The federal government is spending your hard-earned tax dollars to lobby itself.
In what amounts to little more than a slush fund merry-go-round, Ottawa is giving your cash to non-governmental organizations, just to have those very same organizations turn around and lobby the federal government.
This is a practice known as circular lobbying – governments hand out tax dollars to organizations, only to turn around and have them lobby those very same governments and tell them what they want to hear.
The practice of circular lobbying undermines the public trust. When the government funds organizations to parrot its own talking points, it creates a false narrative that civil society supports a particular policy. This, in turn, gives the public a slanted view of where consensus really lies.
The Consumer Choice Center recently released a report that investigates circular lobbying in Canada and focuses on four areas of circular lobbying in particular: social organizations, climate organizations, public health organizations, and anti-alcohol organizations.
The federal government, for example, gave $18.5 million to the International Institute for Sustainable Development last year. That money was used in turn to advocate against the building of new pipelines and cutting red tape to build more homes. It helped to create a false perception amongst the public that a significant portion of civil society is against the construction of new pipelines or putting an end to anti-development policies. In reality, taxpayer funds were used to create that perception, rather than genuine grassroots activism.
Other false claims being promoted
Another good example is the Canadian Climate Institute, which received just under $7 million, representing 75 per cent of the organization’s overall budget, from the federal government last year. The organization took the money and in turn advocated for the industrial carbon tax, claiming that the tax has a negligible impact on costs for Canadian families. This is parroting Carney government talking points, whereas in reality any Canadian farmer or manufacturing worker could tell Canadians that the tax’s impact is very real.
The Canadian Cancer Society also took more than $3 millionfrom the federal government last year to falsely claim that youth vaping is on the rise. In reality, data from the government of Canada itself shows that youth vaping declined from 13.2 per cent in 2019 to 7.2 per cent in 2023. The Canadian Cancer Society has tried to use the false argument that youth vaping is on the rise to push the banning of flavoured vapes, which increase the chance of smokers quitting by some 230 per cent. The Canadian Cancer Society literally took millions of dollars from the federal government to mislead Canadians, and that advocacy is helping to lead to vape flavour crackdown proposals like one recently put forward in Alberta.
Finally, there’s the anti-alcohol cabal. The Canadian Centre on Substance Use and Addiction received $11.5 million, or 89 per cent of its 2025 budget, from the federal government. It turned around and released a report claiming that no amount of alcohol consumption is safe, relying on low-quality data and confirmation bias. Senator Patrick Brazeau relied heavily on the organization’s shoddy data to try to place cancer warning labels on alcohol bottles, which would have needlessly misled consumers and scared Canadians away from consuming alcohol in moderation.
Feds need to cut this practice
These are but a few examples of circular lobbying. There should be nothing stopping these organizations from advocating their perspectives, even if they happen to be misleading. But the line needs to be drawn when it comes to taxpayer funding. If we are to have a fair and balanced discourse in civil society, the scales can’t be tilted by the government handing out wads of cash.
The practice of circular lobbying in Canada must be put to an end. It’s time for the Carney government to rule out giving one more penny to advocacy groups, especially at a time when Ottawa is swimming in red ink and taxpayers are hurting.
Originally published here
