5534. This is the total number of active lobbying activity mandates published in Carrefour Lobby Québec, the lobbyists’ registry, as of 1er August 2024, targeting one or other of the 2,078 parliamentary, governmental, paragovernmental or municipal public institutions in Quebec.
In just one year, from July 31, 2023 to July 1,er August 2024, more than 1,294 published mandates targeted the Ministry of Health, Santé Québec, the Ministry of Transport, the Ministry of the Economy and Investissement Québec. Including the Ministry of the Executive Council, the Ministry of the Premier, and the Treasury Board, this figure rises to 1,906. These institutions manage billions of dollars in investments, subsidies and contracts, and are central to the evolution of our public policies. This clearly demonstrates the extent to which interest representation is an integral part of the government’s decision-making processes.
However, it is impossible for citizens to know whether these activities have taken place. How then can we know what really influences our public policies? Only more transparent disclosure will allow us to answer this question.
Loss of confidence
Lack of transparency is one of the main causes of loss of trust in public institutions. Citizens want to know. The latest OECD report shows that public trust is higher when people believe that government decisions are made transparently.
Furthermore, only 40% of citizens believe that these decisions are based on the best available data. Finding: transparency is a fundamental condition for resolving the decline in trust in public institutions.
More than nine reports and analyses have been tabled over the past 20 years to encourage governments to reform the Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Act. I continue to believe that reforming this law—the government’s prerogative—is essential to finalizing Quebec’s shift toward a true culture of transparency.
Better transparency
It is time to base the supervision of lobbying activities on the relevance of the information for the citizen, and not on the status of the individual who carries them out. This change involves placing the responsibility on companies, organizations, agents and beneficiaries of lobbying activities rather than on the individuals who carry them out.
It is time to adopt an effective sanctions regime that will promote greater compliance with the law and avoid costly criminal trials. It is time to abolish the thresholds that deprive citizens of full transparency, among other things so that all influential communications by business and organizational leaders are disclosed, regardless of the time they spend on them.
And it is clearly time, too, to enhance the accountability of public institutions and to insist on their mandatory role in implementing citizens’ right to transparency.
Lead by example
Why is this review taking so long to materialise? This question, asked by my predecessor in 2017, still resonates today.
Fortunately, all the conditions seem to me to finally be met. Elected officials and public institutions recognize the need for transparency and its benefits. The media are increasingly interested in lobbying and are in turn claiming this right to transparency. Finally, companies and organizations now recognize that they must respect this right to preserve access to decision-makers.
Transparency is not just a slogan. It is materialized in commitments, concrete actions, for the benefit of citizens and the credibility of public decision-making processes. Transparency is our right.