OTTAWA — Before Parliament closed up for the summer, the Liberal government introduced major bills and policy statements aiming to regulate the internet and the platforms that depend on it.

No surprise, then, that the companies affected were busy making their views known in the back rooms, and that’s reflected in the federal lobbying registry.

They had a lot to talk about:

• Bill C-18, requiring platforms to send money to Canadian news organizations 
• Bill C-26, on cybersecurity (the one allowing the government to ban Huawei from 5G networks)
• Bill C-27, on privacy and artificial intelligence
• New orders for the Canadian Radio-television and Telecommunications Commission on how to handle the country’s multibillion-dollar telecom industry.

Plus, there was Bill C-11, which would bring streaming platforms like Netflix under the control of the CRTC’s content-regulation authority, to promote Canadian material. It passed final reading in the House of Commons in June, though the Senate promises to give it a very hard look in the fall.

A quirk of the registry is that the bigger and more diverse a company’s interests are, the more difficult it is to tell what any given lobbying contact was about.

Google Canada, for instance, is registered to lobby on 25 subjects, from promoting “digital skills” in the public service to immigration to specific provisions in the Income Tax Act. When it registers a contact, all it’s required to record is the general subject, like “science and technology” or “taxation and finance.”

Nevertheless, Google’s been busy. The operator of YouTube and vocal critic of the Liberals’ plans recorded a whopping 54 lobbying contacts from the beginning of May to late July, compared to 14 in the same period last year. It hit up people from Conservative MP Raquel Dancho to Heritage Minister Pablo Rodriguez to PMO policy advisors Lionel Fritz Adimi and Harry Orbach-Miller.

Amazon has been busy, too. Where Google has numerous lobbying subjects, Amazon’s components have just a few, but they’re extremely broad.

Amazon Canada Fulfillment Services wants to “work with government to facilitate the process of selling goods and services online, and delivering them to consumers,” and to “work with government to promote and support Canada’s digital economy, including ensuring the availability of a high-skilled tech workforce.”

That covers a lot of ground, and had it making contacts with chiefs of staff to ministers at Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED), Global Affairs and Finance; as well as with a deputy chief of staff to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, the chief strategy officer at the Business Development Bank of Canada and multiple MPs.

Amazon Web Services Canada, which is more focused on selling to the government, went to multiple officials at Shared Services Canada (which runs government computer systems); the Canada Revenue Agency; the top people at the Canadian Centre for Cyber Security (a defence agency) and the chief information officer at the Canada Border Services Agency. Oh, and to Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne himself.

Amazon Corporate mixes both, seeking to promote Amazon Web Services and cloud-computing policies, to make selling online easier and to promote a tech-skilled workforce in Canada. Its lobbyist Steve Van Groningen has had two contacts with Champagne policy advisor Anson Duran.

Microsoft Canada recorded nine contacts—though several of those were with the Treasury Board, which runs the federal government’s back-office functions, and were likely about selling software or services.

TikTok Canada also made nine contacts. Facebook Canada recorded six. Netflix Canada recorded five. Spotify Canada and Disney recorded four each and Twitter Canada had two.

Apple Canada recorded a single contact, on May 26, but it was with three senior broadcasting officials at the CRTC. Apple is registered to lobby on Bill C-11, which would affect its music and TV streaming services; on “policies pertaining to the diversity of content in the digital age” and on “possible copyright, competition, and environmental legislation.”

The storytelling social network Wattpad recorded three lobbying contacts, two of them related to broadcasting (targeted at Canadian Heritage officials) and one to privacy (aimed at the Department of Justice).

It’s a series of tubes, and they’re ours: Companies that own the pipes through which the content runs were busy, too, because Champagne announced that revision to federal telecom policy in late May.

Like Google, Canada’s biggest telcos lobby on a vast range of subjects.

But between May 1 and late June, Rogers Communications recorded 16 lobbying contacts, half of them with Champagne’s department. Rogers, of course, is trying to buy Shaw Communications in the face of skepticism from the Competition Bureau, among others. Shaw had six lobbying contacts in the same period, four of them with ISED—including one with Champagne’s chief of staff, one with his deputy minister and two with the senior assistant deputy minister in charge of spectrum and telecom policy, Eric Dagenais.

(N.B. that any lobbying following Rogers’s disastrous July outage is still within the grace period during which it doesn’t have to be reported. Lobbyists have until the 15th day of the following month to report a communication.)

Also in the mix: Globalive, an aggressive suitor for the Shaw wireless spectrum licences that Champagne has said he won’t let Rogers have. Its consultant Will Adams registered to lobby on Globalive’s behalf, on one refreshingly narrow subject: “Arranging meetings between public office holders and the client to discuss the acquisition of wireless licenses, customer accounts and cellphone towers.” He contacted Champagne’s chief of staff and a policy advisor.

Telus recorded 22 contacts, two of them with ISED. BCE recorded 14, two of them with ISED. Quebecor recorded 11, and again, two of them were with ISED.

Smaller players got in on the lobbying, too. Egate Networks, a business-focused Toronto network provider, recorded its first lobbying contact ever on July 14, dispatching hired-gun lobbyist Bram Abramson to hit up three officials in ISED’s internet- and telecom-policy branch about telecom policy. Abramson also lobbied six ISED people on behalf of Beanfield Technologies, another small Toronto-based ISP.

Shopify seeks influence: Like Amazon, Shopify keeps its lobbying information short. In fact, it has just one official subject: “Canada’s digital economy strategy and science, technology and innovation policies with respect to supporting entrepreneurs and small business.”

So, almost anything.

In pursuit of this goal, it hit up multiple aides to Mary Ng, the minister of trade, small business and export promotion and Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland, officials in the financial-institutions division at Finance, plus since-departed privacy commissioner Daniel Therrien and two deputy commissioners.

Medicago tries to figure out what to do next: The Quebec City pharma company had its groundbreaking vaccine for COVID-19 approved in Canada in February. Weeks later, the World Health Organization rejected it—not because it doesn’t work, but because Medicago is part-owned by Philip Morris, the tobacco company, and the WHO has a rule against engaging with tobacco companies. Medicago’s technology uses plants in the Nicotiana family to produce key ingredients.

Since then, the company has reached out to top officials at ISED and the Public Health Agency of Canada, and several times to MPs from the Bloc Québécois.

Looking for space: Spaceport Canada wants to manufacture rockets with help from the Strategic Innovation Fund (SIF), sell launch services to the government and help write regulations for space launches. It’s contacted Canadian Space Agency vice-president Mary Preville, two aides in Champagne’s office and the commander of the air force, Lt.-Gen. Al Meinzinger.

Maritime Launch Services, which promises to start launching things into orbit from Nova Scotia next year (if a Russian attack on its main rocket supplier, in Ukraine, doesn’t set back its plans) had contacts with ministerial advisors at Transport Canada, Finance, ISED, Global Affairs and the PMO.

Northstar Earth & Space wants money for its satellite information-services business. Its lobbyist has had numerous high-powered contacts in the last few months: with William Harvey-Blouin in the PMO; with the director of policy and the chief of staff to Defence Minister Anita Anand; with the chief of staff to Trade Minister Mary Ng and with two assistant secretaries to the cabinet—top officials in the Privy Council Office. It helps when your lobbyist is Kevin Bosch, who for years was research director for the Liberal caucus.

EarthDaily Analytics, which says it plans to launch Earth-observation satellites in 2023, would like some SIF money and possibly to sell to the government. It has lobbied Nova Scotia Liberal MP Kody Blois and two brigadier generals—Eric Vandenberg (who runs an intelligence directorate) and Chris McKenna (who is in charge of air- and space-force development).

That takes some brass: The Fair Tax Treatment for Responsible Digital Asset Mining Coalition, which represents cryptocurrency companies, contacted an assortment of Liberal and Conservative MPs, an ISED associate assistant deputy minister and an advisor to Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland about getting the same GST/HST tax treatment for digital “mining” operations as actual mines do.

The Liberals want to treat crypto-mining operations more like financial-services businesses; they wouldn’t need to charge sales tax, but couldn’t claim the input tax credits other industries do. 

Pitching the Strategic Innovation Fund: When there’s a big pot of money, lots of people will want to dip their ladles in. Including…

An actual mining company, Vale, is interested in “federal funding programs aimed at supporting research & development, innovation and decarbonization within the mining sector and low-carbon initiatives under the Strategic Innovation Fund.” Since May, it has contacted Labrador Liberal MP Yvonne Jones (it has a mine and processor at Voisey’s Bay) and officials at NRCan, Environment and Climate Change Canada, ISED and the Prime Minister’s Office.

Char Technologies, which is in the hydrogen and renewable-natural-gas business, wants to “obtain contributions from the Clean Innovation Fund, from the Strategic Innovation Fund, and from other sources yet to be identified for innovative clean-energy projects.” Its lobbyist, Ingrid Ravary-Konopka, has knocked on doors at Natural Resources Canada, ISED and FedNor, the economic-development agency for northern Ontario. Ravary-Konopka used to be a policy advisor at the British High Commission, but before that, for five years, she ran Justin Trudeau’s Montreal riding office.

Umicore, a Belgian company with diverse interests in metals and the things that can be made with them (like batteries, lenses and jewelry), is seeking money for a “precursor and cathode active materials production plant.” That could come from the SIF, from grants, from loans, from a tax holiday “or other.” Umicore’s not choosy.

Avalon Advanced Materials, based in Toronto, wants SIF money for an “integrated lithium-processing facility” and has contacted ISED, NRCan and FedNor about it.

Applied Pharmaceutical Innovation, an Alberta pharma-consulting and contract research company, has something it wants SIF money for, prompting it to hit up numerous ISED and Finance officials.

Also notable:

• Tiggy Delivery, an ultra-fast grocery-delivery operation so far offering service in parts of Toronto and Vancouver, reached out to Champagne policy advisor Peter Opdam to “hold introductory meetings” and “work through any policy matters.” It did not send a punk: its lobbyist is Michael Agosti, from the law firm Dentons, who used to work at Global Affairs Canada.
• Xanadu Quantum Technologies, which is good at solving certain esoteric math problems, recorded several contacts with ISED, particularly in the minister’s office. Its registration says it wants SIF money, but also generally to promote quantum computing to the government.
• Carbon Upcycling, which uses waste carbon dioxide to make concrete, wants “grants to fund the scale-up of our carbon-utilization technology from pilot scale to commercial scale.” They’ve talked to Eamonn McGuinty in Environment Minister Steven Guilbeault’s office, and to officials at NRCan, Public Services and Procurement and the economic-development agency for southern Ontario.
• Ecostrat, which supplies biomass feedstock for energy and other industrial uses, wants to convince the government it can help with “reducing risk in biomass supply chains to assist in developing the low-carbon bioeconomy.” Its lobbyists at Cumberland Strategies have approached multiple officials and ministerial aides at Natural Resources Canada since May, especially about clean-fuel funding.
• Northeast Renewables, which builds natural-gas and hydrogen projects in Ontario, is also looking for money from the department’s clean-fuels branch.

• GE Hitachi Nuclear Energy Americas, which is supplying a small modular nuclear reactor for a trial at Ontario’s Darlington power plant, contacted an advisor to Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson “to review possible funding opportunities (from sources that are still to be determined) for the development of small modular reactor technology in Canada,” and to inform the federal government about its merits.
• Pieridae Energy wants to build an LNG facility in Goldboro, N.S., and is seeking federal support. Lobbyist Phil von Finckenstein hit up Tory MP John Williamson and an assistant deputy minister at Finance, Glenn Purves, to make the case. Von Finckenstein is a Conservative operative from way back.
• Able Innovations, which sells a sort of smart bed for moving immobile patients in health-care settings, wants money from the government’s venture capital funds to expand manufacturing. It began lobbying in May for help from ministerial aides at ISED, Employment and Social Development and Global Affairs.