Guy Giorno of the firm Fasken, Martineau, DuMoulin LLP gave a talk at the TIAC Leadership summit on the subject of lobbying, an important topic, given the legislative activity in this area in recent times. It is important to be aware of lobbying laws and regulations because one may find oneself enmeshed in legal problems if you don't know when you or your employees need to be registered as lobbyists. At the Federal level, breaking lobbying laws can result in very stiff fines and even prison. However, it was clear that the stiffest penalties are for really egregious cases. In general a bigger risk is the harm to a reputation that may take place as a result of prosecution under these laws. Basically, lobbying is paid communication with a public office holder to influence a government decision. But you don't need to be a paid lobbying consultant to qualify as a lobbyist. If in the course of your business you communicate with the government for the purpsoses of influencing changes to the law, you may be considered a lobbyist (the rule, Mr. Giorno said, is that if 20% of a person's time is spend in this type of communication with the government, then it is considered lobbying). I cannot cover all the presentation on this post, so if you are interested in further learning about it, I suggest you contact TIAC.
Jaime
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