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The federal department Public Services and Procurement Canada had (or still has) paid memberships in a lobbying organization for development and real estate interests.

The federal department Public Services and Procurement Canada has been and may still be a paying member of a lobbying organization for development and real estate interests.

This is the seventh installment of a series of installments (links at the end of the article) about Crown Corporations and other governmental entities in Canada that have been evasive about their paid memberships in a development lobby.

By Sasha Izard
Jan 29, 2025

The lobbying organization, the Urban Development Institute (UDI) has branches across Canada. It’s most powerful branch is in British Columbia centred in Vancouver. Despite being the most powerful lobby for development and real estate in BC and registered on the BC Lobbyists Registry, it does not register activity on the federal level despite a vast amount of material indicating that it does so and is even ramping up its activities on that level.

The federal government mysteriously, seems to have set the bar so high, that not even the UDI and numerous other powerful lobbying orgs, need to register its lobbying activities to it.

The federal Crown Corporation the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation (CMHC) withdrew its paid membership from the UDI lobby in 2023.

The UDI has been hiding its members directory, which includes dozens of branches of government, since 2023.

On Oct 6, 2024, I sent the following email to the federal department:

Hello Public Services and Procurement Canada / Government of Canada,

I have a question,

Does PSPC have a paid membership with the Urban Development Institute?

Thank you,
Sasha Izard

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I didn’t receive an answer, and didn’t expect one, having experienced time and again evasiveness from governmental entities, on their paid memberships with the Urban Development Institute – it was part and parcel of what to expect from a government which at all levels in the government of Canada hides its complex web of entangled and governmentally paid for – relations to the lobby.

The federal government of Canada provided hundreds of thousands of dollars to the UDI in the form of emergency response payments during the pandemic under the CERS and CEWS programs, indicating further why the failure to identify lobbies by the federal lobbyist registry has cost the public vast amounts of money.

2 and a half weeks later, I sent the following Access to Information or Freedom of Information Request (FOI) to the PSPC:

“I would like to see records showing the year that Public Services and Procurement Canada began to pay the Urban Development Institute (UDI) for membership, and also communications, or other data showing the reasons and those responsible for that initial decision. All records showing invoices and receipts for payment by the PSPC to the UDI. All communications regarding payments between the PSPC and the UDI. All records related to PSPC membership in the UDI.

If the PSPC discontinued its membership with the UDI: 1. Date at which the decision was made to discontinue, or terminate PSPC’s membership with the Urban Development Institute (UDI). 2. Any communications at PSPC that shows how and why this decision was made and who was responsible for the decision and how that decision was made. 3. The date at which the membership was ended.”

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I received the response to my FOI request 3 months later. It contained over a hundred pages, partially severed.

The first year that a payment was mentioned, was 2017 for the UDI Pacific Region based in Vancouver. This was however indicated as a renewal receipt, so presumably there were memberships from earlier years. It was paid along with another year, in 2019, as was mention in the FOI:

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The following is one of a number of receipts paid for by the federal department to the UDI:

Excerpt from the FOI:

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There was however, a key mystery about the FOI. There are no direct indications of payment for UDI memberships by the PSPC later than 2020 in the FOI Response.

Yet in late 2023/early 2024, before the UDI pulled down its members directory fully from public view, the following entry was listed:

At the time of writing, I have sent an email asking the PSPC for clarification on this issue.

Some conversations in the FOI response, may indicate that the payment system was altered down the line so that memberships were no longer recorded as such by the PSPC, or were even denied. This again leads to the mystery of why the PSPC was listed on the UDI’s members directory before it was pulled down from public view, something that happened in 2 phases, the first from the UDI’s websites in late 2023, and the second from the third party membership host website, at the beginning of 2024).

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Conclusion:

As so often in the past, the FOIs lead to more questions than answers. The ultimate question here is not only why the direct indications of payments in the FOI response ceased years before the federal department disappeared off the UDI’s members directory, but rather why was Public Services and Procurement Canada a paying member of a lobbying organization representing development and real estate interests in the first place?

The other question, is why does the federal government, not require the UDI to register lobbying activity to it? There are numerous indications from the UDI’s own material that they are lobbying the federal level. The last time the UDI appears to have registered lobbying activity at the federal level was 2 decades ago, yet it seems the UDI is currently ramping up its federal ‘advocacy’ efforts regarding housing policy to parallel what they have done with the Province of BC, as evinced by their own literature.

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This is the seventh installment of a series of installments about Crown Corporations and other governmental entities in Canada that have been evasive about their paid memberships in the UDI:

1. BC Assessment denied that it is a paying member of a registered organization on the BC Lobbyists Registry. However, the evidence shows otherwise. – CRD Watch Homepage 

2. How Crown Corporation BC Assessment’s Paid Membership with the Urban Development Institute is Being Obscured – CRD Watch Homepage (Article 2)

3. BC Assessment claims that its employees received reimbursements for memberships in a registered organization on the BC Lobbyists Registry that represents private companies involved in development and real estate. – CRD Watch Homepage

4. After a Comedic Exchange of Emails, BC Transit Admits that it has a Membership with the Urban Development Institute. The Implications of that for BC, may be more Tragic than Comic. – CRD Watch Homepage

5: The Land Title and Survey Authority of British Columbia (LTSA) is a paying member of a registered lobbying organization for real estate and development. – CRD Watch Homepage

6. It’s Official: B.C. Provincial Government entities are reimbursing government employees for expenses spent on a registered lobbying organization representing corporate interests, involved in development and real estate. – CRD Watch Homepage

7. The federal department Public Services and Procurement Canada had (or still has) paid memberships in a lobbying organization for development and real estate interests. – CRD Watch Homepage