Introducing Lobbying: Federal Canada, US, Ontario, and BC

Lobbying is now in Page

This is our first lobbying release. Lobby registries record who is lobbying, on behalf of which clients, and on what subjects — essential context for anyone tracking who is trying to influence government. We are launching across four jurisdictions: federal Canada, federal United States, Ontario, and British Columbia.

Coverage

For federal Canada, federal US, and BC we cover both registrations (lobbyists and the clients and subjects they have registered for) and communication reports (records of specific lobbying contacts). Ontario covers registrations. Each jurisdiction includes at least a decade of history, with some records reaching back to the 1990s.

Lobby data lags real-world activity slightly: lobbyists report to registries on a periodic basis, and registries take time to publish those filings.

Search across jurisdictions

The Advocacy area in the sidebar lets you fuzzy search across registrations and communications from every covered jurisdiction in one place. The Lobbying tab also appears on each jurisdiction's government page, so you can review activity in context alongside meetings, bills, and committee work.

Subject trends

The Lobbying tab on government pages also visualizes lobbying subject trends, surfacing which subjects are gaining attention recently so you can see where advocacy energy is shifting.

Linked to politicians

Where possible, we connect lobbying records to the politicians involved. A Lobbyist interactions tab appears on a politician's page whenever the registry shows who has lobbied them, so you can see their lobbying history at a glance.

Ask Wonk

You can ask Wonk open-ended questions and have it explore the lobby data for you, including how it relates to your own organization. Try "what lobbying are my competitors doing?", "who is lobbying on housing policy in Ontario?", or "who has lobbied this politician?"

More jurisdictions coming

This is just the start. More lobby registries are planned, and as coverage expands the data will appear in the same places.