Does Canada’s regulatory framework deliver greater accountability and transparency?
The Marathoner, by Meegan Scott
Canada performs strongly by international standards when it comes to regulating lobbying and promoting public integrity. The OECD’s latest assessment finds that Canada meets 80 per cent of its criteria for lobbying regulation and 89 per cent for lobbying practice, substantially above OECD averages of 43 per cent and 38 per cent respectively. Canada also performs strongly on conflict-of-interest regulation and practice.
But a strong regulatory framework does not necessarily mean strong accountability.
Canada’s system is built on a collection of laws and oversight mechanisms rather than a single regulatory regime. At the federal level, the framework includes the Lobbying Act and Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct, the Federal Accountability Act, the Conflict of Interest Act, the Canada Elections Act, and legislation governing access to public information. These are complemented by independent offices, including the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, the Commissioner of Canada Elections and the Public Sector Integrity Commissioner. Provinces, territories and municipalities have developed their own lobbying, ethics, conflict-of-interest and political-finance regimes.
The OECD identifies several strengths in this architecture. Canada’s lobbying regime defines lobbying activities, establishes transparency requirements and sanctions, requires registration and makes significant information publicly accessible. Its conflict-of-interest regime also establishes rules for public office holders and procedures for managing conflicts.
This architecture has clear strengths. Professor Ian Stedman of York University argues that Canada’s “broad tapestry” of specialized offices allows commissioners to develop expertise in particular areas rather than diluting their attention across multiple responsibilities. He identifies the use of independent, non-partisan commissioners and public reporting as important Canadian strengths. In his view, Canada has made significant progress in transparency because information gathered by oversight bodies is publicly accessible.
Yet Stedman also sees a fundamental weakness: coordination. Federal, provincial, territorial and municipal systems create multiple layers of rules and oversight. For citizens, organizations and businesses trying to understand who is accountable, the system can become difficult to navigate. More importantly, Stedman argues that regulatory gaps arise not necessarily because commissioners are ineffective, but because legislators have not always given them sufficient powers to enforce the rules.
Duff Conacher, co-founder of Democracy Watch, takes a considerably more critical view. He challenges the OECD’s assessment, arguing that the high scores do not adequately capture the weaknesses in Canada’s lobbying regime. His central concern is the existence of what he calls the “Dirty Dozen” loopholes, which allow lobbying to occur without disclosure. Among the concerns he identified are the treatment of unpaid lobbying and other forms of influence that can fall outside registration requirements.
Conacher’s strongest criticism, however, concerns enforcement. He told me that, based on his tally of violations since 2018, the Commissioner of Lobbying and the RCMP had effectively let 31,100 of 31,102 violations go without a finding that the lobbyist had violated the law. He also pointed to more than 2,700 late lobbying registrations and more than 1,200 registrations containing inaccurate information, which he says were also not penalized. When it comes to enforcement Duff says 99.9% of the time, violations are allowed.
The two perspectives converge on an important point: Canada has built substantial transparency infrastructure, but transparency and accountability are not the same thing.
Stedman argues that Canada needs stronger coordination among oversight bodies and greater capacity to respond to emerging forms of influence, including digital advocacy and increasingly sophisticated attempts to influence government. Conacher argues that loopholes must be closed and enforcement made genuinely independent, timely, transparent and effective.
There is also a public-trust dimension. The OECD reports that high or moderately high trust in Canada’s federal government rose from 45% in 2021 to 50% in 2025, above the OECD average of 40%. Yet greater transparency can sometimes expose more problems rather than immediately increasing confidence. As Stedman observes, the public now sees more of what goes wrong.
Canada’s regulatory framework therefore provides a strong foundation for transparency, but it has not yet fully delivered the accountability that should accompany it. The next stage of reform will require closing regulatory loopholes, strengthening enforcement powers and improving coordination across Canada’s complex system of oversight.
The question for the next decade is not whether Canada has rules. It is whether those rules are strong enough, coordinated enough and consistently enforced to ensure that those who seek to influence government—and those who make government decisions—are genuinely accountable to the public.
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Copyright © 2026 by Meegan Scott and Magate Wildhorse. All rights reserved.
