The Trudeau government is shutting down its scandal-plagued Sustainable Development Technology Canada fund, after a scathing Auditor-General's report found contracting rules being ignored, board members voting in clear conflicts of interest, and funding being given to ineligible projects,
Government shuts down scandal-plagued cleantech fund after scathing auditor report | National Post | Christopher Nardi:
June 4, 2024 "Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne announced he is shutting down Sustainable Development Technology Canada — a scandal-plagued cleantech fund derogatively referred to as the 'green slush fund' by Conservative MPs — in response to a scathing auditor general report on Tuesday. The government plans to transfer STDC’s funding responsibilities to the National Research Council (NRC)....
"Auditor General Karen Hogan found that one out of six projects funded by STDC that she audited to the tune of millions were ineligible. [She] also found the organization had serious governance issues.... The auditor also found that the federal public service consistently disregarded its own contracting rules when it awarded $209 million worth of contracts to consulting firm McKinsey, which she described as a symptom of larger issues with the government’s overall procurement practices.... Hogan published two scathing reports Tuesday on how the government manages taxpayer funds either though professional services contracts or funding granted by STDC.
"A first audit of nearly 100 contracts awarded since 2011 to controversial consulting firm McKinsey & Company found 'frequent disregard for procurement policies and guidance' and infrequent proof of value for money.... 71 per cent of those contracts, worth $118 million, were awarded on a non-competitive basis. It also took a swipe at the government’s central purchasing agency, Public Services and Procurement Canada (PSPC), for failing to challenge other federal organizations when they issued contracts that appeared to overlap....
"Hogan audited 33 of the 97 contracts granted to McKinsey since 2011 and found that critical information was missing in over half (19) of them, such as why the contract was needed, what were the expected deliverables and if they were all provided, and whether the “ultimate intent” of the contract was met. 'All of the above meant that value for money could not be demonstrated for these contracts,' she wrote....
"In her report on STDC, Hogan says she found 'significant lapses' in the foundation’s governance and how it managed public funds. Between 2017 and 2023, STDC’s board approved $836 million worth of funding aimed at helping green technology projects start up, scale up, support their seed funding round, or develop partnerships and networks. But the AG found that the foundation gave out dozens of funding awards — totalling nearly $60 million — to projects that didn’t meet its eligibility criteria, failed to follow its conflict-of-interest policies in nearly 100 cases, and that its board didn’t even have the minimum number of members required by law.
“'We found that the foundation awarded funding to projects that were ineligible, that conflicts of interest existed in some instances, and that certain requirements in the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act were not met,' reads the report. 'It’s not always clear that funding decisions made on behalf of Canadian taxpayers were appropriate and justified,” Hogan added in a statement. 'We found 90 cases where their records showed that members of the board who had declared a conflict of interest were involved in discussions and then voted on awarding funding to a project, and that should not happen,' she told the Commons public accounts committee Tuesday morning....
"STDC has been in turmoil since the media reported on internal whistleblower reports flagging significant governance and conflict of issues within the organization beginning in February 2023. There are at least five ongoing or completed investigations into the STDC’s governance, labour practices and funding decisions, including by the AG and the federal ethics commissioner. The president of the board of directors, Annette Verschuren, resigned last year after being the subject of an investigation by the ethics commissioner. She admitted to having approved more than $200,000 in subsidies to the company NRStor, which she runs. The president and CEO of SDTC, Leah Lawrence, also resigned."
Read more: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/ottawa-ignored-rules-hiring-mckinsey-auditor-general
“Billion-dollar green slush fund scandal”: Conservatives push for answers to whistleblower claims | Global News | December 12, 2023:
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