Being a wingman for domestic companies looking to woo the Canadian government is an emerging field.
What happened: The Council of Canadian Innovators (CCI) — a non-profit business policy advocacy group that counts over 150 top Canadian CEOs as members — has launched a for-profit lobbying arm called Signa Strategies, per The Logic.
- Signa will offer tailored advice for select clients on how to pitch themselves to governments instead of the generalized advice the CCI typically provides members.
Why it matters: In theory, Canadian companies are poised to reap the benefits of new initiatives prioritizing procurement from domestic firms, like the Buy Canadian policy that will likely be introduced in the budget, and expectations to keep more defence dollars in Canada.
But in practice, companies could be stonewalled by the complications of procurement processes, which are notoriously difficult to navigate and plagued with transparency issues.
- One CEO speaking with The Logic likened the process of lobbying a company to “a long string of first dates, but over and over again with the same people.”
Big picture: The solution to this issue probably isn’t exclusive pay-to-play lobbying, but a top-down rethink of federal procurement policies. On the defence spending front, a new body was just launched to streamline all procurements. And in July, Canada’s Procurement Ombud published a report calling for a single office for all government contracts.—QH