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Ontario Liberals fund ‘a scandal’: Opposition

TORONTO — The Opposition suggests Ontario’s Liberal government may be using a community grant program as a slush fund to reward friends and supporters, just like it did with grants for multicultural organizations four years ago.

Liberal Mike Colle was forced to resign as Citizenship Minister in 2007 after the auditor general concluded millions of dollars were handed out to various ethnic groups with virtually no rules or procedures.

The auditor reached a similar conclusion about grants from the Trillium Fund, repeatedly complaining about a lack of documentation to support who got the money and how it was spent, said Progressive Conservative culture critic Ted Chudleigh.

“I think it’s a Colle-gate, I think it’s a scandal,” Chudleigh said. “Certainly managing money is not a strong point of the McGuinty administration.”

The Trillium Fund gave out more than $114 million in grants in 2010-11 to non-profit organizations, community groups, sports associations, environmentalists and others to meet its mandate of helping to strengthen the capacity of the volunteer sector.

About $2.2 million went to various environmental groups, while other large grants went to associations as diverse as the Canadian Association for the Advancement of Women and Sport ($536,500), the Alzheimer’s Society ($207,000), the Stratford Festival ($200,000) and the National Ballet of Canada ($380,300).

Auditor general Jim McCarter found insufficient detail and inadequate evidence to support many grants, “little evidence the most worth projects were funded,” and said the foundation did not effectively monitor spending by grant recipients or the results they reported.

The auditor also criticized the Trillium Foundation for allowing some board members to operate consulting services and obtain contracts from grant recipients, creating what he described as the perception of a conflict of interest.

“I don’t believe Trillium board members should be selling consulting services to organizations that are receiving grants,” said NDP culture critic Paul Miller. “If you want to restore credibility to the organization, the minister has got to get consultants off the board of directors and stop that practice immediately.”

McCarter also found some grant recipients spent the money on things other than for what had been approved, and one even kept $10,000 left over from an $81,000 grant.

The New Democrats said groups receiving the grants should be required to provide more proof of how they’re spending the taxpayers’ money.

The Trillium Foundation doesn’t advertise the availability of its grants in any formal way, and staff solicit applications from groups, something the auditor said was another potential conflict of interest.

“The same people who invite certain groups to apply for grants, or who tell them about the program, later view those applications and determine who gets funding,” said McCarter.

Other Trillium grants questioned by the auditor in his annual report include:

* $400,000 to help sports organizations collaborate, innovate and better contribute to social and economic development in communities.

* $120,000 to a community organization with one staff member to develop a strategic plan for itself.

* $222,000 to hire at-risk people to start up a community garden program.

* $537,000 to provide leadership programs to First Nations’ women.

* $34,000 so that a soccer club could buy a new computer system.