On March 13, a provincial byelection will be held in the electoral division of Saint-Henri–Sainte-Anne for the Quebec National Assembly.

The election will be held to fill the vacant seat of former Member of the National Assembly Dominique Anglade, the former leader of the Quebec Liberal Party .

Anglade resigned on December 1 of last year.

The byelection was announced by Premier François Legault on February 6.

On January 16, 2023, Jean-François Blanchet will become Quebec’s new Chief Electoral Officer and Chair of the Commission de la représentation électorale. Quebec’s National Assembly appointed Blanchet on December 9.

He will replace Pierre Reid, who has served in both of those roles since 2015. Reid, who served one seven-year term, had wanted to be reappointed, but was not chosen again for the positions.

An appointment to the Commission requires the agreement of two thirds of the members of Quebec’s National Assembly.

The Commission de la représentation électorale draws up the electoral map of Québec, municipalities, and English-language school boards. Blanchet is currently the Director of Electoral Operations and Assistant to the Chief Electoral Officer and has worked for Élections Québec since 1989.

Question:  I am the Senior Officer in Quebec for my company.  I have been receiving emails concerning a new website.  What do I need to know?

Answer:  Lobbying to design and administer a new platform to replace the current Registry of Lobbyists.  This new platform is called Carrefour Lobby Quebec.  Carrefour Lobby Quebec aims to be a modernization and update of the current registry.

On June 21, 2022, the first phase of Carrefour Lobby Quebec was deployed.  Senior officers of companies and organizations carrying out lobbying activities were invited to create their individual accounts in the new system, along with the corresponding account for their company or organization.  Authorized representatives and consultant lobbyists were also permitted to proceed with account creation in Carrefour Lobby Quebec.  Users can gain additional information on Carrefour Lobby Québec by viewing an introductory video. They can also review the methods of administration of the new system.

The second and final phase of the deployment will take place this fall.  The Commissioner of Lobbying recommended, as provided for in Bill 13, a decree be adopted fixing the final deployment of Carrefour Lobby Quebec for October 13, 2022.  The functionalities for entering lobbying activities will then be operational in the new system.   On October 13, 2022, the current Registry of Lobbyists will be officially closed and all information in the current registry will be transferred to Carrefour Lobby Quebec.  There will then be a 60-day validation period for all transferred information.

More information will be provided by the Commissioner of Lobbying as the deployment of the second phase approaches.  Until the new system is online, lobbying activities must be entered into the current registry.

The information from this response can easily be found on our website in the Lobbying Compliance section of the Canada Compliance Laws publication.  Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have questions.

On June 21, Jean-François Routhier, the Commissioner of Lobbying with Lobbyisme Québec, officially deployed the first phase of Carrefour Lobby Quebec, the new online disclosure regime of lobbying activities for the province.

The current registry of lobbyists will be replaced by Carrefour Lobby Québec, which will be administered by Lobbyisme Québec. The official and complete launch of Carrefour Lobby Québec is anticipated to take place in the fall of 2022. At that time, the current lobbyists’ registry will close.

Beginning June 21, the most senior executives of companies and organizations carrying out lobbying activities and their authorized representatives, as well as consultant lobbyists, will begin to be invited to proceed with the creation of their individual account and their businesses or organizations on the new website. Lobbyisme Québec plans to help support registered lobbyists efficiently transition to the new website during the second and final phase of the platform’s deployment.

According to the Office of Lobbyisme’s press release, the Lobbyists Commissioner has recommended that the government, as provided for in Bill 13, adopt the decree setting the entry into force of the new platform on October 13, 2022.

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.

On April 11, a provincial byelection will be held in the electoral division of Marie-Victorin for the Quebec National Assembly.

The election will be held to fill the vacant seat of former Member of the National Assembly Catherine Fournier, who resigned in November of last year after becoming elected the mayor of Longueuil.

The election was announced by Premier François Legault on March 8.

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.

The year 2021 will likely bring major changes to the Quebec Lobbyists Registry online lobbying activity disclosure platform.

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, according to Lobbyists Commissioner Jean-Francois Routhier.

“The modernization of the lobbyists registry is without a doubt one of the biggest projects of our institution since its creation in 2002,” Routhier stated in his December 2020 newsletter.

A user committee made up of lobbyists, public office holders, journalists, and citizens has been testing a model of the new website to validate its user-friendliness and processes.

The commissioner has emphasized that the new website’s intuitive design, simplified process for registration, and increased capacity of searching for relevant information, are of interest to both lobbyists and the public.

Routhier says the new platform will replace the current Lobbyists Registry platform at the end of 2021.

On April 17, the Quebec National Assembly extended its adjournment until May 5 because of the continuing COVID-19 pandemic.

The Assembly had agreed on March 17 to adjourn parliamentary business until April 21.

At the time, the leaders of the four parliamentary groups left open the option to recommend to the President of the National Assembly to extend the adjournment beyond April 21.

Lawmakers plan to hold four virtual committee sessions.

These will allow MPs and members of the opposition groups to exchange views with members of the executive.

These committee sessions will be held between April 24 and May 1.

On March 17, the National Assembly of Quebec agreed to adjourn parliamentary business until Tuesday, April 21, 2020, at 1:40 p.m.

The adjournment is in response to the coronavirus pandemic.

If required, the leaders of the four parliamentary groups will recommend to the President of the National Assembly to extend the adjournment beyond April 21.

On December 2, a provincial by-election will be held in the Capitale-Nationale riding of Jean-Talon for the Quebec National Assembly.

The election will be held to fill the vacant seat of former Member of the National Assembly Sébastien Proulx, who resigned in August to return to private life.

The election was announced by Premier François Legault on October 27

On February 14, a bill was introduced in the National Assembly of Quebec to allow the Lobbyists Commissioner to maintain the registry of lobbyists.

Currently, paperwork filed by lobbyists is processed with the Ministry of Justice. Bill 6 amends the Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Act in order to transfer responsibility for keeping the registry of lobbyists to the Lobbyists Commissioner.

The bill also creates a three-year statute of limitations for the prosecution of lobbying violations, starting from the time a prosecutor becomes aware of a violation. A prosecution would be prohibited if the commission of the offense occurred more than seven years earlier.

On February 25, three by-elections will be held to fill vacancies in the Canadian House of Commons. The by-elections will take place for the electoral districts of Burnaby South (British Columbia), Outremont (Quebec) and York–Simcoe (Ontario).

The seat for Burnaby South (British Coumbia) became vacant following the resignation of Kennedy Stewart, who resigned on September 14 in order to run for mayor of Vancouver.

The seat for Outremont (Quebec) became vacant following the resignation of Tom Mulcair, who left office to teach at the at Universite de Montreal and to become a regularly scheduled political commentator at CJAD radio and CTV news.

The seat for York–Simcoe (Ontario) became vacant following the resignation of Peter Van Loan, who resigned on September 30 to return to the practice of law.

Sometime before January 30, 2019, a by-election will be announced for the seat in the House of Commons representing Outremont in the province of Quebec.

On August 3, the Chief Electoral Officer of Canada, Stéphane Perrault, received official notice from the Speaker of the House of Commons that the seat for Outremont (Quebec) became vacant following the resignation of Tom Mulcair, who left office to teach at the at Universite de Montreal and to become a regularly scheduled political commentator at CJAD radio and CTV news.

Under the law, the by-election date must be announced between August 14, 2018, and January 30, 2019, and will signal the start of the by-election period. According to Elections Canada, the earliest date the by-election can be held is September 24, 2018.

On May 13, Elections Canada announced a federal by-election will be held on June 18 in the electoral district of Chicoutimi–Le Fjord (Quebec) to fill a vacancy in the House of Commons.

MP Denis Lemieux had announced his resignation in November of last year with an effective date of December 1.

Lemieux had cited family reasons for leaving office. He had been in the office since 2015.