The Year in Review #2: 2023's top lobby-firms and consultants
2023's biggest movers and shakers among Ottawa's lobby-firms and consultants
Welcome to Queen Street Analytics third “Year in Review” issue for 2023. In today’s issue, we look at 2023’s most active lobby-firms and consultants
CliffsNotes version:
the top-six most most active lobby-firms of 2023 were PAA, Crestview, Sussex, Sandstone, Counsel PA and the Capital Hill Group, with Counsel PA the only change from 2022’s top-six
Among the top-50, the list of biggest movers of 2023 was topped by Alar Strategy, HSC and Associates, GTA Strategies, David Pratt and Strategies North Advisory
The list of top-100 busiest lobbyist consultants of 2023 was topped by David Pratt, Dan Lovell (of Sussex), David Angus (Capital Hill Group), Marc Desmarais (NATIONAL Public Relations), Kevin Bosch (Sandstone), Andrew Walker (PAA), and Naresh Raghubeer (Sandstone)
There were fourteen firms with 2+ consultants in the top-100, ranging from PAA Advisory to Rubicon Strategy
1. Lobby Firms
A quick gauge of the most active lobby-firms of 2023 can be gleaned from LobbyIQ's “big picture” dashboard. Exhibit 1 shows a snapshot of the lobbyfirm-exhibit on that dashboard. Sorted on the 12-month average column (12M Avg) we get a quick view of the 25 most lobbying-active sectors of 2023. At the top of the list, we see the PAA, Crestview, Sussex, Sandstone, Cousel PA and the Capital Hill Group.
How does this compare to 2022? To answer this question quickly, we can use the WaybackMachine on LobbyIQ's “big picture” dashboard to navigate to the state of affairs 12 months ago. As might be expected, the annual ranking doesn’t look too different, although Counsel PA did replace Global Public Affairs among the top-six “big fish” (i.e. the pie chart).
What about variation outside the top-six? Let’s investigate that next.
Exhibit 3 digs down into the top-45 most lobbying-active firms, and how this ranking compared to 2022 (including their filings). Among the top-45, the biggest up-movers were:
Alar Strategy Group moving from no filings at all in 2022, to being the 30th ranked firm by filings in 2023
HSC and Associates, moving from only 7 filings in 2022, to being the 32nd ranked firm by filings in 2023
GTA Strategies moving from 116th in 2022 to 44th in 2023
David Pratt moving from 45th in 2022 to 11th in 2023
Strategies North Advisory moving from 56th in 2022 to 23rd in 2023
Cheema Strategies moving from 52nd in 2022 to 24th in 2023
First Lake Solutions moving from 57th in 2022 to 35th in 2023
Gowling WLG moving from 11th in 2022 to 6th in 2023
Porter O’Brien moving from 62nd in 2022 to 45th in 2023
Compass Rose Group moving from 38th in 2022 to 11th in 2023
Counsel PA moving from 11th in 2022 to 6th in 2023
Prospectus moving from 13th in 2022 to 10th in 2023
Alar Strategy’s move from no filings at all in 2022 to top-30 in 2023 again confirms the low barriers to entry into Ottawa’s lobbying landscape, making Ottawa’s GR landscape a very competitive industry, especially considered against the context of relatively high concentration in many sectors of the Canadian context, a narrative that appears to be gathering political momentum here and here.
Moving on, what does the picture look or Ottawa’s busiest consultant-lobbyists?
2. Lobbyist Consultants
Exhibits 4 and 5 list 2023’s 100 busiest consultant-lobbyists in 2023.
One interesting feature of the Ottawa lobbying landscape is the growing prominence of single-consultant firms and some of these consultants feature prominently in Exhibit 4, including David Pratt (of David Pratt and Associates), Isabel Metcalfe (of Public Affairs Counsel), and Bilal Cheema (of Cheema Strategies
Overall, the list of the top-50 busiest lobbyists of 2023 reads: David Pratt, Dan Lovell, David Angus, Marc Desmarais, Kevin Bosch, Andrew Walker, Naresh Raghubeer, Isabel Metcalfe, Bilal Cheema, Martin-Pierre Pelletier, Dan Pfeffer, John Delacourt, Aaron Freeman, Laila Hawrylyshyn, Bruce Hartley, Tom Potter, Alik Angaladian, John O'Leary, Robert Schuett, Marie Lemieux, Elizabeth Seip, Susan Smith, Will Adams, Sheamus Murphy, Alexander Byrne-Krzycki, Jonathan Ballingall, Craig Jangula, Richard Maksymetz, Regan Watts, Scott Thurlow, Elia Lopez, Ben Parsons, Roberto Chávez, Jim Karygiannis, Garry Keller, Gordon Quaiattini, Julie Dewolfe, Andrew Teliszewsky, Tyler Bjornson, Josh Zanin, William Shelling, Bridget Howe, Ashton Arsenault, Fernando Minna, Emily Gilroy, Kevin Tetreault, Austin Glover, Noah Niznick, Liam Daly, Grace Smith,Louis-Alexandre Lanthier , Alex Armanious , Annyse Hawkins , Andrew Steele, and Hugo Delorme
For ranks 51-100, the list in Exhibit 5 reads: Annyse Hawkins, Alex Armanious, Grace Smith, Andrew Steele, Alexander Macdonald, Hugo Delorme, Derek Lipman, Danya Vered, Angela Meco, Jordan Obrien, Jacques J.M. Shore, Ingrid Ravary-Konopka, Kema Joseph, Lonzell Locklear, Brandon Purcell, Matthew Trapp, Tim Barber, Geoff Turner, Muhammad Ali, Elizabeth Roscoe, Stefano Hollands, Daniel Komesch, Cathy Jo Noble, ValéRie Courtois, Raphael Brass, Emily Gilroy, Daniel Brock, Sonya Moore, Kristina Martin, Felix Wong, Frédérik Larouche, Antoine Bujold, Andrew Balfour, Stephen Yardy, Stephanie Mitton, Jacqueline Larocque, Cameron Doherty, Brian Gilbertson, Curtis O'Nyon, Robin Maclachlan, Nicolas Laflamme, Tom Garrett, Dennis Burnside, Sean Murphy, Barbara Barrett, Elizabeth Campbell, Heather Tory, Kelsey Degagné, Joshua Matthewman, and Angelo Bakoulas.
So, how many consultants in the top-100 does each major firm have? Here is how it breaks down:
10+ consultants in the top-100: PAA Advisory and Crestview Strategy
6 in the top-100: Counsel Public Affairs
5 in the top-100: Sussex Strategy, Bluesky Strategy, Capital Hill Group, and StrategyCorp
3 or 4 in the top-100: Sandstone Group and Prospectus Associates
2 in the top-100: GT & Company, Maple Leaf Strategies, Rubicon Strategy, Earnscliffe Strategy, Strategies North Advisory
This concludes today’s issue. Next week, we will look at 2023’s the most lobbied agencies/institutions and DPOHs.