OTTAWA—Conservative cabinet minister Tony Clement was involved in choosing which projects were selected for the multi-million dollar G8 legacy fund, according to documents obtained by the federal New Democrats.

“It is my understanding that MINO [the Minister’s Office] advised Infrastructure Canada which projects should be supported under the G8 Infrastructure & Legacy Fund and their staff prepared the contribution agreements for them accordingly,” said a January 13, 2010 email from Federal Economic Development Initiative for Northern Ontario (FedNor) official Tom Dodds that the NDP released to the media on Monday.

The auditor general released a scathing report last June accusing the Conservative government of misleading Parliament about the purpose of the $45.7-million G8 Legacy Infrastructure Fund that was divvied up between 32 projects in Ontario cottage country hand-picked by Clement (the MP for Parry Sound—Muskoka), Huntsville Mayor Claude Doughty and a local businessman.

Clement, who was industry minister during the lead-up to the 2010 G8 Summit, told Commons committee last November that while municipalities had submitted 242 proposals through his constituency office, it was the local mayors that had whittled down the list and insisted he had no role in choosing which ones received federal funding.

“I know there is this mythology — as it was put rather interestingly during the election campaign — that I was at a bar somewhere in Muskoka with two other guys making the decisions,” Clement told the public accounts committee on Nov. 2 last year, when he also conceded the process, especially when it came to the paperwork, was imperfect. “That’s just a myth. It never happened that way. We were not involved in selecting the projects.”

Foreign Affairs Minister John Baird, who was transport minister at the time, also told the committee that he was the one who had signed off on all the projects.

A spokeswoman for Clement dismissed the news and acknowledged that while the minister had recommended projects, it was Baird who had approved them.

“The NDP has confirmed once again, facts that are already well-known, on the record, and well documented,” Jennifer Gearey wrote in an email Monday. “Minister Clement recommended projects to Minister Baird and Minister Baird alone had the authority to approve funding for these projects. This is an embarrassing attempt by the NDP to keep a non-story alive.”

Clement had told the Commons committee last year that he would characterize his role as one of “coordination” between the federal government and community leaders and that he had "recommended" the project to Baird.

A memo prepared for the deputy minister at Industry Canada the same day Clement appeared suggests the minister’s office had taken on a bigger role than was initially planned.

The memo prepared by the deputy minister’s chief of staff, Paul Halucha, says that according to Dodds, Clement had originally wanted FedNor to evaluate projects but later reduced the agency’s role to cataloguing them.

“Mr. Dodds indicated that ... it was agreed to with Minister Clement’s office that, given Transport Canada’s responsibility for the administration of the G8 Legacy Fund, FedNor’s ‘evaluation’ would be limited to the cataloguing of projects,” says the memo summarizing an Oct. 30 interview with Dodds that the NDP obtained through the Access to Information Act.

“With regards to the decision making process, Mr. Dodds noted that FedNor did not provide any advice, analysis, or project ranking which could be mistaken for a due diligence process ... ” says the memo, which notes that FedNor simply entered information it received from Clement’s office into a spreadsheet to help track the spending.

“Finally, once Minister Clement’s office provided the list of recommended projects to Minister Baird’s office, FedNor officials transferred the catalogue of projects to Infrastructure Canada officials,” Halucha wrote. “All 242 project proposals were sent; this included the 32 projects which were recommended by Minister Clement.”

New Democrat ethics critic Charlie Angus charged on Monday that the new documents contradict what Clement told committee.

“He misled the Canadian people,” Angus told a news conference in Ottawa, later urging Prime Minister Stephen Harper to discipline Clement.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“I expect and I am calling on the Conservatives not to treat the Canadian public like fools. Canadians are patient people, but they’re not idiots,” Angus said. “They have seen what this man has done with money that he shouldn’t have had his hands on. They’ve seen the cover-ups, they’ve seen the bogus tales, they’ve seen the fact that they have gone all the way to committee and misrepresented facts before a parliamentary committee. This is serious business...

“So, it’s very difficult for Mr. Harper to turn around and tell the Canadian people that Tony Clement is the man you should trust when he is deciding what services are going to be cut and that you should trust Tony Clement with your taxpayers’ dollars,” Angus said.

Read more about: