A more efficient and effective LRS accelerates the publication of information in the Registry, and improves the overall quality of disclosures. The LRS has built-in information, guidance material and features that help registrants understand and comply with the Lobbying Act's disclosure requirements. Improvement: The maintenance program will be enhanced to incorporate improved functionalities to further simplify and facilitate the registration process. It will also increasingly focus on adding statistical capacity to monitor more accurately the performance of the LRS and facilitate its day-to-day management.
Promote awareness of the Act and the Code requirements	Ongoing	Mostly met. The OCL focused its outreach efforts on four main groups: lobbyists; public office holders; parliamentarians; and the public.	Enhanced awareness leads to greater compliance with the requirements of the Act and the Code. Improvement: Refine and target our approach to outreach activities to ensure that key groups are reached and that resources are used for maximum impact.
Pursue enforcement of the Act and the Code and communicate the results	Ongoing	Met all. The OCL initiated Administrative Reviews or Investigations of allegations of non-compliance that were brought to its attention. The results were communicated in its Annual Report.	Enforcement measures taken by the OCL and communication of results contribute to compliance with the requirements of the Act and the Code. This contributes to improved compliance with the lobbyists' registration regime. Improvement: Public confidence can be further enhanced through additional communication of results and greater understanding of the consequences of non-compliance with the Act and the Code.

Management Priorities	Type	Status	Linkages to Program Activities
Improve internal management of the organization	New	Met all. The OCL consolidated all corporate functions under a newly created Deputy Commissioner position. This new organizational structure helped demonstrate the importance of internal management functions and clarified the roles and responsibilities of all executives. The Departmental Audit Committee was active in performing an oversight function and in providing expert advice to the Commissioner and the management team on potential improvement measures.	The consolidation of the corporate functions contributed to streamlined and better integrated planning, oversight and reporting functions, fostering the organization's effectiveness in delivering its mandate.
Human Resources Renewal	New	Met all. Specific measures have been initiated to improve the integration of business and human resource planning (e.g., priority-setting discussions and consolidation of corporate functions under a single executive). This has helped focus organizational efforts on key people management priorities, including staffing, development and employment equity. The OCL remains committed to building a diverse workforce as it strives to meet Employment Equity (EE) objectives in all of its staffing actions.	The development of an integrated business and human resources planning process raised the awareness of human resource implications of the OCL's activities, thereby fostering increased effectiveness in delivering its mandate.

Risk Analysis

The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying (OCL) faces many risks and challenges in administering the Lobbying Act. As a small organization, it has limited personnel and financial resources and must establish clear priorities to mitigate those risks and address those challenges.

The Lobbyists Registration System (LRS) was complex to establish, and issues such as accuracy of information and timeliness of disclosure remain at the forefront of the OCL's priorities. The LRS is the primary tool that allows lobbyists to disclose and make transparent their lobbying activities. As such, the LRS must be available at all times for registration and for consultation by the public. To prevent system interruptions, a number of built-in failsafe mechanisms have been put in place in order to limit the amount of downtime and ensure continuous operation.

The Lobbying Act requires monthly reporting of certain communications with designated public office holders. This reporting is done online by lobbyists without prior OCL vetting. As such, it carries with it the possibility of input errors which may go undetected. The OCL has implemented a statistical sampling approach to verify the accuracy of monthly communication reports and identify errors. The OCL also continually educates lobbyists and public office holders on how to reduce errors, including over-reporting. New functionalities have been put in place in the LRS to allow lobbyists to amend and correct monthly communication reports without OCL involvement, thus freeing up resources for other priority work.

Another area of risk relates to the possibility that the Commissioner's decisions with respect to Administrative Reviews, Investigations and decisions on applications for exemption to the five-year prohibition on lobbying, may be subject to judicial review in Federal Court. In order to mitigate this risk, the OCL conducts reviews and investigations that are fair, thorough and well-documented, and that will stand review by a Court, if required.

In 2009–10, the OCL completed a restructuring of the organization to consolidate all corporate functions under a new position, that of Deputy Commissioner. The roles and responsibilities of the other OCL executive positions were reviewed and adjusted accordingly.

In the event that Parliament launches a review of the Lobbying Act in 2010, the Commissioner will likely be asked to share her views on the Office's experience with the administration of various provisions of the legislation over the last few years. In preparation, the OCL is undertaking research and analysis to help prepare the Commissioner to play an active role in the debate.

The OCL is a small organization that is dependent on other federal departments for the provision of key corporate services, such as information technology, human resources and financial services. Agreements for these shared services were monitored by the OCL to ensure that all practices and services are consistent with OCL requirements and standards and those of the Government of Canada.

Expenditure Profile

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In 2008–09, the OCL spent a considerable amount of resources to implement the new Lobbyists Registration System (LRS) in order to incorporate the new requirements of the Lobbying Act, which came into force in July 2008. The variance in actual spending between 2008–09 and 2009–10 is mainly due to the fact that the funding related to the development of the LRS was reduced in 2009–10, as the OCL focussed primarily on system maintenance.

In 2009–10, the variance between planned spending and total authorities resulted mainly from funding received from central votes for reimbursement of eligible paylist expenditures (parental leave) and operating carryforward.

In 2009–10, the variance between planned and actual spending is mainly due to vacant positions being staffed late in the year, and funding received from central votes to cover parental leave expenses.

Voted and Statutory Items
($ thousands)

Vote # or Statutory Item (S)	Truncated Vote or Statutory Wording	2007–08 Actual Spending	2008–09 Actual Spending	2009–10 Main Estimates	2009–10 Actual Spending
45	Program Expenditures	3,886	4,098	4,120	3,810
(S)	Contributions to employee benefit plans	301	368	408	369
Total		4,187	4,466	4,528	4,179

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