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Our goal with this scorecard, as a Canadian investor-led organization, was to determine how effective current public registries are in providing disclosure of corporate lobbying, absent additional disclosure from the corporations themselves. Investors have an interest in the policy activity undertaken by the companies in which they invest, to ensure that political risks and reputational risks are being overseen by the board and any policy activity is being done responsibly and transparently.

Each year in the U.S. dozens of shareholder proposals are filed asking boards of directors to report on the resources committed to lobbying activity, the organizations that the corporation is supporting financially and its own lobbying on policy issues. The practice is growing in Canada as well, with six shareholder resolutions asking companies to disclose lobbying activity being filed in the past two years, and a much larger number of requests being made privately by investors.

However, when our member institutions ask investee corporations about their lobbying activity, we are often told that information is already available in public registries.

Unfortunately, that isn’t entirely true.

While B.C. has a fully accessible and searchable registry of lobbyists, that registry could and should provide a lot more detail on the content and activity of lobbying.

For example, B.C. is one of only two provinces in which lobbyists aren’t required to disclose the bill, legislation or regulations that they’re seeking to alter. Some lobbyist registrants have been diligent in reporting their intended targets, but others have provided only the vaguest descriptions of objectives, such as “working with the government to develop renewable energy in the province.” Knowing which lobbyists are lined up to change which legislation — and how — should be one of the first objectives of a good public lobbyist registry.