Here’s a rundown of the news we covered this week:

The Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying (OCL) released its annual report on June 11, which found that February was a record-breaking month in terms of lobbying activity. More than 3,500 communication reports were filed that month, which is more than 800 reports than were filed in February 2019. More than 640 of the reports filed that month related to the subject of “health,” which was the highest single-month total for reports on any subject between April 2019 and March 2020. The report also discussed Lobbying Commissioner Nancy Bélanger’s desire to see the annual OCL budget increased.

Conservative MP Karen Vecchio is exploring ways to bring back the House status of women committee during the pandemic. This is one of 16 committees that hasn’t met since last winter, unlike the House health and finance committees (among others) that were called back in March to virtually study the government’s response to the pandemic. Vecchio would like the status of women committee, which she chairs, to return in the next few weeks to provide a gendered analysis of the government’s response to the pandemic.

Summa Strategies is leading on the registry with two clients interested in discussing personal protective equipment (PPE) with the federal government, while StrategyCorp has the greatest number of active consultants engaged with a single client interested in discussing PPE. As of June 10, there are 11 organizations with active files that include PPE as one of the subjects they want to discuss with the federal government. Summa consultants Adam Yahn and Joanne Dobson have been engaged by Mister Transmission in Ontario, while Dobson and consultant Kait LaForce have been engaged by priMED Medical Products in Alberta. StrategyCorp consultants Leslie Noble, Vasileios Tsianos, Troy Sherman and Roberta Kramchynsky, are active with In Colour Capital, an independent principal investment group based in Toronto.

Matthew Conway has joined the Capital Hill Group as a consultant. Conway has a decade of experience in staffing positions for NDP members at the provincial and federal levels. He previously served as director of Francophone affairs in the office of Ontario’s Progressive Conservative Minister of Francophone Affairs and Minister of Transportation Caroline Mulroney. During the Conservative government of Stephen Harper, Conway served as a Quebec caucus liaison in the party’s research bureau, and later worked as a special assistant for parliamentary affairs to former Conservative MP Jean-Pierre Blackburn while he was minister of Veterans affairs. Conway said he will offer a “Quebec perspective” to the Capital Hill Group.

Convergence CT, a software company based in the U.S. specializing in data-sharing, and Change-Wireless, a Toronto-based Wi-Fi service provider, are part of a consortium interested in securing the contract for a national contact tracing app. Both companies registered with consultants David Adams and Lorraine McGregor of Spirit West Management, and each company posted 10 communication reports on June 2, which represented contact with the federal government between May 26-31.

In new registrations, Molli Surgical, a medical products company based in Toronto, started its first file on May 29 with consultant Bridget Howe of Counsel Public Affairs. The company would like federal government assistance to secure a purchase order to supply Canadians with domestically manufactured COVID-19 test swabs, according to the registry. Howe will communicate with the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), Health, Innovation, the Public Health Agency of Canada, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and with MPs.

Allied Bioscience, a biomedical company located in Toronto, is also new on the registry with a file started June 1 with consultant Trisha Rinneard of Wellington Advocacy. The company is interested in obtaining regulatory approval and a drug identification number from Health for hard surface disinfectants to help combat COVID-19, the registry shows.

Rinneard will communicate with Health.

Paper manufacturer White Birch Papers started its first file on June 9 with consultant Marc Desmarais to discuss the Canada Emergency Wage Subsidy (CEWS). The subsidy program provides a 75 per cent wage subsidy to eligible employers for up to 12 weeks, retroactive to March 15. The file does not go into detail about what aspect of the CEWS White Birch Papers is interested in discussing. Desmarais will communicate with the PMO, Innovation, Finance, the Canada Revenue Agency, and with MPs.

New registry files

Based on a search of the federal lobbyists' registry on June 12 at 9:10 a.m.

New registrations

Reactivations