A new online Lobbyists Registry for Quebec, whose original deadline for implementation was set by law as of December 19, 2021, has been postponed until 2022.

On December 9, the National Assembly of Québec passed legislation allowing the government more time to optimally deploy the platform by providing for implementation phases, according to Lobbyists Commissioner Jean-Francois Routhie. The commissioner believes the additional time will allow his office “to finalize the data migration of the current register, the tutorials, the online assistance, and the subscription and publication functions” in a brand-new web application in cloud computing.

Routhie had formally requested the postponement in October, citing several unexpected hurdles causing the delay, including disruptions caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, the difficulty in such a context of reaching the rate of development of the IT teams, and a shortage of manpower. In the works since the summer of 2019, the updated web platform aims to replace the “technological obsolescence” of the current site with a modern system, to improve the user experience, and to be in line with Quebec’s 2019-2023 digital transformation strategy.

The updates to the registry are expected to be up and running in the spring of 2022.