Export Development Canada has perfected the art of lending billions of taxpayer dollars to scandal-ridden foreign buyers. But its transparency could use some work. Patricia Adams of Probe International shares her experience with EDC “disclosure”.
Patricia Adams: There’s no evidence that deferred prosecution agreements enhance anything other than agency budgets.
Deferred prosecution agreements (DPAs) make a mockery of the criminal justice system. Join Probe International as we get to the root of this problem at our final Grounds for Thought discussion night of the year: Tuesday, November 28 @8PM.
Read Probe International’s submission to the Government of Canada’s invitation to Canadians for their views on potential enhancements to the Integrity Regime and on considerations regarding the possible adoption of a deferred prosecution agreement (DPA) regime in Canada. Probe International’s response: No DPAs. Learn why.
The current exec pay hooha is a timely reminder about the real scandal here: the willingness of politicians to hand over billions of dollars in subsidies to a few favoured companies. What is Bombardier really selling? Itself as a recipient for government funds. As for planes, “it is selling the making of planes, or more particularly conspicuous government support for the making of planes, or perhaps just the idea of making planes,” writes Andrew Coyne, tongue firmly in cheek, for the National Post.
The future looks good for Canadian arms manufacturers, says journalist Paul Christopher Webster in this in-depth look at the sale of Canadian-built light armoured vehicles to Saudi Arabia — a sale approved by the Conservative government and supported by the Trudeau administration despite concerns the vehicles could be used against civilian populations.
The Muskrat Falls hydroelectric project in Labrador needed a federal guarantee to get off the ground, which in itself testifies to its iffy economics, writes Konrad Yakabuski for the Globe and Mail. Now, he says, Newfoundland’s shrinking population faces paying for Muskrat Falls in more ways than one.
Deferred prosecution agreements that let companies pay fines for wrongdoing could backfire by encouraging repeat criminality. Probe International’s Patricia Adams for the National Post.
DPAs were virtually unheard of in business settings prior to 2004, but their growing popularity in the U.S. is now being felt in Canada with SNC-Lavalin lobbying the Liberal government to have its fate determined by a DPA, rather than the criminal trial the Harper government pursued.
Ex-Im is one of dozens of corporate welfare programs that should end. The Overseas Private Investment Corporation (OPIC), like Ex-Im, hurts domestic competitors, privileges big lenders and is also known to fund questionable projects. Reason.com reports.
Things are looking less sour for graft-tainted engineering giant SNC-Lavalin, which received a boost Monday when an analyst upgraded his rating and price estimate for the company’s stock following changes to the federal government’s procurement policy, announced in last week’s budget.
Media sources in India are following the Canadian government’s investigation of SNC-Lavalin with great interest.
Canadian aerospace giant Bombardier accused by South Korean prosecutors of making gifts to local officials in relation to a multibillion dollar metro elevated train project described as “more like a bus” in reality, a bus expected to cost Yongin taxpayers $3.5 billion over the next 30 years, including maintenance. CBC reports.
(April 16, 2014) Working Canadians are placing a bet on the Chinese real estate market thanks to the Canada Pension Plan Investment Board that invests their obligatory pension contributions globally.
(March 10, 2014) Export Development Canada says it needs nearly a year to sort through a mountain of documents regarding its involvement in Libya.
Patricia Adams
Brady Yauch
Dai Qing
Fan Xiao
Lawrence Solomon
Mu Lan
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