OTTAWA—Opposition MPs seized on newly released documents to blast the Harper government Monday for not providing more information on last year’s G8 summit in Muskoka.
The confidential documents unveiled by the NDP reignited charges that then auditor general Sheila Fraser was misled about how $50 million in taxpayers’ money was disbursed.
“Canadians look to the auditor general to protect their interests,” said New Democrat MP Charlie Angus. But “we have a government that appears to have misled the auditor general and thinks they can get away with it.”
In a scathing report released in June just after Fraser retired, interim auditor general John Wiersema painted a disturbing picture of how Conservative MP Tony Clement and several confidants hand-picked the G8 legacy projects that ultimately got $45.7 million in federal funding. The report said there was no evidence federal government officials took part in the normal vetting process to determine which projects qualified for grants.
But confidential emails from Muskoka-area townships, including a fresh batch disclosed by the NDP Monday, indicate high-level involvement by federal officials along with Clement in the disbursal of the G8 money.
Angus told reporters that Wiersema’s staffers told him their conclusions were based solely on information from senior government officials in various federal departments. Angus said the auditors appeared frustrated.
Based on the emails uncovered since June by NDP researchers, he said, “the auditor general’s report is meaningless” because it lacks detail on how the millions in federal cash was handed out.
“Clearly, a lot of people went out of their way to steer the auditor general down the wrong path,” Angus said.
He said it’s clear that Clement and other government officials “did not pass on the documents (to the auditor general) that showed their direct involvement” in the decision-making for funding grants.
As well, he says federal auditors were told there was no paper trail for the projects when in fact written funding requests were funnelled through Clement’s constituency office.
“The auditor general was lied to,” Angus said.
Interim Liberal leader Bob Rae said the new information should prompt the auditor general to reopen the probe of summit spending.
“The auditor general unwittingly gave information to the House which was not entirely correct and the reason that she did so was because she got false information from government officials — or from somebody,” Rae said.
Ghislain Desjardins, a spokesperson for the auditor general, said there are no plans to reopen their audit, calling it a “one-time” report.
However, Wiersema is scheduled to appear before a Commons committee Wednesday and is certain to get asked about the new revelations about how the summit cash was handled.
Angus said the emails indicate Clement had little use for the normal government checks and balances on spending when Ottawa was disbursing millions into the Muskoka region in advance of the 2010 G8 summit in Huntsville.
The NDP said one of the emails suggests Clement (then federal industry minister) concurred with Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty that bureaucrats at Infrastructure Canada were getting in the way by conducting a review of planned G8 spending.
Doughty wrote to Clement, saying “this is totally unacceptable — I am sure you agree,” according to the email. Clement responded, “I agree. I’m working on it.”
The New Democrats have accused the Conservatives of setting up a “parallel” funding process deliberately organized to skirt normal government oversights when Ottawa handed out the G8 legacy fund in Clement’s Parry Sound-Muskoka riding last year. Clement is now Treasury Board president.
Clement has denied any wrongdoing in connection to the $50 million fund. The Conservatives have acknowledged that the federal auditor general was right to conclude in June that the funding process lacked transparency and accountability.
