1 day Ago By Lorne Gunter
Article content It’s been said that “Success has many fathers, but failure is an orphan.” By that standard, the Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), more commonly known as the green slush fund), is a failure. No one in the Liberal government or the federal bureaucracy even admits to knowing about the widespread misspending of taxpayer dollars – nearly $1 billion – nor the handing out of rich contracts to friends of the fund’s directors and the directors themselves.
Recommended Videos The most recent example of this convenient amnesia came Monday when a former Industry Department deputy minister, who was in charge when most of the irregularities occurred, insisted it wasn’t his responsibility to police the ethics of boards operating under his department’s authority. John Knubley, who retired as deputy minister in 2019, told the Commons public accounts committee it wasn’t his job to enforce ethics, but rather to ensure boards and commissions that fell under Industry Canada would “develop, refine and implement (their own) policies for real or perceived conflict.” Knubley told the committee it wasn’t his job to determine whether the hundreds of millions doled out by the sustainability fund was awarded free of conflict.
His job, he explained “was to make it clear that was their responsibility,” at the board level. But that doesn’t absolve Knubley of responsibility. Given the level of corruption and incompetence uncovered this past spring by Auditor General Karen Hogan, Knubley obviously wasn’t very good at making it clear to cabinet-appointed boards that they had to develop and enforce ethics policies.
The green slush fund was found last spring by Auditor General Karen Hogan to have awarded scores of contracts to projects that didn’t qualify for tax funding because they didn’t support the development of new, sustainable technologies. Most projects that did receive funding vastly overestimated the amount of carbon emissions they reduced. And, most damningly, of the 226 projects funded in the past six years for a total of $836 million, there were 186 conflicts of interest.
Perhaps the most egregious violation by the board (a desperate Liberal cabinet disbanded the fund back in June) was a $217,000 grant awarded to a company in which Chair Annette Verschuren was personally involved. Failure has no mothers, either. Verschuren has stated she, too, was unaware of any conflicts at SDTC.
Navdeep Bains, the former Liberal Industry minister in charge when most of the improper payments were made, has also abandoned this bastard child. Speaking at the end of October, Bains, who is now an executive with Rogers Communications, said he did not recall ever being told about ethics concerns. His only responsibility was to “appoint 7 of the 15 board members.
” But one of the big reasons governments appoint directors to publicly funded agencies and boards is so those directors will keep the appropriate minister up to date about any developments or concerns, including conflicts of interest. I am convinced the Trudeau Liberals have formed the most incompetent government in the post-war period, some 80 years. However, to believe that this degree of misspending and self-enrichment could go on with no one noticing would require a level of incompetence that even I cannot pin on the Liberals and federal bureaucrats.
Somebody had to know. And probably a lot of somebodies. Which makes the current showdown in the House of Commons so critical.
Back in June, the opposition parties all voted that the Liberals turn over all relevant documents regarding the slush fund to the Commons law clerk who would transfer the documents to the RCMP to investigate for charges. So far, the Liberals have only turned over documents that are blanked out or have pages missing, which the Commons motion specifically forbids. The release of unredacted documents is crucial not only to getting to the bottom of the scandal but also to proving this government is not above the law.
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