Bryan Evans offers insights on lobbying amid heightened public interest

A CBC News article (external link)  from June 27, 2023, reported that lobbying in Canada surged to new peaks during the 2022-23 year.  This year, in March 2024, there were all-time high numbers of federal lobbyists and active registrations, as stated in the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying Canada 2023-2024 annual report. With recent media attention on lobbying from outlets like the Investigative Journalism Foundation, The Breach and the Toronto Star, Bryan Evans, professor in the Department of Politics and Public Administration, offers his insights on the lack of transparency and unequal distribution of power resources.

Evans' research focuses on corporate lobbying, public interest policy advocacy, the political economy of housing, labour-capital relations and democratic administration. He has received several Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council grants for studies on minimum and living wage movements, policy capacity, policy work and government policy innovation labs. His current research explores the use of expertise in policy processes, housing-related social movements and the democratization of state institutions.

Interest in lobbying began for Evans during his time at the Ontario Public Service, where he served as a public policy analyst/advisor and later as a policy branch manager/director. He notes, “[Interest in political lobbying] very much depended on a myriad of factors from the ‘who’ was doing the lobbying to either block a policy change or to have a preferred policy placed on the agenda of the government, the party in government, the social and economic background of the issue in play.” He adds, “Or put another way, was it of strategic or political importance.” During this period, Evans interacted with business lobbyists and socio-economic policy advocates who were actively shaping policy outputs. Referencing the Green Belt, Ontario Place and the Ontario Science Centre cases, Evans said, “[The] question of who gets heard, and how, is something with serious implications for democracy. Our Westminster model of parliamentary democracy tends to lean rather heavily toward the opaque. This is not healthy for the legitimacy of our democratic institutions. The controversies swirling around how decisions were made respecting the future of Ontario Place, the Ontario Science Centre and the Green Belt underline where the lack of transparency can lead.”

Canada is currently in a state of serious economic inequality, where financial and political resources are not evenly distributed. Evans explains, “The conventional view is that governments operate in a marketplace of policy options and proposals, searching for the best alternative among many.” Evans emphasizes that the Canadian state is part and parcel of capitalism. His work examines how the Canadian state operates within a capitalist framework, privileging policies that serve the interests of capital. This bias means that broader social and economic goods, such as tax fairness, worker rights and redistributive policies, are often neglected.

Consequently, business interests are predominantly “heard” in lobbying efforts. An analysis of the federal lobbying registry from 2015 to 2022 reveals that more than two-thirds of registered lobbying was conducted by or for business interests. Corporations and their associations possess the resources to engage in sophisticated lobbying strategies, reinforcing their influence on policy outcomes.

During a peak of heightened lobbying, Evans’ work highlights that lobbying throughout Canada heavily favours business interests due to an unequal distribution of financial and political resources leading to a lack of transparency in the policy-making process.