The following 21 citizen groups from across Canada with a collective membership of more than 1 million Canadians, and two prominent Canadians, all oppose federal Commissioner of Lobbying Nancy Bélanger’s proposal to gut key ethical lobbying rules in her proposed new Lobbyists’ Code of Conduct in ways that will allow for corrupt favour-trading between lobbyists and Cabinet ministers and other federal politicians.
The 19 groups and two prominent Canadians instead support reasonable proposals for changes to the Lobbyists’ Code that will prevent unethical lobbying while allowing for a reasonable amount of volunteering and canvassing (but no fundraising) for candidates and parties.
Click here to see a summary of the Commissioner’s proposal to gut the rules to allow for rampant unethical lobbying, and the groups’ reasonable counter-proposal for rules that will prevent unethical lobbying while allowing for low-level political activity by lobbyists.
Click here to see details about the Commissioner’s unethical proposal to gut key federal ethical lobbying rules.
Citizen Groups
B.C. Civil Liberties Association
Canadian Institute for Information and Privacy Studies
Centre for Free Expression
Canadian Association of Physicians for the Environment (CAPE)
Citizens’ Climate Lobby Canada
Citizens for Public Justice
Climate Action Network
Democracy Watch
Dogwood
Ecology Action Centre
Environmental Defence
Leadnow
MakeWay
Nature Canada
Neighbours United
OpenMedia
Prevent Cancer Now
Shift (Action for Pension Wealth and Planet Health)
Sierra Club B.C.
Stand.earth
Unlock Democracy Canada
Individuals
- David Suzuki
- Alan Broadbent
Other citizen groups also opposed to the Commissioner’s proposals
As well, another 5 organizations with a combined total membership of more than 500,000 Canadians essentially joined the groups and individuals above in calling for reasonable changes to the Lobbyists’ Code that protect government integrity and prevent unethical lobbying, while allowing for low-level canvassing and volunteering by lobbyists on campaigns.
The World Wildlife Fund (WWF) made a submission in June 2022 to Commissioner of Lobbying Bélanger about her proposed new Code rules on behalf of other organizations which can be seen on this page. As that page notes, the submission was withdrawn by the WWF in a letter sent to Commissioner Bélanger on July 25, 2022 because the groups realized that their “submission could be interpreted to support a relaxing of lobbying rules for actors who are lobbying to further degrade the climate and biodiversity of this planet. Commissioner Bélanger has refused to publish the letter withdrawing that submission, but you can click here to see it.
The groups involved in the withdrawn submission are as follows:
- Canadian Environmental Law Association
- Canadian Parks and Wilderness Association
- Equiterre
- Sierra Club Canada Foundation
- World Wildlife Fund