A committee of the Legislative Assembly of Alberta that is conducting a review of the province’s lobbying laws is seeking input from stakeholders.

The committee, the Standing Committee on Alberta’s Economic Future, is an all-party committee of Assembly members assigned to review the Lobbyists Act. It has invited lobbyists and organizations to make written submissions directly to the committee offering their individual experiences with the Act and any possible recommendations.

The deadline for written submissions is Thursday, December 2, 2021.

On September 9, the Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists for British Columbia (ORL) will implement a change to its online registry that will allow for streamlining the process for declaring certain coalition activities.

The change involves answering additional questions regarding whether a lobbying activity being reported was a jointly signed or endorsed letter sent on behalf of one or more of the organizations listed in the associated registration return as members of a coalition to which the organization or client belongs. Rather than being reported by each of the coalition member of a joint letter, the letter will only need to be declared once as a coalition activity and only reported once by the organization or consultant lobbyist that communicated the joint letter to senior public office holders.

According to the ORL, a change in the online lobbying activity report forms will be visible to organizations that have declared in their registration returns that the organization is a member of a coalition. The change will also be visible to consultant lobbyists when they prepare lobbying activity reports for clients, if they have declared in the associated registration return that the client belongs to a coalition.

If an organization has not declared membership in a coalition, this change does not affect them. This change also does not affect consultant lobbyists whose clients are not members of coalitions.

On August 15, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau called for an early election to be held on September 20.

The election is being called in the hopes voters will approve of his government’s post-pandemic recovery plan.

Previously, the next state fixed-date election was set for 2023.

The campaign is to last 36 days.

The provincial general election for Nova Scotia will be held on Tuesday, August 17.

This 41st provincial general election will be held to elect a member in each of the 55 electoral districts to serve in the House of Assembly.

On July 17, the Chief Electoral Officer Richard Temporale received an order from the Governor in Council for the election. Upon this notice, Temporale issued writs of election for all 55 electoral districts.

The province’s last general election was held on May 30, 2017.

The Legislative Assembly of British Columbia adjourned for the summer on June 17th.

The 2021 spring legislative session saw the Assembly primarily tackling issues relating to the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. This includes measures that would keep people safe and enable a strong economic recovery.

The Assembly is scheduled to reconvene on October 4. This does not affect lobbyist reporting.

The Ethics Committee of the Canadian House of Commons issued a report this month making recommendations for the House and the executive branch, including recommending greater recording-keeping when meeting with lobbyists. Specifically, the committee urges the Government of Canada to implement a mandatory rule requiring, except in exceptional circumstances, that senior public office holders be accompanied by at least one member of staff, for note taking purposes, during any meeting with lobbyists.

On June 10, the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics issued a 116-page report titled “Questions of Conflict of Interest and Lobbying in Relation to Pandemic Spending,” which calls for greater transparency and accountability in procurement processes with specific recommendations.

Some of the recommendations include that the Government of Canada remove the significant part of duties threshold from the Lobbying Act for in-house lobbyists and clarify lobbying rules applicable to founders of organizations that may lobby government; introduce legislative changes to the Lobbying Act to give the Commissioner of Lobbying greater powers to investigate, issue fines and impose lobbying bans to those who disregard the Act; and ensure better compliance with the post-employment obligations of a public office holder, whether through greater sanctions or other means.

The report, a study originally started in 2020 to address general safeguards in place to prevent conflicts of interest in federal government expenditure policies, updated its focus to include pandemic spending and ways to counter the ethical concerns arising from the WE Charity scandal, in which former Finance Minister Bill Morneau was found to have violated the Conflict of Interest Act. It details events surrounding the awarding of the contribution agreement for the administration of the Canada Student Service Grant; addresses issues concerning communications by a former reporting public office holder with government officials; and the federal government’s award of a ventilator contract during the pandemic.

The committee made a total of 23 recommendations, including that the Government of Canada establish oversight and accountability mechanisms that are specifically designed to ensure rapid and transparent allocation of federal funds during emergency situations.

On June 8, an Ontario, Canada Superior Court judge struck down a section of the province’s Election Finances Act that mandated a 12-month pre-election period restricting third party advertising.

Ontario Superior Court Justice Edward M. Morgan’s decision, Working Families Ontario v. Ontario, explicitly holds that the period will no longer be in effect. The restricted pre-election spending period of 12 months had a $600,000 limit on third-party political advertisement expenditures.

Judge Morgan found the law was unconstitutional and a violation of the “freedom of expression” for the parties suing the province.

As noted by the judge in his decision, the next election in Ontario is scheduled to take place on June 2, 2022, already within the 12-month restricted period for political advertisements under the section being stricken. Judge Morgan wrote, “It would be unfair to the Applicants (and to other potential third-party political advertisers) for statutory provisions that have been declared unconstitutional to remain in operation during this time.” He found the burden of addressing the issue should remain on the legislature to craft an appropriate and constitutional provision.

On June 3, the Legislative Assembly of Ontario adjourned for the summer.

Bill 162, Public Accountability and Lobbyist Transparency Act, 2020, has remained in committees since March of 2020.

Changes the legislation could bring include requiring any member of the Executive Council who has been lobbied by, or otherwise met with, a consultant or in-house lobbyist to file a report about the lobbying or meeting with the registrar not later than 30 days after the lobbying or meeting took place.

This Act would come into force on the day it receives Royal Assent.

The Assembly is scheduled to reconvene on September 13.

On June 1, the Legislative Assembly of Manitoba adjourned for the summer.

Bill 222, The Lobbyists Registration Amendment Act, was introduced in March, but has not yet moved beyond the first reading.

The bill would remove the exemption for union representatives in The Lobbyists Registration Act.

If passed, the Act would come into force 90 days after the day it receives royal assent.

The Assembly is scheduled to reconvene on October 6.

On May 12, the British Columbia Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists released an updated guidance document concerning provincial entities.

The most prominent update concerns reporting when lobbying regional health authorities. The Office of the Registrar interprets health authorities to be government corporations as defined by the Financial Administration Act, and not just provincial entities. Lobbyists are required under the Lobbyists Transparency Act (LTA) to report all of their lobbying activity with health authorities because the LTA states that all officers, directors, and employees of government corporations are public office holders.

The guidance lists the provincial health authorities in British Columbia as the Northern Health Authority; the Interior Health Authority; the Fraser Health Authority; the Vancouver Coastal Health Authority; the Vancouver Island Health Authority; and the Provincial Health Services Authority.

Elections Canada recently published the updated limits on expenses for regulated activities of third parties involved in federal elections in Canada.

The Canada Elections Act imposes a limit on expenses a third party can incur for regulated political activities.

For the period of April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, a third party is prohibited from incurring overall election advertising expenses of a total amount of more than $525,700 during a general election. The previous limit was $521,850. For the same period of April 1, 2021, to March 31, 2022, a third party is prohibited from incurring election advertising expenses in a given electoral district of a total amount of more than $4,506 during a general election. The previous limit was $4,473.

Adjustments are made annually based on a formula of a base amount multiplied by the inflation adjustment factor in effect for the period.

The British Columbia Office of the Registrar of Lobbyists released new guidance documents this month outlining key considerations for lobbyists when declaring government funding in the Lobbyists Registry and guidance on the term “provincial entity” as it is used in the Lobbyists Transparency Act (LTA).

The LTA requires lobbyists provide information in their Registration Return about government funding, whether received or requested by their organization or client, from any government, government agency, or provincial entity in the preceding 12-month period. This is not limited to funding related to lobbying in British Columbia. Government funding includes those of any level of government, including foreign, federal, provincial, or municipal governmental entities. Non-refundable funding given in response to the COVID-19 pandemic is reportable. Now that the online Registry has been updated to permit lobbyists to declare funding, the guidance provides instructions on how to enter, remove and modify the information on a lobbyist’s report.

Similar government funding disclosure obligations are also required by federal lobbyists and lobbyists in Alberta.

The document providing guidance on the term “provincial entity” is intended to help lobbyists understand which persons working for a provincial entity are covered individuals for purposes of disclosure in lobbying reports. “Provincial entity” is specifically defined by regulation and generally refers to provincial government bodies or corporations outside core government. Provincial entities include crown corporations, school districts, public sector post-secondary institutions, such as colleges and universities, and health authorities.

The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada has released information concerning COVID-19 emergency funding and registration requirements online.

Several key points are emphasized by the Office: communications with public office holders about the making, developing or amending of a government-funding program linked to COVID-19 are registrable activities; disclosure of any non-repayable portion of COVID-19 relief funding received¸ from any level of government entity, foreign or domestic, must be disclosed in a lobbyist’s registration; and updates to registrations are required no later than 15 days after the end of the month in which the funding was provided.

Examples of COVID-19-related funding programs include the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy, the Canada Emergency Business Account, and the Canada Emergency Commercial Rent Assistance.

The disclosure of funding by lobbyists is not limited to COVID-19 relief or to lobbying the federal government. Other reportable government funding includes all grants, non-repayable contributions, forgiven portions of government loans, and any other non-repayable funding.

Disclosure is still not required for repayable contributions, repayable portions of government loans, tax credits, refunds, exemptions, rebates, remissions of taxes, and payment of goods or services contracts.

Applying to a federal government funding program linked to COVID-19 alone is not a registrable activity.

On February 25, a bill was introduced in the Legislative Assembly of Ontario to increase the province’s contribution limits and make other changes to its election laws.

Bill 254, Protecting Ontario Elections Act, 2021, as introduced by Attorney General Doug Downey, proposes to amend the Election Act, the Election Finances Act, the Members’ Integrity Act, 1994, and the Municipal Elections Act, 1996.

Some of the changes in the bill include increasing contribution limits made to individual registered parties, party and non-party candidates, leadership candidates, constituency associations and nomination contestants of any one party or to the constituency association of any independent member. That amount increases from $1,650 to $3,300 per calendar year, with an increase of $25 for each calendar beginning on January 1, 2022.

Additionally, when selling a ticket for a fund-raising event, all, or any portion of its cost up to a maximum of $30, may be considered not to be a political contribution.

The time period on limiting third party advertisers’ spending would increase from six months to 12 months before an election. The proposed legislation also includes penalties for violations, allows members of the Assembly to endorse constituency associations, establishes the allowance of certain candidate electronic filings for municipalities, directs the Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) to establish an advisory committee on voting equipment and vote counting equipment, and expands powers of the CEO with respect to designating advance polls.

The bill also allows members of the Assembly to explicitly use social media for any matters a member wishes to bring to the attention of the public, including partisan matters.