A one-time director general at the federal environment ministry has started lobbying his former employer, just two months after his job was eliminated in the latest round of spending cuts.

Jesse Fleming registered in August to lobby for Emissions Reduction Alberta and in September to work on behalf of Enerva Energy Solutions, in both cases targeting officials Environment and Climate Change Canada (ECCC). Before that, he’d worked for the federal government for more than two decades, most recently as director general of the programs directorate for the climate change branch of ECCC.

That role ended in June. He told the IJF the career switch was a matter of necessity.

“My position in the federal public service was eliminated through the Government of Canada’s Comprehensive Expenditure Review. Given the options available to me, I chose to begin the next stage of my career by founding Jesse Fleming Consulting Inc.,” Fleming wrote in an email.

The spending review, outlined in the 2025 federal budget, aims to cut $13 billion in expenditures each year over five years, delivering on a campaign promise from Mark Carney’s Liberals in the last election. About 840 full-time positions, or approximately 10 per cent of the workforce, have been cut at ECCC, out of nearly 19,000 expected job cuts across the public service.

According to Fleming’s lobbying registrations, this is not a designated public office that would be subject to a mandatory cooling-off period.

Federal rules designate a five-year waiting period before certain lobbying activities for anyone who has been a cabinet minister, held the senior executive position for a government department, which could include titles like deputy minister or CEO, or served as associate deputy minister, assistant deputy minister and the equivalent.

Fleming told the IJF that “post-employment restrictions prohibit me receiving any sort of advantage from former colleagues in terms of government engagement. I would never seek any preferred treatment.”

He holds the title of principal adviser at his new firm and boasts of having “directed funds that deployed over $3 billion in federal investments to leverage climate change actions” during his time in the public service.

Fleming said he’s particularly interested in supporting clean technology companies and projects designed to cut greenhouse gas emissions.

Enerva, a Toronto-based company that specializes in emissions reduction and energy efficiency, is hoping to speak with federal officials to “encourage support for energy efficiency initiatives, such as the recapitalization of the Green Industrial Facilities and Manufacturing program,” according to Fleming’s registration.

According to the IJF’s new Paper Trail database, six of eight lobbyists who have registered to advocate for the company have previously held public office. So far this year, Enerva has recorded four communications with federal officials, but it has no previous recorded government contracts.

Emissions Reduction Alberta, a provincially and federally funded agency, wants to speak to ECCC officials about “clean fuel regulations, with respect to potential improvements for registered emission reduction funding programs as a compliance option.” The federal regulations are designed to gradually reduce fuel emissions.

ECCC spokesperson Samantha Bayard told the IJF in an email that ministry employees “are bound by stringent conflict of interest rules to ensure that former employment status does not provide preferential access, influence or advantage in departmental decision-making.”

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