Feds face intense lobbying pressure before budget

Greenwashing has made its way to Parliament. Lobbyists from the oil & gas industry have made way to roll back anti-greenwashing provisions in Canada’s 2025 budget.

From Canada’s National Observer:

Wren Montgomery, an associate professor researching greenwashing at Western University’s Ivey Business School, told Canada’s National Observer that beyond the obvious impact of letting major fossil fuel and financial companies mislead the public and investors about their climate action, the biggest impact will be on genuinely sustainable startups.

That’s because in a market flooded with bogus claims, smaller firms will struggle to compete for investor capital if environmental claims are not required to be backed by evidence. The Competition Bureau understood this, but Carney doesn’t, she said.

“The huge impact is going to be on these genuine, innovative, sustainable Canadian firms,” Montgomery said. “They're going to be driven out of the market, or they're going to see it as a barrier to entry.”