OTTAWA—Tony Clement personally presided over the $50 million G8 legacy payouts, funneling requests for taxpayer-funded projects in his riding directly through his political office in Huntsville, new documents show.NDP MP Charlie Angus says the use of Clement’s local office was done deliberately to skirt scrutiny and keep watchdogs like the auditor general in the dark.
“We’re looking at a slush fund that was very carefully constructed to remove all the checks and balances and basically put $50 million in the hands of a politician who dispensed that money out of his constituency office,” Angus said in an interview.
“It is clear that a cover-up happened. And it’s also very clear that they used Clement’s constituency office in order to ensure that a cover-up was possible,” said Angus (Timmins—James Bay).
An auditor general’s report in June has already painted a disturbing picture of how $45.7 million in legacy fund cash was dished out with no bureaucratic oversight or paperwork. Reacting to that report, the government conceded there were administrative shortcomings but said none of the cash was misspent.
Yet new documents, obtained from Muskoka-area municipalities obtained by federal NDP researchers using freedom-of-information legislation, shed new light on how Clement’s own office stickhandled funding. Angus was expected to discuss the findings at an Ottawa news conference Monday.
Municipal records from Gravenhurst and Bracebridge show that as far back as 2008 Clement and his local Conservative political team in Huntsville began drumming up projects in the Muskoka area that would qualify for G8 legacy funds. Those who had a hand in shepherding the proposals through the approval process were Clement’s constituency team, staff in his ministerial office and government officials under Clement’s authority.
For instance, beginning in 2008, Clement chaired a committee of Muskoka mayors (known as the Local Area Leadership Group, or LALG) who would help organize the summit, suggest criteria for summit legacy projects and screen proposals that would go forward for possible funding.
The minutes of the group’s Dec. 5, 2008 meeting — marked “confidential” — revealed the central role of Clement’s office.
Under the heading “Review of Project Summary Submissions to Date,” it says: “It was noted that all submissions are to be sent to Minister Clement’s Huntsville Constituency Office and would (from) there be distributed electronically to all committee members.”
To facilitate proposals, the LALG created a one-off application form entitled “2010 G8 Community Project Summary.” The form asked for a description of the proposed project, cost, location and other information. The forms were to go through Clement’s constituency office.
In March 2009, Clement’s constituency manager sent out an appeal to Muskoka-area towns, such as Bracebridge, Parry Sound and Huntsville, for their submissions for G8 projects.
“I have been asked to put out a call for G8 submission specific to the enhancement of the downtown area’s (sic) in each town and municipality,” she says in her email.
The manager, Sondra Read, says submissions should be sent to her and “I will send them to FedNor.”
FedNor is an agency of Industry Canada that funds regional development in northern Ontario. Clement, who was industry minister at the time, was the minister for FedNor. He is now Treasury Board president but has kept responsibility for FedNor.
In early 2009, the town of Gravenhurst sent its proposal for $12.2 million worth of G8 projects directly to Clement’s Huntsville office, adding in a note, “thank you for this opportunity.”
The documents also call into question the auditor general’s conclusion that there was no paper trail and that bureaucrats were shut out of decision-making. “Senior officials were not able to provide us with any information and said their input had not been sought as part of that process,” the June report said.
But documents show that federal bureaucrats were actively involved in the file at various points, suggesting that senior government officials were either consciously involved in a cover-up or had been kept in the dark about the activities of employees in Industry Canada, including FedNor, Infrastructure Canada and Foreign Affairs, which housed the Federal Summit Management Office.
According to the minutes of a 2008 meeting in Huntsville, a senior member of the summit management office was present when local Muskoka officials first discussed how legacy projects would be evaluated and were told that they would be reviewed by the Ottawa’s summit management office.
When the Muskoka mayors group (LALG) chaired by Clement met in February 2009, four officials from FedNor were there for discussions with the mayors about the necessary criteria for projects to be paid for under the G8 legacy fund and the approval process. Tom Dodds, FedNor’s director of international business, “noted that FedNor is going to evaluate all projects applying basic tourism principles,” according to the minutes of the meeting.
In August 2009, Naomi Hirshberg, a senior analyst with the Ontario region of Infrastructure Canada, wrote to Gravenhurst Mayor John Klinck to discuss a draft agreement for G8 funding for Gravenhurst. Hirshberg’s email says Gravenhurst’s funding request “is currently under review internally at Infrastructure Canada” and notes that federal officials are asking for clarification of certain aspects of the city’s proposal.
And officials of FedNor were involved in the selection, design and approval of projects on a regular basis in months leading up to the G8 summit, the records show.
Gemma Collins, Clement’s director of communications, said she couldn’t comment on documents they had not seen. But she noted the government’s response to the auditor general’s findings, which highlighted administrative shortcomings in the handling the G8 spending.
“Our government has committed to making the necessary improvements to the long-standing processes that were used to report the financial details to Parliament,” Collins said.
“I would highlight though, that every tax dollar was spent on priorities identified by the municipalities and that each and every penny was accounted for.”
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Source: Toronto Star
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