Municipalities struggling with the increasing frequency of flooding, drought and wildfire brought on by climate change are hiring professional lobbying firms to get action from Alberta’s government. And the firms that several local governments now employ are also lobbying for major fossil fuel companies, a report from the lobbying watchdog group F Minus found.
“That’s a very questionable business model of essentially getting paid to further a problem that is resulting in more business for the firm from other clients,” said James Browning, executive director of F Minus.
“These firms are getting paid to further Canada’s dependence on fossil fuels, but then of course that dependence is leading to worse long-term climate impacts for these local governments, which then generates more business for the same lobbying firm.”
In the first half of 2026, F Minus noted more than a dozen local authorities registered to lobby governments for help with climate mitigation hired lobbying firms that also represent fossil fuel companies.
Alberta Counsel represents several major oil and gas companies in the province, including Enbridge and Tourmaline, Canada’s largest natural gas producer. Some municipal governments that retained Alberta Counsel are petitioning the province for assistance with climate mitigation issues like drought, wildfire and flooding.
Beaver County is lobbying the municipal affairs ministry to work with the county to find solutions to flooding issues and contamination of Thomas Lake, according to the Alberta lobbyist registry. The lake has no natural defined outlet and is susceptible to rising water levels, which landowners have reported are increasing in recent years, according to a regional stormwater management plan.
Average rainfall in the region increased by about 50 per cent between 1999 and 2019, according to the planning document. The engineering firm that prepared the report for the county also estimated that because of climate change “rainfall depth of peak storm events will increase by 20 per cent” over the next 60 years, worsening flood risks in the Town of Viking and surrounding areas.
The Municipality of Wood Buffalo is also seeking assistance from the province to build flood mitigation infrastructure that can withstand a one-in-100-year flood, the cost of which “is prohibitive when combined with tax reduction measures and other downloading of costs by the provincial government,” according to a lobbying registration updated on June 16.
By Brett McKay, Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
Original Published on Aug 12, 2026 at 13:40
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