Public Safety committee  I have to guess that cabinet ministers take their oath seriously. I trust and respect that people who aspire to this office and members around this table who swear an oath are going to uphold it. I do think a cooling-off period is not a bad idea. I don't understand why we wouldn't want one.

Public Safety committee  I would say that you want two or three things. Number one is absolute crystal clarity. People need to know what's expected. They need to know what's required of them. Then there needs to be sharp and swift intervention if they don't. Right away, the absolutely worst possible outcome is that we work, we sit around this table, we set this thing up, and it does not do what it's meant to do.

Public Safety committee  Yes. Through you, Mr. Chair, it's a great question. It's in this bill. It's actually in the SOIA. All I would do is take the SOIA definition and move it over and then you're home free. Then you have congruity between between your pieces of legislation. That's all I would do.

Public Safety committee  Through you, Mr. Chair. It's another good question. We're talking about two things. One is the requirement to register. At the municipal level, if you're trying to influence a municipal official on behalf of a foreign principal, you should have to register, period. The reason is so that we can have some transparency.

Public Safety committee  There are a number of commissioners who report directly to Parliament, the Privacy Commissioner of Canada being one, and you look at the Commissioner of Lobbying. I watched the previous witnesses as well and if I could understand the reason behind it—and again, I'm just some guy, so take this for what it's worth—it's that they nest within the department so they have access to the material, because ultimately once you start issuing compliance notices, where is that information going to come from?

Public Safety committee  There's an important thing to be said for universities. For instance, when the debate was going about about Huawei and 5G, I brought forward an ATIP, and I pulled the access record called "Compute Canada". There's no reason that you should know what that is. Compute Canada was set up as an intensive computing processor for many of our most research-intensive universities.

Public Safety committee  They're going after the same evil. I know exactly what you're saying. It references the Lobbying Act, but if you go to that provision of the Lobbying Act, it's actually enumerating things to which the Lobbying Act does not apply. It's a double negative and a circuitous definition.

Public Safety committee  Do you know what I will do? I'll submit a written brief on that. My colleague Wesley Wark is the guru, and he wrote a CIGI paper on this, so rather than my saying this off the top of my head, I will submit it in writing. He did a full assessment of the U.S., the U.K. and Australia and a review of Canada's law, too, so I will submit that.

Public Safety committee  I'm all for them. Realistically, like my colleagues around the table said, a big threat factor is the private sector, and we were unable to share information with them—provinces and municipalities. If hostile state actors are doing what hostile state actors are going to do, you're going to want to be able to share that information, and this goes a long way to remedying that deficiency.

Public Safety committee  I think the registry, the way that it's structured, is pretty good. It fixes a gap. It's not the end state, though. It's one tool in a broader tool kit, so I think the way it's written currently is okay. You're raising some good questions around this table about independence and where the commissioner should sit and all of that, but as it's currently structured, I think the registry does a pretty good job of remedying the evil that it's designed to catch.

Public Safety committee  I would just say that, when I read words in a bill like “systemic effects”, “endanger democracy”, “sovereignty” and “Canadian values”, I start to pay attention, and that's the point. Yes, the bill's not perfect. Yes, we're doing it fast, but it's better than nothing. I would say that, if you have a review mechanism on the bill, get out the door with it, put some miles on it, and then make changes afterwards.

Public Safety committee  I totally get what they're saying. As a matter of law, municipalities are creatures of the province. The absolute worst possible outcome, though, is that you catch someone in this and then you get turned around at court. What's the reason? Just add some words to make sure that they're explicitly covered.

Public Safety committee  Yes, and on the municipal point, this is a national sport, not just a federal sport. However, my comment was more related to the actual application of the law itself. Municipalities are excised from the act, and I couldn't provide a good reason why. I think it's where democracy touches people the most.

Public Safety committee  Thank you very much, Mr. Chair and distinguished committee members, for the opportunity to speak today on this important bill. It's a pleasure to be here. Indeed, maybe I'll start by saying something that you probably don't all hear very often: Thank you very much. It was a real pleasure to see this bill proceed with the pace and with all of the work you're doing.

Public Safety committee  Mr. Chair, that's a great question. What I'm talking about is small and medium-sized enterprises and protecting them, as opposed to critical infrastructure providers that are defined in the act. It allows you to take federal jurisdiction by using your tax power to protect the companies that make up the bulk of our economy.