How to Check the Ontario Lobbyist Registry

Ontario keeps a public register of people paid to lobby its government. Anyone can search it, free, without an account. Most people never have a reason to — until someone offers them something that turns out to involve access to government, and they want to know who they are actually dealing with.

This page sets out what the register is, who is required to appear in it, how to search it, and — the part that matters most — what a search result does and does not tell you.

What the Ontario Lobbyist Registry is

The registry is established and maintained under section 11 of the Lobbyists Registration Act, 1998. It is operated by the Office of the Integrity Commissioner of Ontario, whose Commissioner also serves as Ontario’s Lobbyist Registrar. Registrations filed under the Act are public documents.

Who has to register, and when

The Act covers three categories: consultant lobbyists, who are paid to lobby on behalf of a client; in-house lobbyists employed by a person or partnership; and in-house lobbyists at organizations. Two details are worth knowing before you search.

For a consultant lobbyist, arranging a meeting is itself lobbying. The definition of “lobby” in section 1 has two limbs. Paragraph (b) (ii) applies to a consultant lobbyist referred to in section 4 only, and it covers arranging a meeting between a public office holder and any other person; section 4 (2) treats that arrangement as part of the undertaking. So someone paid by a client to put you in a room with a public office holder is lobbying under the Act, whether or not they argue a position themselves. Paragraph (a), which also governs in-house lobbyists, is narrower on this point — it covers communicating to influence legislation, regulation, policy, or the awarding of grants.

Registration is not instant. Section 4 (1) requires a consultant lobbyist to file a return with the registrar not later than 10 days after commencing performance of an undertaking. The clock runs from commencing performance. A recent absence from the registry can simply mean the filing window has not closed yet.

How to search the registry

Go to the public search page of the Ontario Lobbyists Registry. You can search by the name of a lobbyist, by the name of a client or organization, and by subject matter. Search all three where you can: people are sometimes registered under a firm rather than under their own name, and a registration filed on behalf of a client may not be obvious from the individual’s name alone.

Record what you searched and when. The registry changes as returns are filed and updated, so a result is a statement about one moment in time, and that moment is worth writing down.

What a search does and does not tell you

This is the part people most often get wrong, and getting it wrong can cause real harm to someone who has done nothing improper.

A search that returns no registration does not establish that the person was required to register. It does not establish that they are a lobbyist. It does not establish that any rule was broken. There are lawful reasons a name may not appear: the activity may fall outside the Act, the person may be unpaid, the filing window under section 4 (1) may still be open, or they may be registered under a name you did not search.

What a search establishes is narrow and factual: what the public registry contained at the moment you searched it. Whether the Act applied to a particular person and a particular activity is a determination for the registrar — not for you, and not for us.

What the Integrity Commissioner can do

Section 17.1 (1) of the Act empowers the registrar to investigate whether any person has complied with the Act or its regulations. That power has limits: under section 17.1 (2) an investigation cannot begin more than two years after the registrar knew or should have known about the alleged non-compliance, and under section 17.1 (3) the registrar may decline or discontinue an investigation, including where the matter is minor or would be better dealt with under another Act.

Where the registrar does make a finding of non-compliance under section 17.6, section 17.9 (1) allows two penalties, either or both: prohibiting the person from lobbying for a period of not more than two years, and making public the name of the person, a description of the non-compliance, and any further information the registrar considers necessary to explain the finding. A person subject to a finding may apply for judicial review within 60 days under section 17.8.

Those two “two year” periods are different things and are easy to confuse. One is the deadline for starting an investigation; the other is the maximum length of a lobbying prohibition.

How to report information about potential non-compliance

If you have information that suggests someone has not complied with the Act, the body that can act on it is the Office of the Integrity Commissioner — not a news outlet, and not this website.

The Office’s Compliance & Penalties page publishes an Information Form for exactly this purpose, and accepts submissions by email at lobbyist.mail@oico.on.ca. Set out what happened, when, and who was involved, and keep your own copy of everything you send.

Expect discretion rather than updates. The Act prohibits the Commissioner from releasing information about ongoing investigations, so silence after you file is normal and is not a signal about the merits.

This section describes a public process. It is not legal advice, and nothing in it suggests that any particular person has failed to comply with the Act.

If you were approached and are not sure what you experienced

Some people who end up on this page are not researching a rule. They were approached by someone who described having access to government, and they are trying to work out what just happened to them.

If that is you, three things are worth doing, in this order. Write down what happened while you remember it — who, when, what was offered, what was asked of you. Keep the messages. Then, if you believe the Act may be engaged, take it to the Integrity Commissioner using the form above. That is the body with the power to look into it.

You are also welcome to contact us. We are a parent-led advocacy organization that publishes document-based research. Three commitments, so you know exactly what you are doing when you write. First, we do not publish, disclose, or discuss with any third party anything you tell us about an identifiable person unless it is independently verified against documents. Second, if we ever do report on something you raise, we seek a response from the person or organization concerned before publishing. Third, we are not a regulator, not a lawyer, and not a substitute for either — the Integrity Commissioner above is the body with statutory power here, and for anything with legal consequences you should get your own advice.

One boundary, stated plainly: this organization’s founder is the applicant in an active proceeding before the Human Rights Tribunal of Ontario. Please do not send us anything connected to that proceeding — evidence, witness accounts, or correspondence. It cannot be received here. Take it to your own counsel, to the Tribunal, or to the police, as the situation warrants.

Otherwise, reach us through our contact form.

Why we published this

In the course of reporting on the Ontario Autism Program, the founder of this organization was approached by individuals presenting themselves as having access to senior members of the Ontario government, searched this registry, declined, and put a dated account on the public record. That account is published in full here: A Note on Approaches Made During This Reporting. It names no one and alleges no offence.

To be explicit, because the two pages sit beside each other and the inference would otherwise be easy to draw: no finding of non-compliance has been made against anyone in connection with those approaches, none is alleged here, and none should be inferred from this page. As set out above, a registry search returning nothing establishes only what the registry contained at that moment. Whether the Act applied to any particular person or activity is a determination for the registrar alone.

Working out how the registry functioned took longer than it should have. This page exists so the next person spends that time on their own situation instead.