A company owned by the brother of former Liberal minister Hunter Tootoo has been awarded $508,732 in sole-sourced contracts by the federal government over the past 4 years.
According to records obtained by Blacklock’s Reporter, NVision, owned by Victor Tootoo, has received a total of seventeen contracts since 2017.
“This is a highly specialized training program. It is believed no other organizations have the experience delivering this type of training,” the government wrote in a contract notice.
The latest contract, valued at $32,668, was granted to Tootoo’s company by Agriculture Canada to conduct six-hour training sessions for employees “on cultural literacy and intercultural intelligence when engaging with Indigenous peoples.”
“A training program for educating scientists working with Indigenous partners is required on a government-wide scale,” the department wrote.
Hunter Tootoo served as MP for Nunavut from 2015-2019, serving as Minister of Fisheries before ultimately resigning.
Several lucrative contracts have been issued to firms owned by people connected to the Liberal Party in the past year.
Just weeks after leaving office, former Liberal MP Frank Baylis’ company won a $422,946 Industry Canada contract. Baylis Medical had applied for the contract while Frank Baylis was still sitting on the House of Commons Industry Committee.
In January 2020 a firm owned by former Liberal MP Allan Rock was the only contender for a $120,000 Global Affairs contract to provide “security council training” to support Justin Trudeau’s failed bid for Canada to join the UN Security Council.
