Oil and gas industry lobbyists far outgun their environmental counterparts in the battle for influence over climate legislation, a joint investigation by Canada’s National Observer and the Investigative Journalism Foundation has found. Despite a mammoth lobbying push in recent years, culminating in a record number of meetings with federal government officials in 2022, environmental groups still find themselves in an impossible race with fossil fuel lobbyists who are similarly upping their lobbying game, according to our investigation.  

We used data from the federal registry of lobbyists to track meetings that key subsets of both lobbying sectors had with the government, seeking to represent the push and pull for influence over climate legislation. In 2022, environmental groups we tracked hit a record high, logging 961 meetings with government officials. However, oil and gas lobbyists logged 1,372 meetings in the same year, 40 per cent more than their green counterparts.