A good government runs on good information.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau has a steep learning curve and much of his success in office will rely on the information he bases his decisions on.
So who provides the information a prime minister uses to make decisions?
Easily the most well-financed source of information that Trudeau will hear from everyday will be corporate interests, both directly and indirectly through their lobbyists.
A lobbyist's job is to track government policy and legislation and then try and shape these things in a way that is advantageous to their clients.
For instance, an oil pipeline company like Trans Canada, the proponents of both the Keystone XL and Energy East pipelines, will pay millions of dollars over the next four years to lobbyists whose sole job and focus will be to sway the government to adopt policies that allow for more pipelines to be built and more oil to flow from Alberta’s oilsands out to foreign markets.
If enough of the information on a given topic is controlled by the lobbyists, an information bubble can form and decisions start to favour the interests of corporations over the interests of everyday Canadians.
In this series, DeSmog Canada takes an insider’s look at the lobby bubble to shed light on some of the key players and to offer strategies on how to pop the bubble in the name of government for the people, not for corporations.
Image: Justin Trudeau via Flickr
