BlackBerry has been active in ensuring its views are known in Ottawa and that Ottawa is aware a foreign sale is one of the options on the table for the company.Matthew Sherwood/The Globe and Mail
Now that BlackBerry Ltd. is officially for sale, the focus will naturally turn to what Ottawa will have to say about any bids that emerge.
A foreign takeover would put Ottawa in the spotlight, raising the prospect that Canadian jobs would be lost. Such issues have been front and centre in other major takeover bids in recent years, including the offers from Asian state-controlled enterprises for major energy producers, and the hostile bid for Potash Corp. of Saskatchewan that the government eventually turned down.
BlackBerry has been active in ensuring its views are known in Ottawa and that Ottawa is aware a foreign sale is one of the options. BlackBerry enjoys significant access in the capital, having met with former Bank of Canada governor Mark Carney, Finance Minister Jim Flaherty and Prime Minister Stephen Harper in the last year.
While company officials go to most of the meetings personally, lobbyists at Hill & Knowlton have been accompanying them to a few of the meetings and holding some of the meetings on BlackBerry's behalf since November. BlackBerry and its lobbyists have had at least 22 meetings with federal government officials so far this year, according to the lobbyist registry, the majority of which have been with Industry Canada. The company has had at least two meetings this year with a policy adviser in the Prime Minister's office.
The company had 46 meetings in 2012, compared to 13 in each of 2010 and 2011. BlackBerry underwent a strategic review process beginning in March, 2012. The topics appear to be very wide ranging.
Both the company and Hill & Knowlton are registered to lobby on topics including obligations regarding lawful access (investigative powers and technical assistance for law enforcement), Canadian copyright and intellectual property legislation, tax policy on scientific research and development, spectrum policy, trade policy, and Canadian anti-spam legislation.
Over the past year, officials close to BlackBerry have also flagged for Ottawa the likelihood that the company could be sold at some point, possibly to foreigners, according to a source.
The most recent meeting that has been registered – it often takes more than a month for meetings to show up on the registry – was in May with Bruce Archibald, who is president of the Federal Economic Development Agency for Southern Ontario. That four-year-old agency is one of a number of regional development groups the Conservatives formed under their Economic Action Plan. Waterloo, Ont.-based BlackBerry has become an integral part of the economy in the Kitchener-Waterloo area. The topic of discussion during the meeting with Mr. Archibald was listed as "science and technology." A week earlier the company met with Gary Goodyear, who is now minister of state responsible for the federal economic development agency for southern Ontario.
(Boyd Erman is a Globe and Mail Capital Markets Reporter & Streetwise Columnist.)
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