Exclusive Ottawa fundraising event draws dozens of lobbyists — despite Liberal promises

On a drizzly Monday evening in June, more than 800 Liberal Party donors mingled with 14 cabinet ministers, eight secretaries of state and the prime minister at the Canadian War Museum, enjoying hors d'oeuvres and views of the Ottawa River.

The annual Laurier Club Summer Reception and Garden Party is an exclusive event for Liberal supporters who donate the legal maximum of $1,750 to the federal party each year. It is a must-go not just for politicians, but also those hoping to influence them.

An IJF analysis has found that dozens of registered lobbyists attended this year’s event, gaining access to cabinet ministers without triggering federal lobbying disclosure rules.  

That’s despite the long-standing Liberal pledge to ensure “registered Lobbyists don’t attend ticketed events where they’re registered to lobby the relevant special guest.”

"There are plenty, plenty of interests out there who want access to government, who want to lobby government, who may not be able to get a meeting."

The Laurier Club events have been criticized by opposition politicians as “cash-for-access” fundraisers. In 2017, then-prime minister Justin Trudeau announced new measures to improve transparency. The measures included holding events in public locations, advance posting of events, timely post-event disclosures and banning registered lobbyists from attending fundraisers where ministers they lobby would be present. 

Lobbyists continue to attend. 

This year’s Laurier Club guest list included more than 50 names matching the names and addresses of federal lobbyists who have registered since March, according to the IJF’s analysis. 

Collectively, they represent about 180 organizations, ranging from universities and energy firms to tech giants and defence contractors.

The Liberal Party did not respond to IJF’s questions about the apparent discrepancy between the promise on its website and the guest list for the Laurier Club event.

The disconnect doesn’t surprise Noah Fry, a political scientist who completed a PhD in comparative public policy at McMaster University. “If you trade on your ability to have access to government,” he said, “then you want to be in and around cabinet ministers and people of influence.”

The informal lobbying that can take place at events like the Laurier Club reception can offer lobbyists and their clients significant advantages over their competitors, according to Fry. 

“There are plenty, plenty of interests out there who want access to government, who want to lobby government, who may not be able to get a meeting, particularly on short notice,” Fry said. “Being able to have these informal connections with people of influence within government … may allow you to have that privileged access and get in the door.”

Who was represented?

The guest list included lobbyists for dozens of companies across the defence, energy and technology sectors — industries with an interest in the government’s innovation-forward, “elbows up” agenda.

Cabinet ministers in attendance included AI Minister Evan Solomon, Housing Minister Gregor Robertson and Industry Minister Mélanie Joly.

Many lobbyists present had recently registered to lobby Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, Finance Canada and the Prime Minister’s Office.

The event took place just hours after Carney announced $9 billion in defence spending. That money will go toward increasing military pay, buying aircraft, armed vehicles and ammunition, developing new drones and sensors to monitor the seafloor and the Arctic and repairing and maintaining ships, aircraft and other assets. 

He has also promised to reduce Canada’s reliance on U.S. defence suppliers.

Several companies lobbying for defence contracts were represented at the Laurier Club event, including Anvil, Building Momentum, Roshel, Leonardo and Navantia. Only one of them was American. 

Roshel, an armoured vehicle manufacturer based in Brampton, Ont., secured a contract with the Department of National Defence (DND) in 2019, according to federal records. 

Leonardo, an Italian aerospace firm, and its subsidiaries have received about $1.2 billion in contracts with the DND since 2019. Spanish shipbuilder Navantia, meanwhile, put in a bid to supply surface combatant warships to the DND but lost to U.S. company Lockheed Martin. 

While Defence Minister David McGuinty was not in attendance, secretary of state for defence procurement Stephen Fuhr was.

Meanwhile, TikTok lobbyist Kevin Bosch — a former research director for the Liberal caucus — was also in attendance. The company is facing a ban in Canada following a November 2024 decision to block it from operating in the country due to security concerns about its owner, China-based ByteDance Ltd. 

According to a letter obtained by the Canadian Press, TikTok’s CEO had requested a meeting with Joly in the weeks before the fundraiser.

Innocuous or informal influence?

One lobbyist who attended told the IJF that he disagrees that there is anything nefarious about people in his line of work attending fundraisers with ministers present.

Jamie Carroll, founder of Carroll & Co Consulting and former national director of the federal Liberal Party said “It's not surprising that there are doctors at a medical conference or lawyers at bar society meetings, right? Lobbyists — who are frequently former political folks in one way or another — showing up at political fundraisers shouldn't be any more surprising.”

He also says he and most lobbyists he knows sign off on a digital declaration form provided by the Liberal Party before attending political events.

“I would be much happier if there were specific folks that got focused on who weren't abiding by those rules as opposed to the sort of blanket quasi accusations that usually come along with these stories,” he said.

Attending fundraisers is just one way consultants and public affairs professionals can meet politicians.

Other lobbyists present on June 9 not only donate to the Liberal Party, but have long-standing ties to it. 

 David Herle, partner at Rubicon Strategy and a former Liberal Party organizer was also in attendance. He told the IJF he went to the event to “see a lot of old acquaintances."

Also listed was Andrew Steele, a vice president at Toronto-based StrategyCorp who reportedly worked on Carney’s federal campaign.

Informal lobbying like this often goes unreported, but can be more important than official meetings, Fry said.

During the CUSMA trade negotiations in 2018, he said, some of the most influential people were not the ones holding meetings, but those texting decision-makers, attending private events and operating out of “war rooms” next to government officials. 

“It wasn't those who were organizing arranged lobbying meetings with Global Affairs,” Fry said.

This type of behind-the-scenes lobbying can have significant impacts on the public’s everyday lives, he said. 

“We want public policy outcomes that respond to democratic will,” he said. “If we have this informal lobbying culture that is not going to be captured by any formal data set, any sort of accountability mechanism, it's not going to be responsive to you and your needs.”

METHODOLOGY 

• The IJF cross-referenced the Elections Canada disclosure of the attendees of the Liberal Party of Canada’s Laurier Club Summer Reception and Garden Party with a list of all of the names of people registered to lobby the federal government since Mark Carney became prime minister on March 14, 2025. The latter list can be found in the IJF Lobbying Registrations database.
• We matched names, cities and postal codes of the lobbyists with the names on the list of attendees from the Elections Canada disclosure. When only names and cities were matches, we emailed lobbyists to verify they were in attendance.