Canada’s Auditor General found poor oversight into pandemic contracts given to Accenture PLC, a firm with close ties to Trudeau’s finance minister.

Parliament in 2020 tabled the Canada Emergency Business Account, providing entrepreneurs with $60,000 interest-free loans to mitigate business closures. Accenture, a global IT firm, oversaw operations at a $209 million cost. 

Export Development Canada (EDC), a Crown bank, managed the program at the discretion of Minister Freeland though it lacked the means to oversee it effectively, MPs learned.

The “insider” is Deputy Prime Minister Chrystia Freeland, who sits on the World Economic Forum’s Board of Trustees along with the CEO of Accenture, Julie Sweet.

Accenture contracts awarded by the federal government have roughly increased by over 4000% since 2017.

Questions? https://t.co/6VjhutQZld pic.twitter.com/JXglIn5KUL

— Andy Lee (@RealAndyLeeShow) June 29, 2023

Karen Hogan, the auditor general, testified Accenture wrote its own contracts for years, running a “quasi-competitive” bidding process that a subsidiary won.

Accenture CEO, Julie Sweet, sits on the Board of Trustees for the World Economic Forum (WEF) alongside Minister Freeland. Federal contracts awarded to Accenture by the Trudeau government increased from two in 2017 to 95 in 2021.

“The non-competitive contracts awarded to Accenture represented 92 per cent of the total value of $342 million in contracts related to the CEBA program,” Hogan told the public accounts committee Monday.

“It is that kind of lack of managing a conflict-of-interest that I would have expected EDC to have done better,” she added, noting there were other “significant weaknesses” in the agency’s contract management.

Yes, Accenture is just a big Davos money-making scam for the consulting kleptocracy, run by Chrystia Freeland’s WEF trustee pals.

They get private jets. We get the bills. And not much to show for it. https://t.co/78OxtvVy1G

— Andy Lee (@RealAndyLeeShow) December 2, 2024

Of notable concern, EDC approved loans when applicants were “clearly” ineligible, the Office of the Auditor General (OAG) found.

“For example, documents were accepted without a business name or for expenses outside of the eligible period of the program. EDC’s 2021 internal audit also found similar issues in its review of expense documents submitted, but the corporation decided to consider these loans as eligible,” reads the audit report Canada Emergency Business Account.

“The program was not managed with due regard for value for money,” Hogan told MPs, openly criticizing Finance Canada and Global Affairs Canada for not properly monitoring EDC’s work. Mismanagement led to ineligible applicants receiving $3.5 billion in loans, reported Blacklock’s. 

EDC gave out $49.1 billion in taxpayer loans to some 900,000 small businesses.

The Crown bank is currently evaluating whether it should recoup those sums, reported the National Post. All loans are due by 2026. 

“In practical terms, implementing it would be challenging and may also come at significant cost as it requires assessing the full population of loans in the non-deferrable expense stream,” Todd Winterhalt, an EDC vice-president, told the Post.

Hogan expressed concern with the reluctance of EDC to recuperate loans from ineligible businesses, reported Blacklock’s.

“I’m concerned that there is a resistance to wanting to follow up on recovering funds,” she said, “and if the government doesn’t want to do that, they should just be transparent with Canadian taxpayers.”

CRA admits to $10 billion in pandemic relief sent to ineligible applicants

Only a fraction has been recovered, with billions in losses to be expected.

MORE by @Robertopedia: https://t.co/lSI6a1f0BQ

— Rebel News (@RebelNewsOnline) May 21, 2024

Auditor Hogan also testified the agency failed to “exercise basic controls” in its contracting with the global IT giant. The audit confirmed no strong checks and balances were in place, especially for invoicing.

“Rates charged varied from approximately $60 to more than $750 per hour,” wrote auditors. A call centre originally budgeted at $2.78 million instead cost $23.2 million, Blacklock’s learned.

In particular, the audit identified billing discrepancies, where Brazilian call centre agents charged 14 hours daily despite being open for only 9 hours.

“This program could have been delivered for less money,” Hogan concluded. However, EDC did not identify these discrepancies at the time of payment.

"That sounds like fraud," Tory MP Kelly McCauley said after hearing the Auditor General speak on Accenture basically awarding a contract to itself:
"EDC and Finance and Global Affairs had identified the need to move to a competitive process because they were concerned about the… pic.twitter.com/jVvCumBJn6

— Noé Chartier (@NChartierET) December 2, 2024

Conservative MP Brad Vis said cabinet should have corrected these irregularities from the start. “How do we stop this from happening again?” he asked. 

“Export Development Canada … informed the Departments of Finance and Foreign Affairs that they were going to be turning to a third party to rely on them to deliver this,” replied Auditor Hogan.

Conservative MP Kelly McCauley also criticized EDC for throwing away taxpayer funds.

“I would expect the public service not to give a contract to Accenture and tell them, ‘You can take taxpayers’ money and hire yourself and set your own prices and decide how much taxpayers would pay,’” he said.

Finance Minister Freeland did not address the audit’s findings Monday. “This report fails to properly acknowledge the program was designed and delivered during a global pandemic,” she wrote in a statement.

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