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Interview - The Hill Times: Groups representing education, food, health research lobby on through dog days of summer

By Derek Abma

Why would anyone want to lobby in the summer? Well, one reason is to explain to the government what a polytechnic is. In these dog days of summer, lobbyists are hard-pressed to find the country’s top elected officials hanging around Ottawa. Yet, a handful of organizations have been particularly busy so far this summer, talking mainly with senior bureaucrats and political staffers who can still be found in the capital.

Comprehensive statistics for July were not to be available on the federal lobbyists registry until Aug. 15. Yet if history is any guide, the number of communications reports last month likely nosedived in comparison to June, when MPs and Senators rose for the summer and, for the most part, got out of Ottawa. 

Last year, the number of reports fell 51.1 per cent between June and July for a total of 877. In 2015, the number of communication reports dropped 33.6 per cent from June to 641 in July.

Goups filing several communication reports so far this summer. For example, Polytechnics Canada, which represents research intensive polytechnics, colleges, and institutes, had 13 reports showing contact with government officials in July. Budget matters were noted in most filings as a topic for discussion. Science and technology, research and development, and employment and training were also listed.

Most of the reports from Polytechnics Canada indicated contact with non-political officials, such as John Knubley, deputy minister of Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, and Catrina Tapley, deputy secretary to the cabinet in the Privy Council Office. There were some exceptions though, such as Elder Marques, chief of staff to Innovation Minister Navdeep Bains (Mississauga-Malton, Ont.), and Liberal MP David Lametti (LaSalle-Émard-Verdun, Que.), the parliamentary secretary to Mr. Bains.

Daniel Komesch, senior policy analyst with Polytechnics Canada, said the main goal of his group’s lobbying now and for the past several years has been to help the government understand what a polytechnic is.

“They don’t understand that there’s a three-engine postsecondary education system in Canada that consists of colleges, universities, and polytechnics,” Mr. Komesch said.

He explained that by offering apprenticeship programs in skilled trades, polytechnics are different from universities. But they also offer four-year bachelor’s degrees, which differentiates them from colleges, except in some provinces like Ontario and Manitoba, where the term “polytechnic” is not used, but institutions such as Algonquin College and Red River College, for all intents and purposes, belong to this category.

The lack of recognition of polytechnics at the federal level becomes a problem, he said, when funding is granted for research or education.

“We kind of fall through the cracks and have to make the case over and over and over again for how we contribute to education and how we contribute to the economy,” Mr. Komesch said.

As for why it would crank up its lobbying activity in summer, Mr. Komesch said the group only recently became aware of a $13-million shortfall in funding from the federal government’s $53-million College and Community Innovation Program—which fosters research partnerships between colleges and the private sector—in comparison to demand for this program.

He added that the group has also just started lobbying on next year’s budget, hoping to avoid a common pattern of being left out when funding for post-secondary institutions is allotted.

Mr. Komesch noted the fact that most federal politicians have left Ottawa for the summer, so its recently lobbying has been focused mainly on bureaucrats. 

In terms of how lobbying politicians and their staffers is different from lobbying bureaucrats, he said the discussion with political types tends to be centred on their mandate to deliver policies, while the talk with bureaucrats is “working our the Ts and Cs, the terms and conditions, and trying to drill down and get the policy’s fine details worked out.”

Another group that’s been busy lobbying the government lately is the Canadian Meat Council, with 10 communication reports filed for July. With renegotiations on the North American Free Trade Agreement kicking off this week, group CEO Chris White said this and other trade issues have been a big part of discussions. He added that potential regulatory changes with the Canadian Food Inspection Agency have also been on the agenda.

Mr. White, who was a chief of staff to several Liberal cabinet ministers during the Martin and Chrétien eras, said summer can be a good time to meet with government officials, even though he acknowledged that elected officials are hard to find.

“You have more time to have a more substantive conversation because [government officials are] just not as pressed, there’s just not as many demands of senior bureaucrats’ time generally, so they’re not checking their BlackBerry as often as they would be when the House is sitting or if they know the minister’s at committee, or something like that,” he said.

He said the ministers—wherever they happen to be—responsible for the topics discussed will be briefed by department officials about these meetings.

Mr. White said his approach to lobbying doesn’t change depending on whether he’s talking to politicians and their staffers or bureaucrats. 

“In my experience, when I was on the Hill, I wouldn’t want a trade association to be saying one thing to the bureaucrats and then another thing if they came in to talk to me,” he said. “We are as transparent and as forthright at either level.”

Also lobbying the government this summer—with trade among its priorities—has been Food and Consumer Products of Canada, which filed seven communication reports for July and two for late June.

“There’s a lot of policy proposals on the table presently and a lot happening, so we are in seeing different folks in different departments to present our perspective on those policy proposals,” said Joslyn Higginson, the group’s vice-president of regulatory affairs.

She noted upcoming NAFTA talks as one of drivers for wanting to get a word in with government, saying that “NAFTA has been very successful in that it has created a completely integrated North American supply chain and to a large extent an integrated workforce for the agri-food sector, so any threat to NAFTA is something we want to be talking to the government about.”

Ms. Higginson added that the group wanted to have input on the government’s healthy-eating strategy. She said it’s supportive of proposals such as having more information on the front of food packaging, but is not in favour of health warnings on food packages.

Although politicians weren’t showing up in its summer communication reports, she noted that Food and Consumer Products of Canada made contact with some key political staffers last month, including as Jillian White, special assistant to Foreign Affairs Minister Chrystia Freeland (University-Rosedale, Ont.), Leah Nosal, special assistant to International Trade Minister FrançoisPhilippe Champagne (Saint-Maurice-Champlain, Que.), and Javid Dharas, adviser to Mr. Bains.

The Rick Hansen Institute, which supports research on spinal-cord injuries and whose namesake is best known for his 40,000-kilometre Man in Motion tour across Canada in a wheelchair in 1985, filed 13 communication reports over the period of late June to early August, with a combination of in-house and consultant reports being filed, many of them seemingly for the same meetings. They indicated contact with officials across a number of different departments, including Justin To, policy director in the Prime Minister’s Office, and Brenda Hensler-Hobbs, director of operations in the PCO.

Institute CEO Bill Barrable said the timing of such meetings reflected the availability of certain officials, and he noted that since the group is headquartered in Vancouver, it likes to get several meetings done when its staff members have a chance to get to Ottawa. 

He said his group, which received $7.3-million from the federal government last year, is looking to secure its funding for the next fiscal year and simplify the process that sees a number of different departments having some connection to the institute. 

“Our work interfaces with a number of ministries, including Science, Health, Global Affairs, Disabilities, in terms of broader government priorities in those ministerial priorities,” Mr. Barrable said. “The challenge for us is since we intersect across those ministries, we’re not the recipient of program funding from any one of these single ministries. So we’re working closely with the ministries, and working hard together with the government, to try and find a longer-term home for our funding.”

Like other lobbying groups, its meetings this summer were mostly with bureaucrats and political staffers, as opposed to elected officials. He said the lack of political activity in Ottawa during summer likely gives these officials some added flexibility in their schedule.

However, Mr. Barrable said the group is trying to set up meetings for later this summer with cabinet ministers whose ridings are in or close to its home base of Vancouver, including Justice Minister Jody Wilson-Raybould (Vancouver Granville, B.C.) and Sport and Persons with Disabilities Minister Carla Qualtrough (Delta, B.C.).

 

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