Welcome to the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying's Online Assistance. This tutorial has been designed as part of the educational program and awareness efforts by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying.

This is one of seven tutorials dealing with the creation of a new consultant lobbyist registration. It describes Step 6, which deals with the disclosure of information about lobbying activities.

Begin by logging into the registration system and going to the Registrant Dashboard.

You will recall that after we entered the information in Step 5, we decided to pause our session. Because of this, when you look under the "Current Activities" tab, you will see a link beside "Pending Registration" indicating that the registration is incomplete.

To open the registration and complete Step 6, click "Incomplete".

This will take you to the "Consultant Summary" page. Scroll down to the sixth section, "Information about Subject Matter".

Open this section by clicking "Edit Information about Subject Matter" at the bottom right.

Before we complete this section, we should review some definitions.

The Lobbying Act specifies that lobbying consists in communicating with a public office holder with respect to: the development of legislative proposals; the introduction, passage, defeat or amendment of any Bill or resolution; the creation or amendment of any regulation; the development or amendment of any policy or program; the awarding of any contract; and the arranging of a meeting between a public office holder and any other person.

Information about lobbying activities is disclosed in two steps. Begin by determining the subject matter. You will be offered a list from which to select the subject or subjects that best describe your activities.

The next step is to provide additional details for each of the subject matters you selected.

For this example, we can say that the subject matter is a government policy.

Each detail must include the following information: the name of the policy; a description of the provisions of the policy that are of particular interest to your client; and one or several categories specifying the nature of the categories pursued.

Note that these five categories are directly linked to the above definitions of lobbying activities, namely: Legislative Proposal, Bill or Resolution; Regulation; Policy or Program; Grant, Contribution or Other Financial Benefit; and Government Contract Pursued.

Your lobbying activity may pertain to a policy, program or statute that does not currently exist. If this is the case, provide details in your description.

Sometimes lobbying activities are still at the exploratory stage and, as a result, it is difficult to be specific. In such cases, answer to the best of your knowledge, even if this means adding other information in the coming days or weeks as the subjects become clearer.

Let us illustrate this by completing the section for "Simple Textile Incorporated."

For the purposes of our demonstration, four lobbying subjects will be selected from a predetermined list: international trade, environment, infrastructure and intellectual property.

Select the subjects one at a time and click the "Add to List" button. Note that every time you click, the page is refreshed and the new subject matter is displayed in the "Subject Matter Added" field. Note also that these subject matters no longer appear on the master list.

If you make a mistake, select the item from the "Subject Matter Added" list and click "Remove Selected." The system will move the item back to the master list.

You must then provide details. At least one detail is required to describe the subjects that you have selected, that is, that you can enter several details or a single detail to describe all of your subjects.

For purposes of our demonstration, we will enter three details for our four subject matters.

The first detail pertains to two subject matters: "Environment" and "Infrastructure." In the "Details" section, enter: "Bill C-30, Clean Air Act, with respect to financial incentives for manufacturers to reduce pollutant emissions. Specifically, the addition of infrastructure funds".

Note the wording of this description: it contains the full name of the Bill, as well as clarifications on measures that are of specific interest to the client.

Then, select categories "Legislative Proposal, Bill or Resolution" and "Grant, Contribution or Other Financial Benefit", as both apply in this case.

You have now entered the mandatory name and description, and you have made certain there is a logical connection with the previously selected subject matters. You can go ahead and click "Add Another Detail."

The page will refresh, and a "List of Details" is created at the bottom of the page.

The second detail pertains to modification of a federal program, the Canadian Textiles Program (CANtex).

Enter: Evaluation criteria for the Canadian Textiles Program (CANtex).

In this case, even though the program is a funding program, the objective is not to obtain financial assistance. The corporation wants to change the program itself. For that reason, only "Policies or Program" should be selected.

Our third and final example is the subject matter "International Trade."

Enter: "Simple Textile Incorporated is looking for the federal government's support in negotiations with Brazil to export its defence products."

This is an example where the objective is not to change existing, or to create new, policy, program, regulation, etc., but to obtain political support. Accordingly, the most appropriate category would be "Policies or Program."

If you make a mistake, select the information to be corrected and click "Edit Selected" This will move the information on your list back to the Details Regarding the Identified Subject Matter of the Undertaking panel so that you can correct it.

In our example, we remove a repeated word from the last entry we added.

If you have more details to add, you will have to save in the usual way so that you do not lose your information. Then click the "Save" button at the bottom of the page. This will take you back to the "Consultant Summary" page.

You will then have to return to Step 6 by clicking "Edit Information about Subject Matter" in order to continue. This will ensure that your information is properly saved.

After a final check, you can save your information by clicking "Save" or "Save and Continue."

If you select "Save and Continue", the system will save your information and go straight back to the next step so that you can enter information about communication.

Clicking the "Cancel" button will delete all the information you entered and take you back to the Registrant Dashboard.

For the purposes of our demonstration, select "Save." This takes you to the "Consultant Summary" page, where you can check the information you just entered.

If you find any errors, simply click "Edit Information about Subject Matter" to go back and make corrections.

Note that the system marks completed sections with a green check in the "Status" column on the left. Incomplete sections are marked with an empty icon.

We want to pause our session at this point, so we go back to the Registration Dashboard by clicking "Return to Registrant Dashboard".

This concludes the tutorial. This was the sixth of seven steps showing how Consultant Lobbyists can complete new disclosures. The next step, "Step 7 of 7": Information about Communications", pertains to the disclosure of information about the government institutions with which you will be communicating and the communication techniques you will be using.

To access other tutorials or view the next steps in creating a new consultant lobbyist registration, use the navigation bar at the top of the page.

If you have any comments or questions about this tutorial, please contact us by phone at 613-957-2760 or by email at QuestionsLobbying@ocl-cal.gc.ca. You can also visit our website at www.ocl-cal.gc.ca