Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
Witnesses, the Auditor General's report says that they found that the SDTC board did not ensure SDTC's “compliance with its enabling legislation.” They also found that “the board did not follow the process required by the contribution agreements to approve funding.” These are pretty damning statements by the Auditor General.
To evidence this, in her “Findings”, paragraph 6.27 states:
For the 58 projects described in paragraph 6.21, we reviewed and analyzed the materials that Sustainable Development Technology Canada had used to screen and assess projects for funding. This included budgets, corporate information, risk assessments, external expert reviewers' reports, and materials and minutes of the related meetings of the Project Review Committee and the board of directors.
Both of you were members of the board.
It continues:
We found that 2 Ecosystem projects were clearly ineligible, as they did not fund or support the development or demonstration of a new technology. While we did not perform a technological assessment of projects, we also found 7 Start-up projects and 1 Scale-up project where, in our view, the foundation's documents did not demonstrate that eligibility criteria were met.... Overall, these 10 projects were approved for $59 million in funding, of which $51 million was disbursed as at the end of our audit period.
The Auditor General found that 10 projects, totalling $59 million in funding, were approved despite not meeting eligibility criteria. Was the board made aware of these projects and the fact that they did not meet eligibility criteria?
Mr. Kukucha.