Buying the Wheel · 04 of 05
The same companies whose CEOs publicly warn that AI may end humanity are spending tens of millions of dollars on lobbyists who are, right now, working to make sure no government, no agency, and no court can stop them. Lobbying is legal. Documenting it is fact reporting. These are the receipts.
federal lobbyists in Washington now works on AI.
A note before you read on: lobbying is a legal, constitutionally protected activity. This page documents publicly disclosed spending and publicly stated corporate positions. We allege no unlawful conduct by any company or individual named.
The growth, in figures
+170% in three years
Public Citizen analysis of federal LD-2 lobbying disclosures, 2025. Unique lobbyists who reported work on AI or closely related topics at least once in the year.
The Five Companies
Every dollar figure below is from US federal lobbying disclosures filed under the Lobbying Disclosure Act and tracked by OpenSecrets. Every quote is from a public statement. Every action is from contemporaneous reporting.
The Kill List
Four major attempts to govern AI in the past three years. Four very different outcomes for the people doing the building.
For Canadian readers
Everything above is the United States. Canada's regime is different by design: no Canadian MP can accept a corporate donation, and the Lobbying Act discloses meetings without disclosing spending. The system tells you who met with whom. It does not tell you, by law, what was spent or what was asked for.
Canadian federal AI lobbying spend disclosed by statute, 2024 to 2025
$0
There is no statutory requirement to disclose lobbying expenditures in Canada. Source: Lobbying Act, RSC 1985, c 44 (4th Supp.).
No statutory duty. The Lobbying Act imposes no spending disclosure obligation. Public Citizen's "$500M+ Big Tech AI lobby in 2024" headline has no Canadian equivalent because the data is not collected, not because it is suppressed.
Subjects, not topics. The OCL Registry logs general subject matter (Industry, Science and Technology). It does not isolate AI as a subject, so the number of Canadian lobbyists working specifically on AI cannot be drawn from the public record.
Subject, not substance. The OCL form discloses the date, the officials present, and the general subject. It does not disclose what was asked for or what was discussed.
Same gap, different form. The US LD-2 quarterly filing lists topics lobbied on, not what was said in any meeting. Both regimes record subject; neither records substance.
Different system, different gap. The US tracks money quarterly. It does not log individual meetings. Each country shows what the other hides.
Below the statutory trigger. Until the January 2026 OCL threshold change (8 hours per month, down from 20% of duties), the in-house lobbyist registration trigger was structurally porous: federal engagement could occur lawfully without triggering a current registration. We do not allege any breach of the Lobbying Act. Source: OCL Registry of Lobbyists, accessed 2026.
Sources: OCL Annual Report 2024 to 2025; Lobbying Act, RSC 1985, c 44 (4th Supp.); Stanford AI Index 2026, Ch. 8 Fig. 8.4.3 (Digital Policy Alert tracking); Public Citizen, "One in Four Federal Lobbyists Now Work on AI" (2025); OpenSecrets federal lobbying disclosures (LD-2).
01
A US-headquartered firm can shape Canadian regulatory positions through its US trade-association memberships. CUSMA chapters create coordination channels that never appear in the OCL Registry, because no one in Canada is paid to communicate with the federal government.
Source: Lobbying Act mandate; CUSMA Chapter 28 (Good Regulatory Practices).
02
Oil and gas logged 1,135 meetings with Ottawa in 2024. That is the playbook AI is now following. Canada has seen this movie. The script is on the public record. The price tag is not.
Source: OCL Registry of Lobbyists, fossil-fuel registrant communications, 2024.
03
Canada's federal AI bill spent over a year at the INDU committee. 137 witnesses. 113 written briefs. It never finished clause-by-clause review. Prorogation killed it on 6 January 2025. No statute has replaced it. University of Ottawa law professor Michael Geist concluded the previous government "rarely prioritized the issue." Since the bill died, OpenAI and Anthropic have met with Canadian ministers without a current in-house registration. We do not claim industry lobbying killed AIDA; we document the stall.
Source: LEGISinfo and Library of Parliament, Bill C-27 procedural history; Michael Geist, January 2025; OCL Registry of Lobbyists, accessed 2026.
Tied to Demand 01
An emergency global AI governance summit, convened by Canada, with a baseline disclosure standard for AI lobbying as a deliverable. Ottawa convened the landmines treaty in 1997. It can convene this.
Tied to Demand 02
Statutory civil liability for AI-caused harms, with a parallel rule that no provider may invoke a safe-harbour defence while withholding the lobbying record on the rule that protects them.
Tied to Demand 03
An independent body reporting to Parliament, with a statutory mandate to publish quarterly the AI-specific lobbying record (registrant, meeting, subject, ask, outcome). The data Canadians cannot see today, by law.
Compiled by Operation Imaginal, April 2026. Primary sources: Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying of Canada (OCL) Annual Report 2024 to 2025 and Registry of Lobbyists; Lobbying Act, RSC 1985, c 44 (4th Supp.); Stanford AI Index 2026, Ch. 8 Fig. 8.4.3; Public Citizen, "One in Four Federal Lobbyists Now Work on AI" (2025); OpenSecrets and LD-2 disclosures.
See also: the economics of who captures the gains. The Great Transfer, a concept brief on AI-driven wage collapse →
Methodology & Sources
Every figure on this page is sourced from public records. Lobbying in the United States is a legal, constitutionally protected activity governed by the Lobbying Disclosure Act. Lobbying in Canada is governed by the Lobbying Act (RSC 1985, c 44, 4th Supp.) and recorded in the Office of the Commissioner of Lobbying Registry. This page documents publicly disclosed lobbying activity and publicly stated corporate positions in both jurisdictions. It does not allege any unlawful conduct by any company or individual.
Any company, organization, or individual named on this page may submit a response. We will publish substantive corrections and, where appropriate, contrary perspectives alongside the existing content. Write to us at corrections@operationimaginal.org.
We aim for accuracy. If you believe any figure or characterization on this page is incorrect, out of date, or unfair, please write us at corrections@operationimaginal.org. We will verify, correct, and credit. The credibility of this work depends entirely on the figures being right.
Last verified: April 2026.
All quotations are from public statements and are reproduced for the purpose of comment and criticism on matters of public concern. Fair use asserted under 17 U.S.C. § 107 in the United States; fair dealing asserted under the Copyright Act (Canada), s. 29.1 (criticism and review) in Canada.