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The usual suspects
For the lobbyists on Parliament Hill, it’s not just how often you meet with government officials — it’s who you can get in the room.
That’s what environmental groups say as they come off a record year of lobbying, notching nearly 1,000 reported meetings with the federal government, according to a new investigation from Canada’s National Observer and the Investigative Journalism Foundation. Last year, these groups ramped up their efforts to influence climate policy in a bid to outgun oil and gas lobbyists with the same idea.
But as it turns out, not only did oil and gas lobbyists meet more frequently with government officials last year — almost 1,400 times — they were also more likely to get an audience with departments that hold massive sway over Canada’s climate policies.
While Environment and Climate Change Canada is a major player in the country’s policy to combat global heating — it’s in the name — other arms of the federal government are pretty powerful, too. Finance Canada, for example, puts together the federal budgets that decide how much taxpayer money goes into tackling climate change and where that funding will be spent. In 2022, oil and gas lobbyists secured 104 meetings with the department. Environmental groups had 22.
“Politicians tend to listen to (the industry) that produces money, not that costs money,” Sen. Rosa Galvez told my colleague Cloe Logan and IJF reporter Xavier Richer Vis.
Whatever the reason, for lobbyists seeking to further the industry’s interests and slow down policies that would hold oil and gas companies accountable for the pollution their products create, the meetings are working. Over the past 11 years, some of the country’s top fossil fuel firms have received $2.6 billion in taxpayer money.
![Illustration by Ata Ojani](/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_lg_1x/public/img/2023/01/03/cno-oilandgasbynumbers.jpg?itok=LpXzF2lz)
And it’s not just Ottawa, either: provincial governments across the country provide billions in fossil fuel subsidies. In Alberta, oil and gas majors could soon receive a $100-million royalty credit for cleaning up old wells — a plan even Scotiabank, one of the country’s top fossil fuel funders, worries will “generate negative public sentiment” toward the oil and gas sector.
These kinds of policies send a message, and Canada’s environmental groups are paying attention. While they’re still outgunned and, in some cases, struggling to meet with the right audience, the civil society groups pushing for bolder action are fighting harder to make their voices heard on the Hill.
More CNO reads
![Illustration by Caroline Orr for Canada's National Observer](/sites/default/files/styles/scale_width_lg_1x/public/img/2023/02/09/putin.jpeg?itok=QUWBtoeS)
Justin Trudeau has a communication problem. And if the Liberals aren’t careful, it could wind up costing them the next election, columnist Max Fawcett writes.
It’s time to get angry. Progressive politics is an act of hope, but we don’t live in sunny times anymore. Canadians need to get mad — and win a better deal for everyone in this country, writes Jen Hassum, executive director of the Broadbent Institute.
Canada says no to deep-sea mining. A moratorium on the contentious practice was announced on the last day of the IMPAC5 global ocean conservation summit in Vancouver, Rochelle Baker reports.
Canada’s emergency wage subsidy “was really a blank cheque to companies.” So says Canadians for Tax Fairness, whose latest report reveals some of the country’s biggest corporations received a pandemic subsidy, then reduced their workforce while padding the pockets of shareholders. Natasha Bulowski breaks down the findings.
What's worse for the planet: gasoline or lithium? One is responsible for climate pollution from vehicles; the other is a key ingredient in electric vehicle batteries — but could lead to water scarcity, conflict and compromising Indigenous rights if the world goes all in on EVs, Barry Saxifrage writes.
Indigenous leaders slam Justin Trudeau over exclusion from the first ministers meeting on health care. Matteo Cimellaro unpacks why the prime minister’s promise to advocate for Indigenous Peoples wasn’t enough for leaders who asked to have a seat at the table.
Canada’s first deepwater oil project is one step closer to reality. The company behind Bay du Nord received another “significant discovery licence” for a nearby oilfield last month, meaning the project could extract up to 500 million barrels of oil from beneath the ocean floor, John Woodside reports.
Canada’s only underground coal mine is racking up “extremely dangerous” safety violations. Since its reopening last September, inspections have revealed lax methane monitoring and fire hazards — two ingredients that could cause an explosion, Cloe Logan reports.
“Disability should not equal poverty in Canada.” A new disability benefit — the first federal income support for working-age Canadians with disabilities — is working its way through the Senate after MPs voted unanimously to pass it, Natasha Bulowski reports.
Tucker Carlson's nonsense call to “liberate” Canada is no laughing matter. American troops and tanks aren’t rolling across the border any time soon, but the Fox News host’s brand of conservatism already has — and if the Trudeau Liberals keep sinking in the polls, Carlson’s imaginary invasion might not even be necessary, writes columnist Max Fawcett.