The federal Green Fund ignored numerous complaints about mismanagement and toxic working conditions until Ottawa intervened and cut funding this fall, a whistleblower told a parliamentary committee Monday evening. I testified before.
A former Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) employee testified publicly before the House of Commons industry committee on condition that he not be named. Since he testified publicly, his image could be exploited.
The witness said tens of millions of dollars in public funds were misused by a federal foundation that funds small and medium-sized businesses in the clean technology field.
He said employees had raised numerous questions over the years about breaches of conflict of interest policies, favoritism at senior management levels and “gross mismanagement” of public funds.
The whistleblower says the allegations were ignored within SDTC until a group of current and former employees of which he is a member brought the situation to the attention of the government earlier this year.
”[The complaints] It was never taken seriously and was always swept under the rug,” said a former employee.
After receiving the whistleblower report, the Department of Innovation, Science and Economic Development (ISED) commissioned Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton to investigate. A report released in October verified many of the allegations raised by the whistleblower.
The whistleblower worked at SDTC from 2020 to 2022. He said he left the organization voluntarily and, unlike several of his former colleagues, was not bound by a nondisclosure agreement that limited what he could say about his former employer.
“I’m not a disgruntled employee,” he said, adding that he believes in the foundation’s mission.
Former employees said several human resources managers have been fired from SDTC over the years and failed to adequately respond to employee complaints.
In his testimony, the former employee raised a number of questions about the approximately $40 million in special payments made to companies with existing funding agreements with SDTC during the COVID-19 pandemic.
He said SDTC determined in 2021 that the majority of these companies had sufficient capital to weather the pandemic’s impact on their activities.
“Businesses didn’t need it,” he told lawmakers about the nearly $20 million in funding approved in 2021.
He said he believes SDTC spent the funds to ensure certain senior executives met performance targets and received year-end bonuses in 2020 and 2021.
According to the funding agreement with ISED, SDTC will receive $1 billion to fund companies in the clean technology sector between 2021 and 2026.
Following the release of Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton’s report, SDTC has seen the resignation of board chair Annette Verchulen and CEO Leah Lawrence.
Verchuren was criticized for participating in approving SDTC funding for his company in 2020 and 2021.
To address human resources complaints, Ottawa hired the law firm McCarthy Tetrault to investigate allegations of workplace misconduct within SDTC.
Additionally, the Board of Audit has launched its own investigation into SDTC.
The government suspended funding for new SDTC projects in October until corrective action was taken following Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton’s report. Innovation Minister François-Philippe Champagne said he would wait for McCarthy-Tétrault’s report before deciding on SDTC’s next steps.
