G8 funding decisions deliberately hidden from AG: NDP

OTTAWA - The federal NDP are accusing the Conservatives of deliberately hiding G8 funding decisions from the Auditor General after new documents suggest that the government set up its own funding process to dole out the $50 million in Minister Tony Clement’s cottage-country riding. 

The documents – obtained under Freedom of Information laws from the municipalities where projects were built – show that Clement funneled the projects through his constituency office and had several federal public servants quietly involved in the process.   

Clement asked city officials to send their ideas for so-called legacy projects directly to his constituency office in Huntsville – a task usually handled by federal civil servants.  

“I have been asked to put out a call for G8 submissions specific to the enhancement of the downtown area's in each town and municipality,” wrote Clement’s constituency manager Sondra Read in an email dated March 30, 2008. “We are looking for storefront renovations, roadwork, landscaping and general beautification, lighting, signage, anything that will enhance and is specific to the downtown area.” 

NDP MP and ethics critic Charlie Angus said by doing this, the government kept the process out of the watchful eye of the Auditor General. 

“The processes were set up beyond the hands of the Auditor General and that is very disturbing,” Angus said. “It became something Tony Clement managed to hand out, out of the back of his car.” 

In her June report, then Auditor General Sheila Fraser found the federal government kept Parliament in the dark about $50 million used for building projects.

The report criticized the Conservative government for not informing their parliamentary colleagues that more than half of an $83 million pot of money supposed to be used to ease border congestion was actually being used for 32 building projects in and around Huntsville, Ont., where the summit was hosted.

The Auditor General’s Office also lambasted the government for how it selected the projects saying it could not find any documentation about how projects were selected and that it seems the federal public service was shut-out of the process.  

At the time, interim Auditor General John Wiersema said in his career as an auditor he has never encountered a situation that had no paper trail. 

But the Auditor General does not examine the municipal governments and did not have access to the documents obtained by the NDP, which show federal civil servants were in fact involved. 

Officials from Industry Canada and FedNor – a funding agency Clement oversaw as minister – sat in on meetings with local officials on Feb. 27, 2009.  

Gerald Cosette, then an assistant deputy minister at Foreign Affairs, also attended several of the meetings.  

The documents also shed more light on how the government chose the projects – questions raised in the June report.  

A briefing note dated Feb. 4, 2009 explains that Clement’s constituents proposed projects, which were then considered by something called a Local Area Leadership Group. The group – made up of municipal officials – then reviewed the projects and forwarded its recommendations to Minister Clement, the mayor of Huntsville and the manager at Deerhurst Resort. The final decisions were made at the Summit Management Office at Foreign Affairs.  

Angus said he could not comment on whether the process was illegal or broke any major rules, but he said it did break trust with taxpayers.

“(Clement) is certainly guilty of showing disrespect to the Canadian taxpayer,” he said.

Minister Clement was out of the country on Monday, but his office set out a statement defending his funding decisions and the process used to make them. 

“The Auditor General has already fully investigated this spending and all information was made available to the Auditor General,” the statement reads. “Every single project funded has been proudly announced by our government, and can be found on the Department of Infrastructure website.” 

The statement also said that every penny spent was accounted for and it reaffirmed the Tories pledge to improve the funding process in the future. 

Some of the public infrastructure projects the money was used for include public bathrooms, road improvements, a facility for the University of Waterloo, water fountains, an electrical system at a sporting venue, welcome signs to city centres and building parks. Some of the projects were located more than 100 kilometres away from the summit site.