Lobbying Considerations for Fall 2024

The leaves are beginning to change colour. Dew covers the grass on a chilly morning. Students are back in the classroom. Toronto City Hall has begun their annual exercise of planning a Stanley Cup parade in June that will ultimately be cancelled by April.

All this to say that fall is nearly here!

Despite there being about seven weeks until Alberta’s parliamentarians descent upon the Legislature in Edmonton, organizations with lobbying goals for the fall sitting are quickly running out of time to have their sessional government relations plans ready to go. As always, the lobbying world remains one that demands the utmost flexibility of those seeking change; however, the need for flexibility ought not to supersede the need to have a strong action plan in place.

In this week’s feature article of The NEWS, we will guide you through three of the key considerations you need to be aware of when finalizing your government relations plan for the remainder of 2024.

As always, if you find yourself needing support in developing and/or executing your government relations plan, please feel free to reach out to the Alberta Counsel team anytime. Our associates bring decades of combined experience that can help you build a winning strategy and ensure long-term success.

Government Searching for Budget Efficiencies

Ask anyone who has gone through any sort of lobbying effort and they will tell you there are two near-universal asks government will always ask: how much will this cost and how will it get paid for. This is not a truth limited to the upcoming fall sitting – it is evergreen.

During two UCP member-only townhalls last month (more on these events later), it was shared that Premier Danielle Smith is striking a cabinet committee to assess government spending in an effort to pay for the new income tax bracket promised during the 2023 provincial election. For those with lobbying goals, this is an important variable that needs to be considered when finalizing your fall plans as government’s willingness to spend on new items is likely to be weaker than normal.

The premier is quoted as saying "we're going to be starting going through, looking at every single program in every single department to see if there are ways that we can remove wasteful spending, move spending from low-priority areas to high-priority areas, find ways that we can use technology to be able to deliver services better, and accelerate that personal income tax cut”.

While this does not mean that new spending is off the table, it does provide another element organizations need to be prepared to address when pitching their ideas to government. It also means that organizations may need to get more creative than normal when it comes to pitching the cost of their asks. This is difficult to assess from an organizational lens, so now may be a good time to consider bringing on a government relations team to explore your options and come up with a sound strategy to improve your odds of success.

MLA Availability During Session

Sitting periods are a logical time for organizations to meet with as many MLAs and key staffers as possible; however, orchestrating meetings is not quite as simple as sending a calendar invite. Even more challenging is securing a “yes” to an event RSVP during session.

Now, this isn’t to say that MLAs and staff do not want to meet. The simple reality is that they often just run into a full schedule. This is especially true for those wishing to hold events outside of the capital region during sittings. Outside of the Remembrance Day break, MLAs will spend four of seven days in the Legislature in Edmonton and attending events around the city. That leaves three open days.

Most “out-of-town” MLAs will use Friday as their travel day to return to their homes across the province. Those same MLAs will also use Sunday as a travel day to return to Edmonton to prepare for the next legislative week. That brings us down to one available day – Saturday.

Of course, MLAs will often use this time for themselves to spend with family or to take a break from the grind that is session.

Additionally, an important consideration for inviting government-side MLAs to events during sittings is the composition of the Legislature. Unlike the 2019-2023 government, this current group does not enjoy much wiggle room when it comes to securing enough votes for their bills and confidence motions. As it stands, the absence of seven government MLAs can be the difference between passing a bill and seeing it defeated. Unlike 2019-2023, this government is “all hands on deck” most of the time.

If your organization is hoping to host an event during the fall sitting period, timing and location are massive considerations if you wish to ensure strong turnout from elected officials. Your odds of hosting a well-attended event outside of Edmonton during session are slim. Sitting-hours events will also be a significant challenge. 

Leadership Review and Legislative Outcomes

While there is something to be said about the evergreen nature of our first two segments of this article, the fact is that the upcoming fall sitting period wanders far from normalcy. We would be remiss if we were to omit the upcoming United Conservative Party leadership review as a key consideration when finalizing your government relations plans.

The timing of the leadership review may appear as though it ought to have little to no impact on the upcoming sittings. With MLAs returning on October 28th and the UCP AGM occurring the first weekend of November, it may seem as though the impact of the review will come to an end at the very start of session resuming. However, a quick scan of the political environment can tell us the impact of the leadership review is already becoming apparent.

Premier Danielle Smith has been busy throughout the summer with the usual leader’s tour – Calgary Stampede, community events, and meeting with leaders of other jurisdictions like Texas Governor Greg Abbott. She has also been incredibly busy over the past months by attending and hosting a number of UCP members-only townhalls across the province. In fact, Premier Smith has six more members-only townhalls across the province planned for the remainder of September.

Although members-only events are a normal element of politics, the impact of the leadership review on the sitting agenda appears is amplified when the subject of said review is putting the time and effort she is into members-only townhalls. A number of news stories have surfaced about discussion points raised during these townhalls – stories we will not get into here. However, these stories seem to imply that those with lobbying goals from outside of the UCP membership may find it more difficult to advocate for their issues to be included in the fall’s legislative agenda.

Alberta’s MLAs are scheduled to sit for only 20 legislative days before the holiday break commences in December. This means there will be limited flexibility in the agenda for those who have not begun to advocate for their issue to be dealt with. It does not mean that it is impossible; however, it is something that must be considered when developing your fall strategy.