Freeland’s GLOBALIST buddy pockets $1 billion in taxpayer contracts: report

Accenture CEO Julie Sweet, who sat on the WEF Board of Trustees alongside Freeland, has received a steady upswing in federal contracts since 2017.

Alex Dhaliwal
  |   December 09, 2024   |   News   |   2 Comments

An IT firm whose CEO had ties to Chrystia Freeland and the World Economic Forum (WEF) has received over a billion dollars in contracts from the Liberal government.

A critical Auditors General's report revealed Accenture PLC, an international consultancy, received $342 million in government contracts concerning the pandemic, most of which were non-competitive.

That was just the tip of the iceberg, according to newly obtained records by the Globe and Mail.

An Access to Information request revealed Export Development Canada (EDC), a Crown bank, bolstered spending on outsourcing IT work, mostly to Accenture and its Brazilian subsidiary.

In 2019, EDC awarded Accenture some $10 million in federal contracts, or one in six (14%) of all IT contracts. That number rose to $50 million the following year, courtesy of pandemic loans.

Parliament tabled the Canada Emergency Business Account (CEBA) in 2020 to provide entrepreneurs with interest-free loans to mitigate business closures. Accenture PLC approved $49.1 billion in loans to some 898,000 businesses, of which $3.5 billion went to ineligible operators.

Finance Minister Freeland, who has not addressed the audit’s findings, contends leniency should be granted to a program “designed and delivered during a global pandemic.” 

“Covid is not an excuse for ignoring the rules,” said Conservative MP Kelly McCauley, before the Commons public accounts committee.

According to the Globe, the total value of all Accenture’s IT contracts skyrocketed to $189 million last year. That amounts to 72% of all IT contracts given by the bank.

Accenture CEO, Julie Sweet, who sat on the WEF Board of Trustees alongside Freeland, has received a steady upswing in federal contracts since 2017. 

As of April 16, 2024, Accenture has pocketed more than $620 million in contracts from the EDC, including work for CEBA, which ends in 2028.

In addition, the IT firm received a five-year “master service agreement” to overhaul the bank’s IT systems for $550 million, of which only $129 million was included in the information request.

“Accenture has become EDC’s primary IT provider following the outcome of the competitive procurement process,” an EDC spokesperson told the Globe in an emailed statement.

The audit report, Canada Emergency Business Account, identified billing discrepancies, where Brazilian call centres charged 14 hours daily for $23.2 million, nearly ten-times the original budget.

“This program could have been delivered for less money,” concluded Karen Hogan, the Auditor General. EDC did not identify misallocated loans at the time of payment.

It poorly monitored $49.1 billion in taxpayer loans to some 898,000 small businesses, reads the audit, citing a “failure to exercise basic controls.”

Mairead Lavery, the bank CEO, said attempts to recuperate funds from ineligible recipients were “underway.” All loans are due by 2026.

Meanwhile, MP McCauley criticized the bank for granting Accenture a series of non-competitive contracts concerning CEBA. 

“You sole-sourced to Accenture and allowed a shark of a consulting company to sole-source a contract to themselves, dictating to Canadians how much taxpayers were going to pay and for what services,” McCauley said.

“We were aware that one of the options had recently been acquired by Accenture, yes,” said Scott Moore, chief financial officer for the bank. 

He later added: “EDC made the final decision to go with the option that was presented to us. It was the lower cost and lower execution risk from among the choices that were available to us.”

In prior testimony last week, Auditor Hogan directly called out the Department of Finance for the taxpayer waste, raising concerns about the size of the deals.

EDC managed the CEBA program at the discretion of Minister Freeland though it lacked the means to oversee it effectively, MPs learned. “For context, in a typical year Export Development Canada extends about 300 loans,” Lavery told the Commons public accounts committee.

“You expressed to the Department of Finance that you did not have the capacity to administer the program, correct?” asked MP McCauley. “We discussed the operational risks,” replied CEO Lavery.

“Who was that with the Department of Finance please?” asked McCauley. “This was with finance officials below the deputy minister level,” replied Lavery.

Opposition MPs want their identities, with some calling for their dismissal, reported Blacklock’s. The mismanagement of CEBA loans cost taxpayers $3.5 billion, or $60,000 per ineligible business.

“I believe they are hiding something,” MP McCauley told committee members. “It’s very clear we have got a lot of issues,” he said.

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Alex Dhaliwal

Calgary Based Journalist

Alex Dhaliwal is a Political Science graduate from the University of Calgary. He has actively written on relevant Canadian issues with several prominent interviews under his belt.

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  • Bernhard Jatzeck
    commented 2024-12-10 01:16:43 -0500
    So, it’s only illegal if one gets caught?
  • Bruce Atchison
    commented 2024-12-09 15:28:31 -0500
    What gangsters the Libranos are! No mere citizen could get away with conflicts of interest crimes. The next election can’t come too soon for me.