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OTTAWA BUREAU — Canadian aid dollars funded a Toronto-based firm’s environmental assessment of a proposed dam in Belize even though the company has a vested interest in the controversial project going ahead, say environmentalists.

Groups fighting the hydro-electric project say the Canadian International Development Agency agreed to pay the company more than $450,000 to conduct the assessment on the understanding it would then try to win other dam-related work once it’s approved.

“Anyone with a vested interest in making money for the dam is going to try to prove that the dam doesn’t harm the environment,” said Rachel Plotkin of the Sierra Club of Canada.

Probe International has filed a complaint about CIDA’s role with the federal Commissioner of the Environment and Sustainable Development. It claims the agency’s “choice of consultant for conducting an environmental assessment has no credibility.”

Opponents argue the dam would have catastrophic consequences for several threatened species. They’ve won the backing of the likes of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Harrison Ford.

AMEC Inc., the engineering and environmental services company that conducted the environmental assessment, denies it’s in a conflict.

“They would like to see the value of our report undercut by claims of conflict of interest,” said company spokesperson David Paterson. “We stand by the report.”

The report’s conclusions, which clear the way for the project if certain environmental protection measures are taken, are unbiased, he said.

Dam opponents are critical of provisions in the company’s agreement with CIDA stating that the goal is for the company to win future contracts related to building of the dam.

That agreement says an objective is for AMEC to “seek to interest the client in assigning implementation of the project to (AMEC), or to interest the partner in continuing its co-operation in implementing the project.”

CIDA, which has agreed to pay 80 per cent of AMEC’s costs to do the assessment, says the contract clause is typical in its partnership agreements.

Bob Derouin, a senior official in CIDA’s Canadian Partnerships branch, said such assessments are subject to public and government scrutiny.