Do Parliamentary Roles Affect Lobbying Activities? Evidence from the Canadian House of Commons

Abstract

ABSTRACT In parliamentary systems, private members (i.e. backbenchers) with formal titles and roles can affect the institutional system in which politicians, civil servants and interest groups are embedded. Packing legislative institutions with backbenchers who act as agents of the government but who are not in Cabinet puts certain Members of Parliament in a privileged position with the core executive. We hypothesize that influential positions in Canada’s House of Commons, notably a parliamentary secretary tasked with supporting a minister or a chair of a parliamentary committee, bring increased external pressure from interest group lobbyists. We test these assumptions with data on communications between MPs and interest group lobbyists gathered from the federal Registry of Lobbyists and open data lists found on the website of the Parliament of Canada. Our results show that a parliamentary secretary position or a seat on a standard committee exposes MPs to higher lobbying volumes.