OTTAWA, July 10, 2006 -- The Honourable Maxime Bernier, Minister of Industry, today released the external auditor's final report on the compliance of 47 companies with certain terms of the contribution agreements they signed with Technology Partnerships Canada (TPC).
"Bringing real accountability and transparency to this program has been my priority from the beginning," said Minister Bernier. "Releasing the external auditor's final report brings us closer to that goal."
"When it came to my attention that the TPC program has been a source of controversy in the past year, I made it clear to my Department that I wanted to get to the bottom of the audit issues. Today, after only five months as Minister of Industry, I have delivered," added Minister Bernier.
As a follow-up to Industry Canada's own audits, Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton Consulting Inc. (RCGT) undertook audits of the compliance of 47 companies with two requirements of their TPC contribution agreements:
A company is required to confirm that any person who has lobbied on behalf of the company for the purposes of obtaining the agreement, if required to be registered under the Lobbyists Registration Act, is registered under that Act; and
A company is required to represent that it has not paid a commission, contingency fee or other compensation conditional on execution of the agreement to any person employed to solicit that agreement.
RCGT concluded that 30 of the recipient companies appeared to be compliant with their contractual obligations regarding lobbyists and the payment of contingency fees, and 16 were non-compliant. Additionally, RCGT reported that one company would not provide the auditor with timely access to company books and records, and therefore a determination could not yet be made as to this company's compliance.
The new government views company breaches of contracts as unacceptable. The Department of Industry has been instructed to take the necessary action to seek redress from companies confirmed to be non-compliant. The new government's goal is to defend the interests of the Canadian taxpayer.
The proposed Federal Accountability Act will ensure that, in the future, companies and their lobbyists will be held to higher standards in their interactions with the government. The Act will ban contingency fee arrangements and, through an independent Commissioner of Lobbying, will give the government stronger powers to investigate improper lobbyist activity and to vigorously enforce breaches of the Lobbyists' Code of Conduct. In this way, breaches such as those uncovered by this audit will be better prevented.
For more information, please contact:
Isabelle Fontaine
Office of the Honourable Maxime Bernier
Minister of Industry
(613) 995-9001
Media Relations
Industry Canada
(613) 943-2502
RCGT's final report, a backgrounder and other documents are available on the Technology Partnerships Canada website at www.tpc-ptc.ic.gc.ca.
