Canadian legislation concerning lobbying: positive experience and regulatory issues

Abstract

The subject of the article is the examination of the constitutional legal practice of the juridical regulation of lobbying in Canada, taking into account the report of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on June 5, 2009 “Lobbying in a democratic society” the Canadian model of the lobbying regulation was declared one of the most effective and significant in the world. The article studies the experience of the lobbying regulation in Canada within the chronological order. The article considers the Act of Canadian Parliament «Onregistration of the lobbyists», its main provisions and practical implementation. The research finds out the practical implementation of the Act «On registration of the lobbyists» demonstrates the necessity of its reformation, which was carried out in two stages: changes in the stated legislative act were made, also the Code of the lobbyists’ conduct and 2 new acts of law on the lobbying legislation were adopted («On regulation of the lobbyists’ registration» and «On the regulation of the authorized state officials»).

The research finds out that the feature of the lobbying regulatory in Canada is that the social phenomenon is regulated at the level of a special law, which is complemented with other regulations that apply both to all lobbyists and governmental officials. The Canadian legislation establishes the detailed rules of control lobbyists activities, and also it is aimed at providing access to power bodies of the wide range by interested members. At the same time, the legislation in this area highlights the subjects of the so-called "public lobbying" to provide this phenomenon with a wide public character features and in order to encourage members of the so-called "third" sector to the participation in the decision making process by the authorities.