Andrew McIntosh
National Post
March 26, 2002

A multinational engineering company that in 2000 was awarded a $250,000 grant by CIDA to study a proposed hydro dam in Belize donated more than $31,000 to the Liberal party during the same election year.

(Excerpt)

OTTAWA – A multinational engineering company that in 2000 was awarded a $250,000 grant by the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) to study a proposed hydro dam in Belize donated more than $31,000 to the Liberal party during the same election year. Months after the Canadian affiliate of AMEC PLC made the donation, CIDA officials almost doubled the AMEC grant to $466,234, government documents show. Gráinne Ryder, a policy director at Probe International, a Toronto-based environmental group, said the case highlights the close links between giant engineering firms seeking Third World work and the politicians in the developed world who pull the foreign aid purse strings. “The particular division of CIDA which approved and then increased the value of the AMEC grant – the Industrial Co-Operation Branch – is a patronage machine with no public oversight,” she said. David Paterson, a Toronto-based AMEC senior vice-president of corporate affairs, said there is no link between the donation and the $466,234 grant. “There is absolutely no connection at all between the work we did on this project and any of our political donations,” Mr. Paterson said. “Our company supports the political process and all parties.” AMEC donated $12,000 each to the Canadian Alliance and Progressive Conservative party in 2000 but donated no money to the New Democratic Party or the Bloc Québécois. Deepak Obhrai, the Alliance international development critic, suggested a pattern that companies that donate money to the Liberal party also get government grants and contracts.