Conservatives, government officials misled AG

The Hill Times:

Parliament Hill — Newly unearthed documents about $50-million in lavish G8 spending for projects in Treasury Board President Tony Clement’s riding disclose Mr. Clement was up to his eyeballs in the planning as towns and cities vied for the money and that federal bureaucrats may have misled federal auditors about their role.

The documents, obtained by the federal NDP under Ontario’s Municipal Freedom of Information and Protection of Privacy Act, disclosed that Mr. Clement (Parry Sound-Muskoka, Ont.), Industry Minister last year when the summit of G8 leaders was held in Huntsville, Ont., deep in wealthy Muskoka cottage country in the heart of Mr. Clement’s riding, show that Mr. Clement himself chaired a “Local Area Leadership Group Committee” made up of local mayors and councillors who wanted a share of the federal largesse.

Minutes of one of the group’s earlier meetings, held on Sept. 12, 2008, well before the government presented Parliament with what former Auditor General Sheila Fraser criticized as a misleading request to authorize the spending, shows a senior federal official from the Summit Management Office was present, as well as Joseph Klein, manager of the Deerhurst Resort where the leaders met and stayed and which benefited indirectly from highway and infrastructure upgrades for the event.

The documents also show that Cheryl Forth, a senior official with Fednor, the northern Ontario development agency Mr. Clement oversees in Cabinet, was also involved in helping local communities develop requests for funding, along with another senior Fednor official.

But after Ms. Fraser’s auditors went through the records they could locate about spending criteria for the projects and information about how the decisions were made, her report, which she held back last April until after the May 2 federal election, said departmental officials told the auditors they had no information about project selection because they were not involved at those early stages.

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