Ottawa's most lobbied issues in November
Ottawa's most lobbied issues in November
Consumer Protection, Digital Charter Implementation, Cyber Security Transformation, Export Permit Applications, and Marine Vessel Regulations
This week’s issue focuses on the subject-matters and key-phrases and that stood out in November’s lobbying communications.
Subject-matters are easy to work with because they are simply 54 terms “pre-set” by the lobby registrar, and every lobby-communication must tick off at least one of the 54 boxes in the filings. But they also generate limited insight: they are too broad, and most of the time it is Captain Obvious who does the box-ticking, with banks lobbying on Finance and oil and gas companies lobbying on Energy. It is therefore better to work with finer-grained key-phrases, which LobbyIQ extracts from lobby-registration texts using using a mix of AI and ML algorithms. Instead of 54 subject-matters, this generates thousands of key-phrases over time, giving a much more fine-grained perspective on what’s really driving lobbying for a sector or government agency at a point in time. Changes in the dominant key-phrases in, for example, a sector-month can be driven by:
compositional effects: the organizations who do the most lobbying changes month to month, and their registrations are summarized by different key-phrases from those of other organizations. For example, in November, the defense sector was lobbying more on export permits than it had in the past because of more communications by organizations with an interest in supplying equipment to the Ukraine.
environmental effects: the policy environment may change, leading lobbying entities to update their registration texts describing their objectives. This may be driven by new regulations, acts, bills or policy initiatives, as well as changes in the political environment
narrative control: deliberate use of language to frame an issue is the bread and butter of PR and campaign strategy. But it is equally important to GR professionals attempting to persuade policymakers. Persuasion in GR just takes a a specific form: of the six persuasion principles laid out by Cialdini (the godfather of persuasion science) it is the principle of consistency that is most important in GR, because policymakers need to be able to frame communications on a specific issue as aligned with their broader stated policy-objectives. For example, a recent HillTimes article argued the term “natural gas” was a meme deliberately created to create consistency between gas extraction and policy makers’ climate change agenda.
With that little digression, let’s get into the noteworthy patterns in subject-matters and key-phrases in November’s lobbying communications.
The CliffsNotes version:
Among the 54 “pre-set” subject-matters assigned to lobby-filings, “Economic Development” and “Industry” gained importance on November’s leaderboard, relative to October/September. On the flip-side, “Energy”, “Climate”, and “Budget” dropped in importance. The “Environment” subject-matter continues to reign supreme across all lobby-filings in November, as it has in every month of 2023.
Among finer-grained key-phrases, the “Environmental Protection Act” and “Export Development Canada” continue to rank 1 and 2 on the leaderboard, as they have since the summer. However, below the top-2 there were lots of newcomers among the top-25 most lobbied-on key-phrases in November, including “Infrastructure Bank”, “Financial Consumer Protection Framework”, and “Digital Charter Implementation Act”
“Marine Vessel Regulations” in the Truck transportation sector is one of thirty instances of specific key-phrases becoming central to one specific sector’s communications for the first time in November.
“Digital Charter Implementation” at FINTRAC is one of twenty-five instances of specific key-phrases becoming central in the communications aimed at a specific government institution/agency for the first time in November.
1. November’s Subject-Matter and Key-Phrase Leaderboards
Exhibit 1 shows the top-25 subject-matters most lobbied on in November (rank-ordered) with the count of communications and their rank in columns 2-3, and their previous month’s values and rank in columns 4-5. The “Environment” subject-matter continues to reign supreme across all lobby-filings in November, as it has in every month of 2023. Below that, “Economic Development” and “Industry” gained importance on November’s leaderboard relative to October/September, whereas “Energy”, “Climate”, and “Budget” dropped in importance.
LobbyIQ uses AI and ML to extract key-phrases separately by sector-month and by agency-month. For a high-level view, we aggregate LobbyIQ’s data over its 150 sectors and 150+ agencies to find the total number of hits where a key-phrases was deemed central in November (with a theoretical maximum of 300+).
Exhibit 2 shows the resulting leaderboard. The “Environmental Protection Act” and “Export Development Canada” continue to rank 1 and 2 on the leaderboard, as they have since the summer. Below that, there was lots of movement and lots of newcomers among the top-25 most lobbied-on key-phrases in November, including “Infrastructure Bank”, “Financial Consumer Protection Framework”, and “Digital Charter Implementation Act”.
Exhibit 2 provides a 30,000 foot view of key-phrases rising and falling in prominence. But of course we also want to know precisely where (which sector, which agency) this happens. The easiest way to track these key-phrases is on LobbyIQ’s issue-dashboards, which include lobbying-calendars for thousands of key-phrases (which get aggregated up into 150+ issues).
Take, for example, the “Digital Charter Implementation Act” (row 10 of Exhibit 2): it is mapped into LobbyIQ’s issue-dashboard of “Privacy and cybersecurity”, where the lobbying-calendar then allows users to track daily any lobbying on all key-phrases mapped into said issue. Exhibit 3 shows an example snapshot from the “Privacy and cybersecurity” lobbying-calendar for November. The left shows lobbying activity in a calendar; the top-right list shows a list of key-phrases mapped into this issue, including the “Digital Charter Implementation Act” (in row 8), which appeared in 78 lobby-filings in November/October; the bottom-right shows the first instance of lobbying on this issue on the selected date of November 1st (2023-11-01).
The above source constitutes the best method for tracking key-phrases in real time and in daily frequency. In this newsletter, we take a specific perspective on these data, reporting on key-phrases that newly emerged in specific sectors’ or specific agencies’ lobbying descriptions. This is the next section.
2. New Key-Phrases in Lobby Reports, by Industry & Agency
The following lists 29 instances where this November marked the first time that a key-phrases became central to a sector’s lobbying communications:
Airports: Air Transportation Accountability Act
Batteries: Emission Vehicle Supply Chain
Computing and IT: Cyber Security Transformation
Defense: Export Permit Applications
Electric power generation: Kuujjuaraapik Whopmagoostui Renewable Energy Corporation
Electrical equipment: Canadian Space Companies
Entrepreneur and startup organizations: Canadian Entrepreneurship, Global Entrepreneurship Leader, and Innovation Businesses
Environment and wildlife: Low Carbon Cities Canada Initiative
Hydrogen production: Climate Policy Goals, and New Energy Infrastructure
Indigenous organizations: Aboriginal Labour Force Development Circle, National Indigenous Education Organization, and Canada National Marine Conservation Areas
Labour organizations: Canadian Digital News Marketplace
Municipal and regional: Federal Fertilizer Emission Reduction Targets
Oil and gas extraction: Canada Energy Regulator Cost Recovery Liaison Committee, and Foreign Worker Program
Real estate and housing: Competition Act
Ship and boat building: Canadian Patrol Submarine Program
Social advocacy organizations: Sex Offender Information Registration Act, and Family Violence Provisions
Sound recording industries: Collectives Copyright Act
Truck transportation: Canada Internal Rail Freight Review, and Marine Vessel Regulations
Universities, colleges: Future Canada Innovation Corporation
Utilities (integrated): Climate Change Canada Funding
Water transportation: Marine Shipping Industry
Exhibit 4 summarizes the list in more compressed form, with the count column reporting the number of lobby-communications in a sector where a key-phrases appeared in the registration text.
Next, we lists 31 instances where this November marked the first time that a key-phrases became central to a an agency’s lobbying communications:
Atlantic Canada Opportunities Agency (ACOA): Canadian Wine Industry
Canada Border Services Agency (CBSA): Transportation System Act
Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC): Residential Mortgage Insurance Underwriting
Canada Revenue Agency (CRA): Canada Disability Benefit Act
Canadian Air Transport Security Authority (CATSA): Canadian Transportation Act
Canadian Heritage (PCH): Canada Cultural Spaces Fund, Community Innovation Program
Competition Bureau Canada (COBU): Canadian Dairy Processing Sector, Canadian Food Inspection Agency, and Package Nutrition Labelling Requirement
rown-Indigenous Relations (CIRNAC): Federal Carbon Pricing Legislation
Employment and Social Development Canada (ESDC): Copyright Legislation
Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC): Banking Industry
Financial Transactions and Reports Analysis (FINTRAC): CPA Canada Initiatives, and Digital Charter Implementation Act
Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada (IRCC): Anti Racism Initiatives, and International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance
Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED): Canada National Marine Conservation Areas
Invest in Canada Hub: Pharmaceutical Intellectual Property Proposals, and Patented Medicine Prices
Justice Canada (JC): Gender Equality Canada
National Defence (DND): Information Technology Contracts
Natural Resources Canada (NRCan): Future Federal Greenhouse Gas Regulations, and Federal Emissions Policy
Pacific Economic Development Canada (PacifiCan): Vancouver Maritime Museum
Prime Minister's Office (PMO): Telecommunications Policy
Senate of Canada Sex Offender Information Registration Act
Service Canada (ServCan): Prosper Canada
Transport Canada (TC): Diamond Mining Effluent Regulations
Treasury Board Of Canada Secretariat (TBS): Climate Change Canada
Women and Gender Equality (WAGE): Startup Canada
Exhibit 5 summarizes the list in more compressed form, with the count column reporting the number of lobby-communications in an agency where a key-phrases appeared in the registration text.
This concludes our issue #3 for the November data. In next week’s issue, we report on November’s most active lobby-firms and lobbyist consultants, and in two weeks we pivot to the December data.