In this issue...

Cabinet Shuffle and Updating Your Registration

Ontario introduced a new associate minister role on September 10, and removed another. That means it’s time to review your registration and check that your lobbying targets are correct.

Lobbyists and senior officers are responsible for keeping their registrations up to date and should make sure that relevant targets like ministers’ offices are correctly selected. A change to the Ontario Lobbyists Registry means that previous selections may have been removed and you will need to re-select the relevant targets in your registrations.

The Office website has a page that lists the latest changes, including new names for some agencies.

Changes to Lobbying Target Names

When logged in, you can check your registration under the “View my registration” section on the “I would like to…” menu page.

To update the registration, select “Change an existing registration - not a renewal”.

Remember! The Lobbyists Registration Act, 1998 requires changes or updates to a registration be completed within 30 calendar days of acquiring new information.

Annual Report Recap

The Integrity Commissioner released the Office’s 2025-2026 annual report, which includes information about investigations, compliance and registry activities.

The Office conducted 422 compliance reviews, a significant jump from 309 in the last fiscal year. This increase was partly attributed to lobbyists and senior officers not updating their registrations following the naming of cabinet in March 2025. Compliance reviews are initiated when there are instances of potential non-compliance with the Act.
A pie chart depicting a total number of 422 compliance reviews in the 2025-2026 fiscal year. The chart is broken down into 91 closed after initial review, 257 resolved through an informal process and 74 referred for investigation assessment.

This pie chart breaks down how compliance reviews were handled.

The Commissioner commenced 11 investigations in the last fiscal year and concluded 23 investigations.

You can read the annual report for more information about our compliance work and summaries of investigations.

2025-2026 Annual Report

Consistent Information about Clients

Attention consultant lobbyists: if your client has a parent company, you need to provide it in your registration.

Some consultant lobbyist registrations do not provide the parent company and other required information about the client.

We notice these discrepancies when comparing a consultant lobbyist registration to their client’s in-house registration.

You can ensure your registration is accurate by checking the public registry to see the information your client or other consultant lobbyists at your firm have included in their registrations. Even if you have different lobbying activity, the government funding, parent company, and other details about the structure of the business or organization should be the same.

If there are no other registrations for your client, you should work to obtain the required information directly from the client. This checklist for consultant lobbyist registrations outlines all the information you need to complete your registration. You can share it with your client to ensure you have the information you need to meet your obligations under the Act.

Old Drafts

If you need to make a change or update to your registration, be sure to make the change to the most recent version of your registration and not to an older draft. Changes made to an old draft might not reflect in your current registration and you could lose important information you had provided previously.

If you have several old drafts and want them removed from your account, contact the Office for assistance.