What is Québec’s Carrefour Lobby
Québec runs its own lobbying registry, separate from the federal one and governed by its own law. Here is what Carrefour Lobby is, what it records, and why it matters to anyone working a Québec file.
Clarion , , 7 min read
A registry of its own
Lobbying in Québec is not governed by the federal Lobbying Act. It has its own statute — the Lobbying Transparency and Ethics Act (Loi sur la transparence et l’éthique en matière de lobbyisme) — and its own oversight body, the Commissioner of Lobbying of Québec (Commissaire au lobbyisme du Québec). The province’s lobbying registry is published online as Carrefour Lobby Québec.
If you work a federal file and a Québec file, you are dealing with two separate registries, two separate definitions of who counts as a lobbyist, and two separate sets of obligations. A registration in Ottawa tells you nothing about Québec, and vice versa.
What Québec law covers that the federal regime does not
The Québec definition of lobbying is notably broad. It covers communications aimed at influencing decisions by provincial public office holders — and, crucially, by municipal ones. Québec municipalities, their elected officials, and their senior staff fall within the regime. That makes Carrefour Lobby one of the few places in Canada where municipal-level lobbying is systematically registered.
The Québec regime also captures a wide range of decisions: the development, introduction, amendment, or defeat of a bill or regulation; the awarding of a contract, grant, or other financial benefit; and the issuing of a permit or licence. The scope of what counts as a registrable decision is part of what makes the Québec registry such a rich source.
What a Québec registration records
A mandate entered in Carrefour Lobby names the lobbyist, the client or organization, and the object of the lobbying — the decision being sought and the public institutions targeted. As with the federal registry, the value is in the detail: the specific subject matter, the institutions named, and the period over which the mandate runs.
Because the Québec regime reaches the municipal level, a single Carrefour Lobby search can surface activity that simply has no federal equivalent — a firm registered to influence a municipal council’s procurement decision, for instance, which would never appear in the federal registry.
Why it matters for public affairs in Québec
For any team working in Québec, Carrefour Lobby is the primary-source map of who is active on a file — and at which level of government. Reading it well means knowing the Québec definitions, the institutions, and the language: the registry is in French, and the official terminology does not always map cleanly onto federal concepts.
A public registry publishes its records under its own terms of use, and Lobbyisme Québec sets those of Carrefour Lobby. Clarion publishes public registry records: the records it shows name the registry they came from and link back to it.