Tag Archives: Environmental Lobbyists

The Art of Influence: The how and why of Lobbying

The recent Investigative Journalism Foundation exposé on lobbying, prior to Mark Carney’s first budget, fits a familiar pattern. Industry logged hundreds of hours of consultation with government officials. By way of contrast, the environmental sector has little representation. They are not even mentioned in this report! What does this mean? Cortes Currents asked Jennifer Lash, who has been both the founder of a non-profit society and a senior government analyst, for her insight into why the system is important and how it works.

Continue reading The Art of Influence: The how and why of Lobbying

A Peek Into Big Oil’s Playbook with Environmental Defence

Environmental Defence just released a report showing that last year oil and gas company lobbyists were targeting the Conservative Party, in preference to the Canadian Government, by more than a 2 to 1 ratio. Cortes Currents interviewed Emilia Belliveau, lead author of ‘Big Oil’s Playbook, A Summary of Big Oil’s 2024 Federal Lobbying’ and asked Max Thaysen, from the Cortes Island Climate Action Network for his insights.  

Emilia Belliveau:  “Environmental Defence is a charity, so we are nonpartisan. What I can do is simply relay the facts, which are that the Bloc Québécois and the Green Party did not take any lobbyist meetings. The NDP took a very small number, four. Then you have most of the lobby meetings targeting the Federal Liberals and the Federal Conservatives. The Federal Liberals had 62 meetings with ministers and 29 meetings with backbencher MPs, and Conservative MPs took 216  lobby meetings.”

Continue reading A Peek Into Big Oil’s Playbook with Environmental Defence