OTTAWA — A public registry set up to shed light on attempts to influence government policy is vulnerable to misrepresentations, the federal lobbying watchdog acknowledged after her office published false claims about a Middle Eastern bank’s interests in Canada.

Anyone who intends to lobby parliamentarians, ministerial staffers or public servants on behalf of businesses and other organizations with a stake in the outcome must register their intent with the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying and disclose their actions. However, as an investigation by The Logic revealed, the commissioner’s office does not verify all the information in the registry it oversees.

Darryl Williams, a businessman in Kelowna, B.C., had registered to lobby the federal government on behalf of the Saudi Investment Bank (SAIB). A June 1 entry in the public registry maintained by the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying said the Riyadh-based bank was looking to debt finance major projects in Canada. Williams told The Logic the bank was keen to back everything from pipelines to AI data centres and that he had lined up more than two dozen potential clients across the country. The bank subsequently said it did not have any relationship with Williams or any interest in Canada. Williams has denied he tried to deceive anyone and suggested he was duped into promoting a scam.

The office declined to make lobbying commissioner Nancy Bélanger available for an interview or say whether it is reviewing its processes in light of The Logic’s reporting. In a written statement, Bélanger said there are ways to fix errors and hold lobbyists accountable, but also noted the system relies largely on those who register to lobby making sure they get the details right.

“While the registry of lobbyists is based on self-reporting, lobbyists must certify the accuracy of the information in their registration before it is publicly disclosed,” she wrote. “As with any other self-reporting or self-certification system, some vulnerabilities can be expected.”

Ian Stedman, an associate professor at York University who researches public-sector ethics and accountability, said the public registry plays an important role in giving elected and government officials the information they need when deciding whether to accept a meeting with a lobbyist or avoid a potential conflict of interest. In this case, he argued, the registry failed to lift that burden and the office should consider adjusting its processes. “This is probably a wake-up call.”

The entry from Williams has since been labelled inactive. Manon Dion, a spokesperson for the commissioner’s office, said the status update happened on July 27. It was backdated to July 2—one day before The Logic told Williams the SAIB had denied involvement.

“I disabled and cancelled, of my own volition, as I am not interested in lobbying for the noted business entity,” Williams wrote Thursday in an email to The Logic. “They did not request anything of me,” he said of the commissioner’s office. Williams said he chose July 2 because by that point he had already developed “a number of suspicions” about the financing offer he said he had been promoting to Canadian businesses. “There were several issues,” he wrote. “Your call ‘sealed it’ for me.”

The commissioner’s office does not “comment on the specifics of our compliance activities,” Dion wrote in an email. “However, it is our usual practice to request that corrections be made when we become aware of incorrect information, whether through our monitoring and compliance activities or through external sources.” Last month, the office said it reviews registrations to ensure they meet the requirements of the Lobbying Act, but does not contact clients listed in registrations submitted by consultant lobbyists before approving them.

Bélanger said her office reviewed more than 14,000 registrations in fiscal 2024-25 and returned about 15 per cent of those to registrants to make corrections. (In an earlier statement, Dion had said 362 of those were sent back more than once.) “When issues are identified, our office takes appropriate action to ensure compliance with the act,” Bélanger continued.

That may lead to an investigation, Bélanger said, although the office would not say whether it is probing this case. The Lobbying Act requires investigations be done in private. Williams said he has not heard anything from the commissioner’s office, but would “welcome their investigation.”

The Lobbying Act says anyone who “knowingly makes any false or misleading statement in any return or other document submitted to the commissioner” could face a fine of up to $200,000 or up to two years in prison for an indictable offence. Penalties are lower for a summary conviction.

Robert Shepherd, a professor of public policy at Carleton University, said the oversight regime for federal lobbying activities was not really set up for something like this. “It was designed for transparency,” he said. “It was not designed to catch fraudulent behaviour.”

The office’s resources, he added, were also meant to match that narrower mandate. Bélanger did not point to a lack of resources in her statement to The Logic, but her office has mentioned this before. “It should be noted that the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying consists of just over 30 employees to deliver its mandate,” Dion told The Logic in an email last month. The office’s 2024-25 annual report called it a “micro-organization” with a $6.2-million budget.

The annual report said the commissioner’s office routinely scrutinizes five per cent of the communication reports that lobbyists are required to file every month, even reaching out to the public office holders named in the reports to verify whether the information is correct and complete. Stedman suggested an even simpler solution for a deeper review of registrations: an automated verification email to clients listed on the entry. “I think that would be a good, easy, low-bar step,” he said.

Morva Rohani, executive director at the Canada Web3 Council, a trade association that advocates for public policy in areas such as blockchain and cryptocurrency, has been a registered lobbyist for almost a decade and reviews registrations filed by others. She described this case as “unusual” and said the public nature of the registry means any false information would surface quickly. “That transparency serves as its own safeguard,” she wrote in an email.

She suggested several creative ways the commissioner’s office could add some “light-touch safeguards,” such as flagging any entries regarding foreign clients or large financing claims. “Even if rare, a false registration could still be misused to create confusion or give an impression of legitimacy.”

Shepherd said this story raises questions about what could happen if this kind of activity becomes more frequent, especially amid the growing prevalence of mis- and disinformation that is harming trust in institutions. “It’s another erosion of legitimacy in the system.”