Consumer Choice Center Releases Scathing Report on Circular Lobbying
Ottawa, ON: Today, the Consumer Choice Center released a report on the widespread practice of circular lobbying, in which the government takes taxpayer money and hands it over to charities that then circle back to lobbying the government on public policy.
The report exposes how deeply rooted this cycle is within Canadian civil society. Notable examples include the Canadian Climate Institute, which used their public money to help them undermine the federal government’s climate goals and federalism itself by attacking the Canada-Alberta Energy MOU, and the Canadian Cancer Society, which received nearly $25 million from federal and provincial governments and used it to advocate for vaping tax increases and restricting the purchase of harm-reduction nicotine pouches to pharmacy counters, while cigarettes remain freely available at gas stations and convenience stores.
“Circular lobbying creates a perverse loop where governments hand out taxpayer money, and that money is used by NGOs to lobby the government for policy change. This is especially true when the policies being advocated for are based on bad data,” said David Clement, the Consumer Choice Center’s North American Affairs Manager. “This circular lobbying is deeply problematic and undemocratic. Taxpayers are paying for lobbying that appears to be organic, and that is simply not the case.”
The report calls on charities to restore their financial independence, funding their own operations and advocacy without reliance on government dollars.
Sabine Benoit, the Consumer Choice Center Canadian Policy Associate, went on to say: “If a charity is advocating for ideas Canadians support, Canadians will donate to it, simple as that. To have the government funding its own lobbying through these charities is not only wrong, but it also undermines Canadians’ belief in their civil society organizations that are supposed to be working for the public good.”
Read the full report here: https://consumerchoicecenter.org/circular-lobbying-in-canada/