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Step 4 - Corporate Lobbyists

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Corporate LobbyistsX

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 in-house lobbyist (corporation) registration.

It describes Step 4, which deals with the disclosure of information about corporate lobbyists.

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

You may recall that after we entered the information in Step 3, we decided to pause our session. Because we did that, when you look under the "Current Activities" tab, you will see beside "Pending Registration" a link indicating that the registration is incomplete.

To open a return and complete Step 4, you must click on the "Incomplete" link.

This will take you to the "Corporation Summary" page. Scroll down to the fourth section, "Corporate Lobbyists."

Open this section by clicking "Edit Information about Corporate Lobbyists" at the bottom right.

Begin by determining whether your corporation has employees who should be registered under the Lobbying Act.

All senior officers who engage in lobbying activities must be listed in the return, irrespective of the scope of those activities. "Senior officer" is an employee who performs duties at the highest levels within the corporation and his or her immediate subordinates.

Note that you must also indicate whether senior officers' lobbying activities represent less than 20%, or more than 20%, of their duties.

Any other employees whose lobbying activities represent 20% or more of their workload must also be identified in the return.

For more information about the 20% rule, refer to the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying's information bulletin on the subject.

For the purposes of our demonstration, the most senior officer in the corporation, Robert Boutin, carried out lobbying activities, as did two other employees: John Garret and Suzanne Nguyen.

Remember that the most senior officer is also the officer responsible for filing returns with the Office of the

Commissioner of Lobbying pertaining to the corporation's lobbying activities.

If you have to add more than one name, you have to save it 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 "Corporation Summary" page.

You will then have to return to Step 4 by clicking "Edit Information about Corporate Lobbyists" in order to continue.

This will ensure that your information is properly saved.

Select "Yes" from the dropdown menu when asked "Does the Corporation have any corporate lobbyists that qualify to be listed under the rules outlined above?"

Because the most senior officer (who is also the officer responsible) engages in lobbying, click "Add Responsible Officer as Lobbyist." This will take you to the "Add/Edit Information about Responsible Officer" page.

Note that fields marked with an asterisk (*) are mandatory. If you leave them blank, the information cannot be saved.

You will also note that the responsible officer's name and title were taken from the account profile the officer created and the information entered at Step 1.

Check the "The Responsible Officer's Lobbying Activities Represent Less than 20% of their Duties" button. Mr. Boutin actually does very little lobbying. That task is delegated to the corporation's two employees: Mr. Garret and Ms. Nguyen.

Click "No" when asked, "Has the responsible officer ever been a federal public office holder?"

Scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Continue."

This takes you back to "Step 4 of 7: Information about Corporate Lobbyists".

Note that there is now one item on the list of corporate lobbyists.

We can now enter information about other in-house lobbyists (corporation). Click the "Add Lobbyist" button above and to the left of the list.

This takes you back to the "Add/Edit Information about Corporate Lobbyists" page.

You must enter the employee's name and title, and indicate whether the employee is a senior officer.

If the employee is a senior officer, you must indicate whether lobbying represents less or more than 20% of his or her duties.

Let us begin with the information about John Garret, whose lobbying activities represent more than 20% of his duties.

Since Mr. Garret is not a senior officer, click "This employee is not a senior officer."

Under the Lobbying Act, former public office holders are required to identify themselves and disclose details of the positions they held in the Government of Canada.

Former public office holders must therefore select "Yes" when asked "At any time has this lobbyist held public offices within the federal government?" and must provide details of each position held in the Government of Canada.

In our case, Mr. Garrett was never a public office holder. Select "No" from the dropdown list and leave the "Public Offices Held" panel blank. Go to the next section.

The section "Transition Team Member" pertains to individuals who were part of a Prime Minister's transition team on or after January 24, 2006.

These lobbyists must answer "Yes" to the question "Were you identified by the Prime Minister as having carried out the functions of a transition team member on January 24, 2006 or at any time after that date?" They must also indicate the period in which they were a transition team member.

Once again, we leave this section blank because Mr. Garrett was never a member of a Prime Minister's transition team.

Finally, if the in-house lobbyist requested and received from the Commissioner of Lobbying an exemption from the five-year prohibition on lobbying, you must enter the exemption number in the appropriate box.

The five-year prohibition on lobbying applies to all designated public office holders as defined in the Act and all members of a Prime Minister's transition team. For more information, visit the OCL website at www.ocl-cal.gc.ca.

Unlike exemptions, exclusions automatically apply to certain groups of designated public office holder.

Former designated public office holders who participated in an employment exchange program are excluded from the five-year prohibition on lobbying.

We leave this section blank because Mr. Garrett never held office in the Government of Canada.

Now that all the required information has been entered, click "Continue" to go back to "Step 4 of 7: Information about Corporate Lobbyists." The procedure is the same for Ms. Nguyen, the corporation's other in-house lobbyist.

Unlike Mr. Garrett, Ms. Nguyen is a senior officer. She is also a former Government of Canada employee.

The following information about her government position will therefore have to be provided: position title, department or agency, branch or unit, start date, and date of separation from the Government of Canada.

Because Ms. Nguyen was not a designated office holder, select "No" when asked "Was this a designated public office held on or after July 2, 2008?" Then click the "Add to List" button.

Finally, scroll to the bottom of the page and click "Continue."

You have now finished entering data for Step 4 in the process of creating a new return, "Step 4 of 7: Information about Corporate Lobbyists."

To save your information, click "Save" or "Save and Continue."

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

"Cancel" will delete all of the information and take you back to the "Registrant Dashboard".

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

Note that the "Corporate Lobbyists" section gives you access to information about previous positions held by lobbyists in the federal government. Clicking "Yes" takes you to "Public Offices Held: Suzanne Nguyen", which lists all of the positions held.

To go back to the Summary, click "Back" in the bottom left of the screen.

If you find any errors, simply click "Edit Information about Corporate Lobbyists" 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 Registration Dashboard."

This concludes the tutorial. This was the fourth of seven steps in the process of completing a new in-house (corporation) registration. The next step, "Step 5 of 7": Information about Government Funding", is used to disclose information about funds received from the Government of Canada or a foreign government during the corporation's last full fiscal year.

To access other tutorials or view the next steps in creating a new in-house (corporation) 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.