OTTAWA — Summer is not prime lobbying time, with ministers spending time at home in their constituencies, while their aides and departmental staff take vacations. But for a few, that means opportunity.

Energizer bunnies

Nukik Corp., which wants to build a 1,200-kilometre combined electricity and fibre-optic link from Manitoba into mainland Nunavut, is seeking federal money to help do it. Its lobbying firm, Sussex Strategy Group, recorded an eye-popping 47 contacts with federal officials starting in mid-August, some of them with more than one person at a time. They range from Nunavut Sen. Dennis Patterson to ministerial aides to lower-level staff at Environment, Indigenous Relations and Natural Resources.

Forty-five of those outreaches were by Sussex’s Dan Lovell, a former Liberal aide. The two others other were by fellow Sussex lobbyist Ingrid Ravary-Konopka.

The project promises to connect communities that rely on diesel generators to cleaner power from southern Canada and eventually enable green-energy production in the Far North to send electricity south. It would also deliver high-speed internet to remote communities like Arviat and Rankin Inlet in Nunavut’s Kivalliq region (don’t confuse it with a fibre-optic plan for Iqaluit, far to the east).

Nukik’s lobbying registry is direct: it’s seeking “repayable and non-repayable contributions towards the development of its Hydro-Fibre link.” The federal government put $1.6 million into a feasibility study in 2019 and gave $3 million for more study in 2021. The latter announcement noted that Nukik could be eligible for a share of $40.4 million that year’s federal budget allocated for hydro and grid-interconnection projects in the North.

Also lobbying at a pace that would seem hectic, if not for Nukik’s work, has been Lehigh Hanson Materials. It’s recorded 18 contacts since June, most of them in late July and August. The company wants money from the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) and/or through the promised federal tax credit for capturing and storing carbon dioxide. Lehigh Hanson, a subsidiary of German HeidelbergCement, supplies building materials like sand, gravel, concrete and asphalt, and is looking for support for a cement-making facility that will, its registration says, cut greenhouse-gas emissions.

Many of its lobbying contacts have been with officials at the Innovation, Science and Economic Development Department (ISED) who work on the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF) but a couple have aimed higher, at Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne, Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson and even Prime Minister Justin Trudeau.

Green energy, in all its forms

Enwave Energy, which got a $600-million investment from the Canada Infrastructure Bank last November, is hunting for money for projects in Ontario and Prince Edward Island (where it previously got a $3.5-million grant) and seeking to influence the federal rules on carbon pricing. The company specializes in district-energy projects—centralizing heating and cooling for several buildings in one place.

Lobbyist Roberto Chávez of Sussex Strategy hit up Toronto Liberal MP Julie Dabrusin and advisers to Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault.

Chávez is also working for Next Hydrogen Solutions, which makes electrolyzers—devices that break water molecules into separate hydrogen and oxygen atoms, typically so the hydrogen can be used as fuel or as an industrial input. The company is seeking support for clean technology in general, and hydrogen production in particular. After hitting up Natural Resources Canada people in June, Chávez has pitched Next’s case to aides to Champagne and Helena Jaczek (at the time the minister for the federal economic-development agency for Southern Ontario).

Mississauga Bus Group is interested in zero-emissions vehicles, especially hydrogen-powered ones, and is keen on federal programs or supports to get into that line of business. (It currently works on traditional transit buses, motor coaches and fire trucks, advertising its expertise with diesel engines.) Its lobbyist—Ravary-Konopka, as it happens—has reached out to ministerial aides to Champagne and Jaczek, and in the Prime Minister’s Office, on its behalf.

LM Wind Power Blades makes, well, wind turbine blades at a factory in the Gaspé. The GE subsidiary is seeking SIF money to expand, so it can sell more blades to offshore wind-power projects. One of its executives, Alexandre Boulay, has been in touch with two ministers (Champagne, who oversees the SIF; and Diane LeBouthillier, who’s the revenue minister but also the MP for the Gaspésie) and Champagne adviser Kevin Deagle.

Mines of the future

Champion Iron, which mines iron ore near the Labrador border in Fermont, Que., would like the federal government to know that its “high-grade” product can help cut greenhouse-gas emissions and decarbonize the steel industry, and to get some government infrastructure investments to encourage processing the ore nearby. Its CEO David Cataford has recorded contacts with the chief of staff to Pablo Rodriguez (the heritage minister, but also Prime Minister Justin Trudeau’s Quebec lieutenant), and several managers and directors at Environment and Climate Change.

Northern Graphite operates a soon-to-run-out graphite mine in Quebec, north of Ottawa, but is working on deposits elsewhere in Quebec and in Ontario, as well as a potential nickel, copper and cobalt mine in Labrador.  It would like “support for the development of a critical minerals (graphite) mine and construction of a downstream processing facility to produce anode material for batteries (and electric vehicles),” according to a lobbying registration by Navigator’s Graham Fox. He recorded a late-August contact with a policy adviser to Wilkinson.

Also of note

LKQ Corp. is a U.S.-based reseller of used auto parts. Its lobbyist Bruno Leblanc of Teneo has been contacting officials at ISED—most recently Champagne aide Anson Duran, in mid-August—on an issue that might be surprising at first glance: to “ensure forthcoming privacy legislation, regulations or guidance provides a level playing field for businesses in the auto-aftermarket and prioritizes consumer control over vehicle data.” Whether, in other words, auto manufacturers can control data gathered and used in their vehicles in a way that locks out parts from other suppliers.

Quebec-based infrastructure-tech firm Previan is seeking federal money to expand its R&D capacity. The company tests materials and sells sensors and monitoring services. Its lobbyist Yan Plante, of TACT, has been contacting officials in the Innovation Department since June but stepped up efforts in August.

Northstar Earth and Space, a satellite company offering Earth-observation data, wants expansion money from the feds and isn’t too choosy about where it comes from—could be ISED, the Canadian Space Agency, Defence Research and Development Canada, Environment and Climate Change or the coast guard, according to its registration. Lobbyist Kevin Bosch, a longtime Liberal staffer, has lobbied at high levels on Northstar’s behalf (as previously reported); at the end of August he contacted PMO adviser Elise Wagner, a specialist in U.S-Canada issues.

Montreal’s Felix & Paul Studios is seeking federal support—from a program yet undetermined, in an amount yet unknown—to help finance its business growth. The company produces virtual-reality and 360-degree tours and “immersive experiences,” and has dispatched lobbyist Francis Mailly of Montreal’s Tesla RP (no relation to the car company) to seek assistance from the Canadian Space Agency and ISED. Two of its productions have been space-related, including an elaborate one produced aboard the International Space Station.

Speaking of Teslas, though, the one run by Elon Musk recorded a lobbying contact over the summer with Deagle on Champagne’s staff, and then another shortly afterward with the minister himself, deputy innovation minister Simon Kennedy, and a handful of other Champagne aides (including Deagle). Champagne gave a cheerfully uninformative answer in early September when asked in a news conference whether he’s trying to get Tesla to build a factory in Canada—yes, he talks to Tesla’s people, he said, just like he talks to representatives from car companies around the world.

Terrapure Environmental, which runs battery-recycling plants near Toronto and Montreal, wants to “secure support in de-risking expansion projects.”

Plato Testing is also looking for federal help. The Fredericton-based company offers software-testing services, but with a mission to train Indigenous people in the skills that industry needs. Its lobbying registration says it’s seeking funding to support and expand that work. This summer, lobbyist Kristina Martin’s contacted officials at Innovation, Science and Economic Development Department, and aides to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland.