At a Greater Vancouver Board of Trade event in March, Conservative Leader Pierre Poilievre took business lobbyists to task.

“The corporate lobbyists in Ottawa are focused on getting lunches with ministers at the Rideau Club,” he told the crowd. He went on to call consultants “utterly useless in advancing any common sense interests for the people on the ground.”

On Friday, he doubled down in an op-ed. He criticized groups like the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, the Business Council of Canada and the Canadian Federation of Independent Business (CFIB) and said he refuses to “meet the aforementioned groups.” 

But public records show he has met with lobbyists for the CFIB at least four times and worked with the group to help craft legislation over his time as an MP.

Posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, reveal Poilievre met with CFIB president and CEO Dan Kelly at least four times between 2014 and 2021. 

One Twitter post from 2013 sees Poilievre congratulate Kelly for “helping make it possible” to freeze employment insurance rates. 

The group has lobbied Poilievre a total of 12 times between 2013 and 2021, according to the federal registry. Poilievre was also the target of lobbying communications from the Business Council of Canada once in 2020 and four times by the Canadian Chamber of Commerce, most recently in 2021. 

Elections Canada documents also suggest he has hosted fundraisers where members of the Business Council of Canada were present.

An analysis of fundraiser guest lists since September 2022, when Poilievre became party leader, found that two members of the board of directors for the Business Council of Canada were at a Poilievre fundraiser in Calgary last July while another director attended a fundraiser in Toronto this past January.

Kelly, from the CFIB, said the Friday op-ed wasn’t surprising. He said Poilievre has told him “dozens of times” in private meetings that it “should give up its nonpartisan status and endorse his party.”

But partisanship is risky for businesses. Before the 2015 election, the CFIB joined the Harper government as it “announced all sorts of really good targeted small business policies,” Kelly said. “I was at the podium with the prime minister or a senior Tory minister, including Pierre, dozens of times prior to the election, complimenting them.” 

When the Liberals took office, “they held us with some suspicion, for the first number of years of their mandate. Relationships were not good.” 

“Last spring, I was at a press conference at the podium with Chrystia Freeland announcing changes to lower credit card processing fees for small businesses,” he said. “Tories see that, and they think that now, we may be too cozy with the Liberals.”

But Conservative politicians still reference the CFIB’s work and data more than any other party, according to House of Commons official debate records since January 2023.

The federal lobbying registry doesn’t show lobbying reports targeted at Poilievre by any of the three groups since he became Conservative leader, though he was lobbied by the Chamber of Marine Commerce in late November 2023. 

Poilievre’s calls for businesses to convince him that they have the support of Canadians to get what they want instead of lobbying “is very much in keeping with his populist strategy,” said Hamish Telford, an associate professor of political science at the University of the Fraser Valley. 

Still, Telford said it is “quite extraordinary for a leader of the Conservative Party to take this kind of stance against the business community.”

But Duane Bratt, a professor of political science at Mount Royal University, said the op-ed was a well-crafted and strategic move.

“It fits with the message that Poilievre is giving,” Bratt said. “He's clearly targeting more traditional NDP voters as well by going after big business and big lobby groups.”

Neither expected his previous communications with the CFIB, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce or the Business Council of Canada in the past would negatively affect Poilievre. 

Telford pointed out that Poilievre is closely connected with at least one corporate lobbyist as one of his top advisors, Jenni Byrne, owns a firm that is actively lobbying for Loblaws in Ontario. 

She’s not the only lobbyist in Poilievre’s circle. His chief of staff, Ian Todd, is also a former lobbyist who consulted for telecom giant Comcast and modular housing company Black Diamond Group between 2014 and 2016. 

The Conservative party’s co-deputy leader, Melissa Lantsman, filed more than 40 registrations as a lobbyist in Ontario between 2018 and 2020. One of the companies she lobbied for was Walmart. 

Six out of 20 members of the Conservative’s National Council, the party’s governing body, have links to current or former lobbying. One member, Anthony Matar, lobbied for corporate giant McDonald’s on April 22 of this year.

As an election approaches, Telford said he would expect a politician with a healthy lead to broaden his base. That’s not what Poilievre is doing.

“It's extraordinary for somebody, in my view, who's flying high in the polls, to be taking such a petulant public position,” Telford said. “He doesn't need to be making enemies at this juncture.” 

But Bratt disagrees. Last week, Poilievre gave a speech to union workers in Gatineau, Que. While union leaders have not supported him, going after big businesses and big lobby groups could be a way for Poilievre to gain favour with union members and other working-class people. 

“Bear in mind, people don't like lobbyists, even the term itself. That's why they like to refer to themselves as government relations,” Bratt said. “I think they do a valuable job, an important job, but most of the public see them as seedy.”

Poilievre’s tactics might come back to haunt him, Telford said. “While populism works really well in opposition, to use populism when you’re in government is a much more challenging proposition.” 

A governing prime minister has to get advice from experts and stakeholder groups and, “if he ignores expert advice when he's Prime Minister, then it's really problematic,” added Telford. 

Kelly says it’s unlikely Poilievre will be able to follow through with his refusal to meet if he becomes prime minister in 2025. “I think that this, this too, shall pass.” 

Neither Poilievre, the Canadian Chamber of Commerce nor Business Council of Canada responded to a request for comment.