Environmental Defence’s latest report finds fossil fuel lobbyists met with federal officials 986 times in 2025, despite a three-month lull during the election period. 

Montréal/Tiohtià:ke | Traditional, unceded lands of the Kanien’kehá:ka/Mohawk Nation, a gathering place for many First Nations, including the Anishinaabeg – Today, Environmental Defence released its annual report evaluating lobbying by the fossil fuel industry, “New Government, Same Big Oil Playbook: 2025 Fossil Fuel Lobbying”.

In 2025, fossil fuel companies and industry associations had at least 986 lobby meetings with the federal government. Despite a drop in lobbying during the three months surrounding the election and leadership transition, Big Oil still lobbied nearly four times per working day.

Minister of Natural Resources, Tim Hodgson, has taken at least 63 lobby meetings since being appointed to his position in May. That’s three times as many meetings as last year’s most lobbied Minister, former Finance Minister Freeland, who met with lobbyists 19 times.

Prime Minister Mark Carney was also more willing to meet with Big Oil than his predecessor. He has had 17 meetings with fossil fuel lobbyists since his election. For comparison, former Prime Minister Justin Trudeau had just two meetings with fossil fuel lobbyists since Environmental Defence began reporting on lobbying in 2023.

“Big Oil spent 2025 lobbying for its deregulation agenda, attacking and weakening every climate policy on the books,” said Emilia Belliveau, Energy Transition Program Manager at Environmental Defence. “After years of pretending to care about climate action, the charade is over. In 2025 Big Oil was clear about its wishlist of policy rollbacks. After frequent lobby meetings with key Ministers in the new government, Big Oil’s demands have largely been met.”

The report compiles data from the federal Registry of Lobbyists, tracking lobbying activity from 31 fossil fuel companies and industry associations. It highlights the most active fossil fuel industry lobbyists, and the Members of Parliament, ministries and ministers they targeted. However, these figures do not capture the entire extent of the industry’s access, given that the data only includes lobbyist-initiated meetings, not those arranged by the government.

“This type of conflation between government and industry interests is a major issue, one that’s been evident in petro-provinces like Alberta for many years” says Emilia Belliveau, “ When governments confuse the interests of private for-profit fossil fuel extraction companies with the public interest, they risk failing in their responsibility to safeguard the public good and deliver the services and regulations required for our wellbeing – including addressing climate change.”

Additional key takeaways from the report include:

  • The Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers lobbied the government at least 138 times, the most active lobbyist in the industry. Other industry associations were less active this year, but fossil fuel industry associations collectively reflect 263 of the industry’s lobby meetings.
  • The companies that lobbied most often were:
    • Enbridge Inc. (107 meetings), owner of the largest pipeline network in North America;
    • Shell Canada (77 meetings), owner of a 40% stake in the LNG Canada project in British Columbia and refineries in Alberta and Ontario; and
    • Suncor (71 meetings), historically the most polluting tar sands oil extraction company.
  • The federal ministry most targeted by Big Oil continues to be the Ministry of Natural Resources (NRCan), which was lobbied 319 times. Ministries that share responsibility for climate action remain key targets for lobbyists. Environment and Climate Change Canada was lobbied 121 times, and Finance Canada had 100 meetings with fossil fuel lobbyists.

For more information on the methods used for tracking, additional context on lobbying, and data and trends from previous years, read our 2024 and 2023 reports.

ABOUT ENVIRONMENTAL DEFENCE (environmentaldefence.ca): Environmental Defence is a leading Canadian environmental advocacy organization that works with government, industry and individuals to defend clean water, a safe climate and healthy communities.

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For more information or to request an interview, please contact:

Midhat Moini, Environmental Defence, media@environmentaldefence.ca