Yes. Thanks, Mr. Chair.
With respect to the Sustainable Development Technology Canada study, we've had pretty serious developments over the last number of weeks. This, of course, is a question of a whistle-blower who has brought forward very serious allegations about the misappropriation of taxpayer money and about conflicts of interest at Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
We've heard some witness testimony. Following that witness testimony, we had the CEO of the organization resign and the chair of the organization resign. We've had an Auditor General investigation launched and an Ethics Commissioner investigation launched, and a member of the board, a further individual, has resigned.
It's incredibly important that we're able to shed light on this very serious matter, so I have a motion that I would like to move. I have it printed, but I believe the clerk should have just received it electronically. I dropped it in the mailbox for the interpretation folks. The motion is as follows:
That the committee invite the whistleblower—the individual who contacted the committee to identify wrongdoings at Sustainable Development Technology Canada—to provide their testimony, and that the committee make every accommodation necessary to facilitate the witness testimony in public before Friday, Dec. 1, 2023.
Mr. Chair, this is a very straightforward motion about an issue that is incredibly serious. The report from Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton that was commissioned after the whistle-blower brought these concerns forward to the Prime Minister's department, the PCO, identifies numerous issues that, although they didn't give rise to the minister or the government taking action and removing anyone from the board.... Even though we heard the CFO for the industry minister say that they didn't have confidence in the board and that people needed to be fired, nobody was fired. They were satisfied with this fact-finding exercise and said that they wanted the board to implement the recommendations.
This is unbelievable because it precipitated an investigation by the Auditor General. It rose to the level that the Auditor General would investigate but didn't seem to give enough concern to the minister that he would take action. A small sample of contracts were examined, and $40 million in misappropriated funds was identified, a sample of less than two dozen of hundreds—literally hundreds—of grants that had been given out.
With respect to conflicts of interest, we know, of course, that the Ethics Commissioner is now investigating, because we heard from the chair—the now former chair of the board—that she moved a motion at this board to give her own company more than $200,000 and then drew $120,000 from that company, but she said that there was no conflict of interest. It is unacceptable that we have a situation where we have a billion-dollar slush fund being raided by insiders and the well-connected, while we have people lined up in record numbers at food banks.
The information that we have so far is not because of the robust practices of this organization or the stewardship of the minister and his department. It's because whistle-blowers came forward.
They furnished the PCO, the Prime Minister's department, with a 300-page slide deck detailing all the problems—from human resources to funding being paid out that was not eligible based on the contribution agreement. Then we hear the minister didn't even look at the deck. It's incredible.
I want to lay out, from the RCGT report, some of the issues they found. I'll read from it directly. It says, “From March 20 to September 1, 2023, RCGT conducted a fact-finding exercise”.
That's the first place where I want to pause. This is what the minister described as a “forensic audit”, but it's not a forensic audit. RCGT's section 1.1 calls it a “fact-finding exercise”. There's a big difference between a fact-finding exercise and a forensic audit. That is, of course, why the Auditor General is going to look into this. It says, “there were sufficient facts to support a subsequent due process investigation of the allegations, as permitted under ISED authority granted by the contribution agreement between ISED and the Corporation.”
Some of the “Key Observations” in the report were, under “Conflict of Interest”, the board's “policy does not require board members and employees to declare conflicts with consultants, expert reviewers and other companies providing services.” This is basic stuff.
We heard from the board chair that she was selected because of her extensive experience leading organizations. Well, I have never been the CEO or COO of Home Depot, like the now former chair had in her experience, but it would be surprising to me to find out that the head of a corporation like that wouldn't have to declare conflicts of interest. This is basic stuff. The reassurance we got, of course, was her lawyer saying she didn't break any rules. At a very minimum, it's the appearance of a conflict of interest. People entrusted with taxpayers' money should be working to avoid that. When we have an actual conflict of interest and a motion being moved by an individual who will then financially benefit from the decision, and who sits at the table while all of her fellow board members vote on it...that's unbelievable.
One of the findings of this report is.... It's incredible. Of the items that aren't redacted, we can see that, when the board took these decisions, it didn't have debates that resulted in any kind of dissent, split vote or examples where there was a question—where some people agreed and some people wanted to abstain from this. Its decisions were unanimous every single time. When the board chair brought forward a motion that would give her company hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars, she knew it would get unanimous approval. She sat at the table, looked her colleagues in the eye, raised her hand and voted to give a couple of hundred thousand bucks to her company, and then directly drew out $120,000 from that company. If that's not a conflict of interest and corruption, nothing is.
