A whistleblower on corporate mismanagement in the federal government’s green tech fund delivered explosive testimony to Parliament’s industry and technology committee claiming that the industry minister, François-Philippe Champagne, lied to the ethics committee.
Israr Ahmad, a former employee at Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) claimed that minister Champagne misled the ethics committee by claiming he only learned of the findings from a private-sector report concluding that SDTC had significant problems with corporate mismanagement.
“The minister has spoken on-the-record multiple times that he was only briefed about the outcome on Aug. 27 when that is definitively not true and he has lied at the ethics committee,” said Ahmad.
“The deputy minister spoke to the minister’s office and the minister on several occasions before the briefings were finalized including edits that were made on behalf of the minister’s office.”
Champagne’s office did not respond to a request for comment from True North.
In a Nov. 6 ethics committee meeting, Champagne said that he had learned about the report’s findings when he was briefed earlier in the fall.
“On Sept. 27 I got the finding of that [the report],” said Champagne.
Ahmad also alleged that Champagne misrepresented details about a human resources investigation being briefed about the findings of the report.
“The minister stated that as soon as this report was completed they started this HR investigation. That’s a lie,” said Ahmad.
“They’ve known about the culture issues from day one, and those were proven to them even in May.”
The aforementioned report found that there was a general failure in SDTC’s human resources policies, noting that SDTC has “culture issues,” “retention challenges,” and does not keep a record, verbal or written, of employee complaints or whistleblowing.
An SDTC whistleblower told True North that SDTC’s management frequently fires disgruntled employees and imposes restrictive non-disclosure agreements on them and prevents them from speaking out about SDTC’s corporate misconduct.
Ahmad testified that this practice continued while the ministry responsible for SDTC, Innovation, Science, and Economic Development (ISED), was conducting an investigation into SDTC’s human resources practices.
“Now the most egregious thing that happened during ISED’s investigation is that in September, while they were still investigating, another employee was fired by (former SDTC CEO) Leah Lawrence and then nothing was done to protect this employee.”
Since the SDTC scandal has come to light, both Lawrence and board chair Annette Verschuren resigned.
