November’s Ottawa Lobbying Update #4
November’s Ottawa Lobbying Update #4
last month's key-issues and subject matters
Each month, Queen Street Analytics publishes four reports on the government relations landscape in Ottawa, analyzing noteworthy patterns across (#1) the most lobbying-active sectors and organizations, (#2) the most lobbied government institutions and public officials (DPOHs), (#3) the most active lobby-firms and lobbyist-consultants, and (#4) the most lobbied-on subjects and issues. We use statistics and machine-learning enabled analytics to uncover patterns and trends, empowering our readers with an enhanced toolkit to navigate the GR and policy landscape.
This week’s issue focuses on the keywords and subjects that stood out in October’s lobbying communications.
The CliffsNotes version:
The subject-matters with the biggest increases in focus in October compared to previous months were in Energy, Environment, Taxation, and Agriculture
Key-issues are provided by LobbyIQ, and extracted from lobbying text descriptions using machine-learning and AI. October’s biggest movers among key-issues were the Aviation Maintenance Council, the International Trade Tribunal Advisory Committee, Defence Procurement Contracts, and Artificial Intelligence.
There were 19 new keyissue-sector pairs (an issue being important in a sector’s lobbying for the first time). Among the most salient were the Cybersecurity Protection Act for the Oil and gas sector, the Migratory Birds Protection Act for Utilities, and the Food Inspection Agency for Business associations.
Among the most salient new keyissue-institution pairs were the Energy Regulator Act for the Prime Minister’s Office, the Fortin Regional Airport for Canada Border Services, and, apparently, a Feminist Economic Recovery Plan for the Senate.
For a comparison, check out last month’s newsletter #4 here
1. Last Month’s Noteworthy Subject Matter Trends
Exhibit 1 shows the top-25 subject-matters lobbied on in October (rank-ordered) with the count of communications and their rank in columns 2-3, and their previous month’s values in columns 4-5. The most lobbied-on subject-matters in October were Environment, Energy, and Economic Development. The biggest movers relative to September were Energy, Taxation, and Agriculture (the latter driven chiefly by Bill C-234).
The subject-matters provided in government filings are interesting, but inherently limited because they can only be selected from a canned list of 54 options.
We therefore place more focus on key-issues, which LobbyIQ extracts from the monthly lobby-filings with its machine-learning algorithms.
2. Last Month’s Noteworthy Finer-Grained Key-Issues
Exhibit 2 shows the (rank-ordered) key-issues that were central in October’s communications, displaying issues that were central in characterizing communications activity in at least three sectors or government institutions.
Columns 2, 3, 4 show the number of sectors and institutions where an issue was central in lobby communications in October, September and August.
October’s most lobbied-on key-issues included the Environmental Protection Act, and Economic Development Canada. The biggest upward-movers among key-issues were the Aviation Maintenance Council, the International Trade Tribunal Advisory Committee, Canadian Defence Procurement Contracts, and, for the first time, Artificial Intelligence, which is sure to become a staple of government communications going forward.
Other interesting nuggets include lobbying on a Feminist Economic Recovery Plan, the Refundable Clean Technology Investment Tax Credit, and the Migratory Birds Convention Act. We will see further down where specifically these issues were important.
There are interesting national-level contrasts between what dominated firms’ concerns in Canada compared to K Street Analytics’ analysis of key-issues in U.S. lobby communications: While lobbying in Canada has been very much dominated by our Environmental Protection Act for the last three months, Defence Procurement has been the dominant keyword in U.S. lobby-filings over the same period, but was a muted issue in Canadian lobby communications until October.
Which specific issues characterize lobby communications in which specific sectors or government institutions can be tracked on LobbyIQ’s sector- and institution-dashboards. Inversely, their issue-dashboards track which sectors and institutions are central for lobbying on a specific issue or keyword, as well as when and where in parliament an issue is being discussed. Exhibit 3 shows an up-to-date example snapshot of the parliamentary discussion calendar on LobbyIQ’s technology issue-dashboard, with Artificial Intelligence featuring prominently.
In our newsletter, we limit ourselves to only discussing the “surprising” issue-sector and issue-institution pairs, i.e. issues that had not been prominent for at least a year in a sector or for an institution before becoming prominent in October.
3. Last Month’s Surprise Issue-Sector Pairs
Exhibit 4 lists 19 such issue-sector pairs. Columns 3, 4 and 5 respectively report an issue’s centrality score, its centrality-rank in a sector-month, and the number of filings in which that issue appeared. Note that a centrality score can be high even if it appears in just a single document-mention, if it is algorithmically sufficiently unusual and central to the context.
Among the most salient new issue-sector pairs were the Canada Grain Act for Crop producers, the Cybersecurity Protection Act for the Oil and gas sector, the Food Inspection Agency for Business associations, and the Migratory Bird Convention Act for integrated utilities companies (whose infrastructure can cause the occasional bird some issues).
4. Last Month’s Surprise Issue-Institution Pairs
Exhibit 5 lists 24 such issue-institution pairs.
Among the most salient new issue-institution pairs were the Energy Regulator Act for the Prime Minister’s Office, the Fortin Regional Airport for Canada Border Services, and the Feminist Economic Recovery Plan in communications aimed at the Senate.
