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Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees

Blaine Calkins

  • Member of Parliament
  • Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
  • Conservative
  • Red Deer—Lacombe
  • Alberta
  • Voting Attendance: 67%
  • Expenses Last Quarter: $146,499.79

  • Government Page
Context: House Hansard - 286 - Feb/27/24
Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red Deer—Lacombe, CPC)
  • Feb/27/24 2:14:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. After eight years, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost, corruption, cover-ups or crime. Only the Prime Minister can turn an $80,000 app budget into a $60-million boondoggle. When tasked with holding the government to account, the NDP voted not once, not twice and not three times to keep funding arrive scam; it was eight times that the NDP voted to give tens of millions of tax dollars to two guys in a basement for money-for-nothing contracts. Common-sense Conservatives voted no. Had the NDP and Bloc done the same, arrive scam funding would never have happened. Conservatives know how hard Canadians work for their money, and we will not award contracts to Liberal insiders so they can hold whisky tastings and private dinners with government officials. After eight years, it is time to fix what the Liberal-NDP coalition has broken. It is time for a common-sense Conservative government.
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Context: House Hansard - 259 - Nov/30/23
Mr. Blaine Calkins (Red Deer—Lacombe, CPC)
  • Nov/30/23 6:40:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise in the House to speak to the concurrence motion on a public accounts committee report, which concerns the greening of government buildings. I find myself concerned that the government is not really interested in the greening of our buildings, but in the greening of pockets, specifically the pockets of Liberal insiders and their appointees. I am, of course, referring to the latest Liberal scandal, one that culminated with the head of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, Leah Lawrence, resigning. The abrupt end to her tenure came amid severe allegations of mismanagement and corruption, directed not only at her, but also at her executive. These allegations were brought forth by whistle-blowers who reached out to both the government and the Privy Council Office. These complaints resulted in an inquiry into the matter conducted by Raymond Chabot Grant Thornton, which I will refer to as RCGT. It confirmed that the whistle-blower complaints were grounded in fact, finding several instances of corruption. The most damning of these allegations came in the form of unethical contributions to companies owned by the executive of the SDTC board. The RCGT report states that these contributions did not appear to be consistent with the requirements of SDTC's contribution agreements with the government and that the payments do not require project cost eligibility or monitoring and reporting. In other words, it did not meet any basic requirements that any responsible government would put in place on the oversight of taxpayer dollars. To compound the issue, the government somehow ignored these findings and continued to fund this organization after it knew what was going on. This scandal is sordid and complex, so please buckle up and bear with me as I lay out some of the facts in what could be called the anatomy of a scandal. What is the SDTC? It is a federally funded non-profit founded in 2001 that approves and disburses millions in funds annually to clean tech companies. Its latest mandate was to disburse a billion dollars over five years, ending in the 2025-26 fiscal year. In 2015, the head villain of the story, Leah Lawrence, was hired to be the CEO of SDTC. This is the foundational piece. Under her leadership, the institution soon started to decline. It essentially turned into a green slush fund for her and her friends. A key player in covering up her behaviour, seemingly her partner in this, is Annette Verschuren, who was appointed chair of the board through the government's order in council in 2019. Annette then used her position as the chair to protect Leah, the chief executive officer, and they teamed up to create new funding streams, which were ineligible by the very nature of the provisions of the creation of SDTC. They did this to supposedly help SDTC meet its funding targets. What happens when these funding targets are hit? It triggers bonuses for the executives and the members of the board. These bonuses were then used by board members to fund their own businesses interests. The entire board then also partook in the scam. Furthermore, subcontractors on the projects were often affiliated with the chief executive officer. The problem was so bad that Annette Verschuren had her own companies funded to a staggering rate of $220,000. Clearly in the wrong, the board tried to cover its tracks by contracting an outside legal opinion that said it was okay to fund their own companies with the bonus money. However, there was a major flaw with that opinion because it came from Ed Vandenberg, who happens to be a paid SDTC member, which is just another conflict of interest in a long line of many. Once again, we know all of this because of the whistle-blowers who came forward. One of them had secretly recorded conversations with Doug McConnachie, the assistant deputy minister at Innovation, Science and Economic Development, who is also a man who had a lot of interesting things to say about the fund and its sickening levels of graft. He said, “There's a lot of sloppiness and laziness. There is some outright incompetence and, you know, the situation is just kind of untenable at this point”. He also referred to the original investigation by the board as a whitewash and said that the RCGT report implicated the board in terrible ways, like by not following process, by not following the conflict of interest regime and by not being prudent fiduciaries. He said that they have missed out on so many and that it is just the board failure altogether. He also said that, in that case, they were briefing it and that was how it was well understood by them and the deputies. He thought is was understood by PCO as well because, according to him, it was not the first time they have seen this kind of situation, so they knew that they had to get people out of there. What does that imply? It implies that the minister knew, and it implies that the Prime Minister knew. Even more damning, Mr. McConnachie was quoted saying the scandal “is almost a sponsorship scandal-level kind of giveaway.” Despite Doug McConnachie's disgust, and the hopes of his fellow whistle-blowers for action from the government, the SDTC management team and board of directors remained in place months later. This clear lack of action demonstrates a strange passivity within the government in the face of substantiated allegations of corruption. On the question of what kind of workplace environment this corruption and ineptitude has caused, almost half of the fifty-person staff is on its way out. Four of them are on sick leave, and 20 are in the process of resigning or quitting. This is unacceptable and kills morale among the hard-working, honest people in our departments. This fact was acknowledged by Doug McConnachie who stated that the workplace was now toxic. The problem was even worse in 2018, where the rate of turnover could be factored at over 75%. During Leah Lawrence's tenure, whistle-blowers made allegations that loyalties were constantly being tested by petty executives who pressured subordinates to write fake reviews online to inflate workplace review scores. What should be expected of a group of executives who were that corrupt? They could not even take responsibility for their actions. In a statement responding to the RCGT report, the SDTC executive and board said, “the report found no clear evidence of wrongdoing or misconduct at SDTC and indicated that no further investigation is merited.” This out-of-touch statement is not only ludicrous, but also a disconnect from reality. Recently, the Office of the Auditor General of Canada has announced that it will be investigating this scandal. This is a welcome announcement, but we need to ensure accountability in the long term. This type of graft over the last eight years has been noticed internationally, with our standing on Transparency International's corruption perceptions index falling precipitously over the last few years. In fact, our descent down the rankings is among the fastest in the world. Canada's whistle-blower protections have been criticized, and our access to information legislation is out of date. It is time that we move on. There is a long list of scandals that I could talk about for hours. I move: That the motion be amended by deleting all the words after “That” and substituting the following: “the 26th report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented on Tuesday, February 14, 2023, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the committee with the instruction that: (a) It take note of the resignation of the CEO and Chair of Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) over allegations that funds were used improperly, namely that SDTC has been accused of giving grants to start-ups and accelerators with ties to their senior management, as well as making payments inconsistent with the requirements of their agreement with the government; and (b) In keeping with the Auditor General's observation at Treasury Board, which is responsible for the supervision of SDTC, has not provided oversight, as well as SDTC's mission statement claiming it is ‘committed to full transparency’, the committee add to its recommendations an invitation to Annette Verschuren former CEO and Chair of Sustainable Development Technology Canada and the whistleblowers who exposed this scandal to appear before the committee.”
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