Ottawa Advocacy Trip Recap
Geoff Park, Matt Wilfrid and Shauna Joyce on Parliament Hill
In October, CCA’s leadership, Shauna Joyce, Geoff Park, and Matt Wilfrid undertook an ambitious plan: to travel to Ottawa to advocate in person for our sector to federal leaders on Parliament Hill.
It was an enormously successful trip, and has helped us to gain even further momentum on federal advocacy priorities that are important for camps across the country - including the Canada Summer Jobs program, tax fairness for camps, and more.
The trip was a natural next step in our growing 2025 federal advocacy. Earlier this year, we compiled our advocacy priorities into a single a document — a pre-budget submission to the Government of Canada, highlighting our sector’s policy priorities and requests for the 2025 Budget, the first under the new minority government led by Prime Minister Mark Carney.
With Budget 2025 scheduled for release in November, we used that pre-budget submission as an on-ramp for requesting meetings with Cabinet Ministers and Members of Parliament from across party lines to discuss our priorities. We held a full day of meetings with three key MPs:
Scott Aitchison, Conservative MP for Parry Sound—Muskoka (Ontario), who represents the largest concentration of accredited camps in Canada.
James Bezan, Conservative Member of Parliament for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman (Manitoba) who has several camps in his home riding.
Leslie Church, Liberal MP for Toronto—St. Paul's (Ontario), who is also Parliamentary Secretary to the secretaries of State for Labour, for Seniors, and for Children and Youth.
In addition to the scheduled meetings, there was more. There was an impromptu discussion in a Parliament Hill hallway with Melissa Lantsman, Conservative MP for Thornhill (Ontario) who has many constituents who attend summer camps and who’s well acquainted with our sector thanks to past engagement with the Ontario Camps Association.
The CCA team also attended Question Period in person in West Block, where the team sat in the public gallery immediately facing the Prime Minister.
What’s more: even though schedules meant some federal leaders weren’t available in person during our one day in Ottawa, several offered virtual meetings on other days - which have already turned into virtual meetings with the office of the Honourable Steven Guilbeault, Minister of Canadian Heritage, with MP Patrick Weiler, and with the office of the Honourable Anna Gainey, Secretary of State (Children and Youth) and a former board member for CCA member Camp Kawartha.
Matt, Parky and Shauna at West Block, Parliament Hill
Our advocacy is already bearing fruit.
When Budget 2025 was released on November 6th, it included an expansion of the Canada Summer Jobs program - a move the CCA had specifically called for in our pre-budget submission.
Our Ottawa push has also opened several new doors and helped us build relationships with contacts in the new Parliament of Canada, and has reinforced to us that federal leaders have an interest in our sector, have their own positive experiences with Canadian camping, and are open to helping us.
We’re looking forward to building on that momentum further to help make further progress for you, our members across Canada.
Stay Tuned...
There is much more to share in the coming weeks including some specific guidance around Canada Summer Jobs, international staffing updates and reports from our next set of government meetings.
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Parky, Matt and Shauna’s passes for Question Period