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Green Energy or Green Grift? SDTC at the Center of a $38 Million Scandal

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The Opposition with Dan Knight

The Auditor General’s report reveals millions in taxpayer funds funneled to insiders, with government officials shrugging off responsibility. Andrew Noseworthy’s testimony in PCAP

Conflicts of Interest, Negligence, and Liberal Mismanagement Unveiled

In yet another stunning display of Liberal mismanagement, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) has found itself at the center of a growing scandal. The Auditor General’s recent report revealed systemic conflicts of interest and gross negligence in handling taxpayer money—conflicts that funneled millions of dollars to companies connected to SDTC board members.

The controversy reached new heights during a heated Public Accounts Committee meeting, where Andrew Noseworthy, a former assistant deputy minister, was grilled over his role as the government’s “eyes and ears” on the SDTC board. His testimony wasn’t just underwhelming—it was a masterclass in buck-passing.

Here’s Andrew Noseworthy’s opening statement, boiled down: “I was there, but I wasn’t responsible. I saw things, but I didn’t do anything about them. It wasn’t my job to actually oversee anything, and even though I was supposed to be the government’s eyes and ears, somehow, I missed all the obvious corruption right in front of me.”

Are you kidding me? This guy sat in board meetings where millions of dollars—your tax dollars—were being funneled to companies with clear, blatant conflicts of interest. He says, “I wasn’t a decision-maker, I was just an observer.” Observer of what? A train wreck of mismanagement? The deputy minister calls him the “eyes and ears” on the board, and yet he’s playing dumb when asked about conflicts of interest that were declared, minuted, and repeatedly ignored.

But wait—it gets better. When pressed about COVID-19 relief payments—$38 million handed out like party favors—he just shrugs and says there was “urgency.” Urgency to do what? Bail out friends and allies under the guise of saving the clean tech sector? No proper due diligence, no accountability. Just money flying out the door to keep the Trudeau administration’s cronies happy.

And this guy wants us to believe he wasn’t complicit? That he had no responsibility? The buck stops nowhere, apparently—not with Noseworthy, not with SDTC, not with the Liberal government that created this green slush fund in the first place.

This is exactly what you get with Trudeau’s “green energy” initiatives. It’s not about the environment; it’s about lining the pockets of insiders and calling it progress. Canadians deserve better. But under Trudeau, this is just another day in the swamp.

Now let’s get into the Public Accounts Committee’s Meeting 145, starting with Rick Perkins and his fiery takedown of this shameless display of negligence. Buckle up, folks, because it only gets worse from here.

Rick Perkins Exposes Liberal Rot

 

Here’s the scene: Conservative MP Rick Perkins goes on the offensive, trying to get a straight answer out of Andrew Noseworthy. And what does he find? A human shrug emoji. Noseworthy, the so-called “eyes and ears” of the Deputy Minister at SDTC, claims he sat in meetings, watched directors funnel taxpayer money into their own companies, and thought, “Not my problem!”

Perkins doesn’t let up. He reads the SDTC Act aloud: “No director shall profit or gain any income.” It’s not rocket science, folks. It’s the law. But Noseworthy’s excuse? He didn’t have an “independent way” of assessing conflicts of interest. What?! The conflicts were declared in the meetings! The minutes even said, “Here’s who’s conflicted. Here’s who’s getting millions of dollars.” Yet Noseworthy insists he couldn’t connect the dots.

Then Perkins drops the hammer. He points to André-Lise Mato, a Liberal insider who raked in $10.4 million for companies she’s connected to—all in direct violation of the SDTC Act. And what does Noseworthy say? He assumed recusal was enough. Recusal! As if stepping out of the room while your cronies vote to line your pockets somehow makes it okay.

But the pièce de résistance is when Perkins asks Noseworthy the million-dollar question: “Who are you covering up for?” And what does Noseworthy do? He throws up his hands and says he didn’t know it was his job to report conflicts. His job was apparently to sit there and watch taxpayer dollars burn while doing nothing.

Here’s the bottom line: This isn’t oversight—it’s willful negligence. Noseworthy didn’t miss the corruption; he just didn’t care.

Liberal Damage Control: Valarie Bradford Plays Defense

After Rick Perkins rips Andrew Noseworthy apart for his role in enabling millions of taxpayer dollars to be funneled into the pockets of Liberal insiders, here comes Valarie Bradford—stepping in with a velvet glove to do damage control. And folks, it’s laughable.

Instead of holding Noseworthy accountable, Bradford throws him a lifeline. She asks him to—what?—clarify his role again? As if we haven’t heard it already. Noseworthy, ever the bureaucrat, drones on about “policy coordination” and how he wasn’t there to actually do anything, just to… exist, apparently.

And then Bradford takes it a step further. She asks him about the conflict of interest process. Noseworthy assures her, “Oh, don’t worry, board members declared their conflicts and left the room.” Oh, really? They declared their conflicts before approving millions of dollars for their own companies? And that’s fine because they recused themselves? What kind of clown world are we living in where this is acceptable?

But Bradford doesn’t press him. Nope, instead, she shifts the focus to COVID-19. According to Noseworthy, the clean tech sector was in a “state of crisis.” Markets collapsing, capital drying up, supply chains falling apart—it’s the same sob story they always trot out to justify throwing taxpayer money out the window. What he doesn’t mention? That $38 million in COVID-19 funds went out with no proper oversight or accountability. Were they saving the sector or just padding their friends’ pockets?

And then, the cherry on top: Bradford asks Noseworthy to wax poetic about Canada’s “potential” in the clean tech sector. Of course, Noseworthy obliges, talking about how promising the industry is and how Canada can be a global leader. Sure, it’s easy to sound optimistic when you’ve just described how billions of dollars are wasted propping up a system riddled with corruption.

Here’s the truth: This wasn’t a real line of questioning. It was a performance—an attempt to clean up the mess Perkins just exposed. Bradford wasn’t there to get answers. She was there to protect the Liberals’ green slush fund and keep the gravy train running. It’s not accountability; it’s theater.

Bloc Asks the $38 Million dollar question

 

Bloc MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné took Noseworthy to task, and folks, it wasn’t pretty. She grilled him on the $38 million in COVID-19 payments that SDTC threw around like Monopoly money, completely outside the rules of their contribution agreements. And Noseworthy? He admitted he knew these payments didn’t comply. But don’t worry, he flagged it to the Deputy Minister. And then what? Nothing. Just more hand-wringing about how it wasn’t his job to actually enforce the rules.

But Sinclair-Desgagné didn’t let him off the hook. She drove home the point that Noseworthy’s entire salary—paid for by taxpayers—was supposed to fund oversight and accountability. Instead, we got a guy sitting in meetings, nodding along, and then shrugging when asked about the massive breaches happening under his nose.

And let’s talk about that bioreactor project she brought up. A piece of equipment worth $6.2 million somehow ended up costing over $8 million—an extra couple million dollars that just poof! disappeared into the ether. When pressed, Noseworthy said, “Oh, I didn’t know the financing details.” Of course not. That would require actually doing his job.

Here’s the kicker: Sinclair-Desgagné asked the hard question everyone’s thinking—“How could you, as a public servant, let taxpayers get ripped off like this?” And Noseworthy’s answer was the same tired song and dance: “It wasn’t my responsibility.”

Let’s be honest. This guy wasn’t a watchdog. He was a lapdog, sitting there to give the appearance of oversight while turning a blind eye to corruption. Taxpayer dollars were wasted, contribution agreements were ignored, and Noseworthy’s excuse? “Not my job.”

Sinclair-Desgagné nailed it: Canadians pay public servants like Noseworthy to protect their interests, not to act as human rubber stamps for Trudeau’s green slush fund. But instead, we’re left with millions of dollars missing, projects overinflated, and a government official who thinks shrugging is a valid defense.

NDP’s Missed Opportunity: Softball Questions Fall Short

Richard Cannings, the NDP’s mild-mannered investigator, gently tiptoeing around the real issues. Instead of holding Andrew Noseworthy’s feet to the fire, Cannings basically hands him a pillow. “Could you kindly explain your role again?” Really? How many times does Noseworthy have to repeat the same nonsense before people realize it’s a dodge?

Noseworthy again plays the broken record: “I wasn’t responsible. I didn’t have oversight. I was just there for policy coordination.” Sure, because policy coordination is what taxpayers are worried about when $38 million is being funneled into friends’ pockets during the COVID-19 “crisis.”

And then Cannings digs into conflicts of interest, asking if board members who declared conflicts actually stayed for discussions or left the room. Noseworthy assures him, “Oh, they usually recused themselves.” Usually? That’s reassuring! But the real kicker? Noseworthy claims he never witnessed violations. Never. Despite the Auditor General uncovering 186 conflicts, Noseworthy saw nothing. Blind? Or just complicit?

But wait—it gets better. Cannings asks about the process for approving projects. Noseworthy proudly describes a system where the Project Review Committee does all the heavy lifting and the board just rubber-stamps their work. Cannings doesn’t even challenge him on the obvious: if this committee is the gatekeeper, where’s the oversight? Who’s accountable? Clearly not Noseworthy.

And then we get to the $38 million in COVID-19 payments, the scandal at the heart of all this. Does Cannings press Noseworthy on the illegality of handing out taxpayer money without following contribution agreements? Nope. Instead, he lets Noseworthy ramble on about the “urgency” of the pandemic as if that justifies blatant mismanagement.

Here’s the truth: Cannings had a chance to demand answers, but instead, he gave Noseworthy the opportunity to spin the same excuses we’ve heard for 30 minutes. “I didn’t know.” “It wasn’t my job.” Give me a break. This isn’t accountability; it’s a softball game.

Taxpayers deserve better. They deserve someone who will actually stand up and say, “This is corruption, plain and simple.” But instead, we get Cannings politely nodding along while the Liberals laugh all the way to the bank. This is why Canadians are so frustrated with government—it’s all talk, no action.

Conservative Michael Cooper Turns Up the Heat

 

Michael Cooper didn’t just ask Andrew Noseworthy questions—he eviscerated him. If Rick Perkins set the tone, Cooper turned the heat all the way up. And the question at the heart of this whole fiasco? “How could you sit through board meetings where directors blatantly violated the SDTC Act and say nothing?”

Cooper pulled no punches. He read section 12 of the SDTC Act aloud: “No director shall profit or gain any income.” It’s crystal clear, right? But then there’s André-Lise Mato—an SDTC board member—walking away with $10.4 million for her companies. That’s not a conflict of interest, folks. That’s a crime.

And what does Noseworthy say? Oh, “I assumed recusals were enough.” Really? Since when does stepping out of the room magically erase the fact that you’re breaking the law? Cooper wasn’t buying it, and neither should Canadians.

But wait—it gets worse. Noseworthy claims it wasn’t his job to report these violations, even though he was literally the Deputy Minister’s “eyes and ears” at SDTC. What was his job, then? Warming a chair? Collecting a paycheck? Because it sure wasn’t holding anyone accountable.

Here’s the truth: Noseworthy wasn’t just complicit; he was an enabler. He sat there, meeting after meeting, watching millions of taxpayer dollars flow into the hands of Liberal insiders. And when pressed on why he didn’t do anything, his defense is essentially, “It wasn’t my problem.”

Cooper nailed it. This isn’t just bureaucratic incompetence; it’s systemic corruption. The SDTC Act was broken. Taxpayer money was stolen. And Noseworthy sat there, twiddling his thumbs, while the Liberals ran their green energy slush fund like a cash cow for their friends.

Kelly McCauley’s Exposé: The Buck Stops Nowhere

Kelly McCauley followed up with Cooper and he wasn’t there to play games, folks. He walked in with the facts, and he left no room for excuses. For six straight minutes, McCauley dismantled Andrew Noseworthy’s entire defense, piece by piece, and what did we learn? That the buck doesn’t stop anywhere in Trudeau’s government.

First, McCauley establishes the obvious: Noseworthy worked closely with the Deputy Minister for years. They had meetings, they had conversations, but somehow, Noseworthy never thought to mention the glaring conflicts of interest happening right in front of him. Why? Because he “didn’t think it was his job.” Of course not! Why do your job when you can just collect a paycheck and look the other way?

Then McCauley goes for the jugular. He asks why Noseworthy didn’t report these conflicts to the Minister, as required by Article 20.03 of the contribution agreement. And what does Noseworthy say? “Oh, I assumed the board was handling it.” Right. The same board handing out millions of dollars to its own members was “handling” the conflicts. That’s like letting the fox guard the henhouse and then acting surprised when feathers are flying.

And let’s not forget the whistleblower. A lower-level public servant had the courage to come forward and expose the rot at SDTC. But Noseworthy? The Deputy Minister’s “eyes and ears”? He sat in the room, watched the corruption unfold, and did absolutely nothing. McCauley makes it clear: this isn’t just incompetence—it’s a complete failure of accountability.

But here’s the real kicker: Noseworthy keeps saying, “It wasn’t my role.” Not his role to oversee conflicts. Not his role to report violations. Not his role to ensure taxpayers’ money wasn’t being flushed down the drain. So, what was his role? To show up and nod along while Trudeau’s Liberal insiders cashed in?

McCauley’s cross-examination exposes the truth about this government: no one takes responsibility because the system is designed to protect the corrupt. Millions of dollars, your dollars, are gone. And Noseworthy? He’s not apologizing. He’s not taking ownership. He’s passing the buck like it’s an Olympic sport.

This is Trudeau’s Canada, folks. A government where “accountability” is a dirty word, and taxpayer money is a slush fund for insiders. McCauley pulled back the curtain, but unless people like Noseworthy are held accountable, the swamp isn’t draining anytime soon.

Final Verdict: A Government Designed to Protect Corruption

What was this guy’s job? I’ll tell you what his job was: to be a useful idiot for the board. That’s it. A rubber-stamp figurehead who sat in the room to give the illusion of oversight. “Look, we have checks and balances!” they’d say. But in reality, Noseworthy’s only responsibility was to collect his taxpayer-funded paycheck and look the other way while corruption ran wild.

Let’s be clear: It doesn’t take a Ph.D., a law degree, or even a high school diploma to know that when taxpayer dollars are being funneled into board members’ pockets, you REPORT IT. You stand up and say, “This is wrong!” But not Noseworthy. Nope, he just shrugged, collected his salary, and moved on. Why? Because that’s the system—designed by Trudeau’s Liberals to enable the swamp to thrive.

This guy sat through meetings where conflicts of interest were openly discussed. He saw money being handed out like candy to insiders, and his excuse is, “Well, I didn’t think it was my job.” Really? Then why were you there? Why did Canadians pay for your salary, your benefits, your pension, if you weren’t going to do the bare minimum and speak up?

Let me say it plainly: This guy needs to be charged. The SDTC Act was broken—repeatedly—and he was complicit. He may not have pocketed the money himself, but he enabled the system that let it happen. And as a taxpayer, I want every single dollar that went to him reimbursed.

Because here’s the reality: This isn’t just about Andrew Noseworthy. This is about a government that has normalized corruption, where accountability is dead, and where public servants think their only job is to protect the Liberal swamp. Canadians deserve better. And it starts by holding people like Noseworthy accountable—because if we don’t, the message is clear: corruption pays.

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Inflation Reduction Act, Green New Deal Causing America’s Energy Crisis

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From the Daily Caller News Foundation

By Greg Blackie

Our country is facing an energy crisis. No, not because of new demand from data centers or AI. Instead, it’s because utilities in nearly every state, due to government imposed “renewable” mandates, self-imposed mandates, and the supercharging of the Green New Scam under the so-called “Inflation Reduction Act,” have been shutting down vital coal resources and building out almost exclusively intermittent and costly resources like solar, wind, and battery storage.

President Donald Trump understands this, and that is why on day one of his administration he declared an Energy Emergency. Then, a few months later, the President signed a trio of Executive Orders designed to keep our “beautiful, clean coal” burning and providing the reliable, baseload, and affordable electricity Americans have benefitted from for generations.

Those orders have been used to keep coal generation online that was slated to shut down in Michigan and will potentially keep two units operating that were scheduled to shut down in Colorado this December. In Arizona, however, the Cholla Power Plant in Navajo County was shuttered by the utility just weeks after Trump explicitly called out the plant for saving in a press conference.

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Unlike states with green mandates, Arizona essentially has none. Instead, our utilities, like many around the country, have self-imposed commitments to go “Net Zero” by 2050. To meet that target, they have planned to shut down all coal generation in the state by 2032 and plan to build out almost exclusively solar, wind, and battery storage to meet an expected explosive growth in demand, at a cost of tens of billions of dollars. So it is no surprise that like much of the rest of the country, Arizona is facing an energy crisis.

Taking a look at our largest regulated utilities (APS, TEP, and UNS) and the largest nonprofit utility, SRP, future plans paint an alarming picture. Combined, over the next 15 years, these utilities expect to see demand increase from 19,200 MW to 28,000 MW. For reference, 1,000 MW of electricity is enough to power roughly 250,000 homes. To meet that growth in demand, however, Arizonans will only get a net increase of 989 MW of reliable generation (coal, natural gas, and nuclear) compared to 22,543 MW (or nearly 23 times as much) of intermittent solar, wind, and battery storage.

But what about all of the new natural gas coming into the state? The vast majority of it will be eaten up just to replace existing coal resources, not to bring additional affordable energy to the grid. For example, the SRP board recently voted to approve the conversion of their Springerville coal plant to natural gas by 2030, which follows an earlier vote to convert another of their coal plants, Coronado, to natural gas by 2029. This coal conversion trap leaves ratepayers with the same amount of energy as before, eating up new natural gas capacity, without the benefit of more electricity.

So, while the Arizona utilities plan to collectively build an additional 4,538 MW of natural gas capacity over the next 15 years, at the same time they will be removing -3,549 MW (all of what is left on the grid today) of coal. And there are no plans for more nuclear capacity anytime soon. Instead, to meet their voluntary climate commitments, utilities plan to saddle ratepayers with the cost and resultant blackouts of the green new scam.

It’s no surprise then that Arizona’s largest regulated utilities, APS and TEP, are seeking double digit rate hikes next year. It’s not just Arizona. Excel customers in Colorado (with a 100% clean energy commitment) and in Minnesota (also with a 100% clean energy commitment) are facing nearly double-digit rate hikes. The day before Thanksgiving, PPL customers in Rhode Island (with a state mandate of 100% renewable by 2033) found out they may see rate hikes next year. Dominion (who has a Net Zero by 2050 commitmentwanted to raise rates for customers in Virginia by 15%. Just last month, regulators approved a 9% increase. Importantly, these rate increases are to recover costs for expenses incurred years ago, meaning they are clearly to cover the costs of the energy “transition” supercharged under the Biden administration, not from increased demand from data centers and AI.

It’s the same story around the country. Electricity rates are rising. Reliability is crumbling. We know the cause. For generations, we’ve been able to provide reliable energy at an affordable cost. The only variable that has changed has been what we are choosing to build. Then, it was reliable, dispatchable power. Now, it is intermittent sources that we know cost more, and that we know cause blackouts, all to meet absurd goals of going 100% renewable – something that no utility, state, or country has been able to achieve. And we know the result when they try.

This crisis can be avoided. Trump has laid out the plan to unleash American Energy. Now, it’s time for utilities to drop their costly green new scam commitments and go back to building reliable and affordable power that generations to come will benefit from.

Greg Blackie, Deputy Director of Policy at the Arizona Free Enterprise Club. Greg graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University with a B.S. in Political Science in 2019. He served as a policy intern with the Republican caucus at the Arizona House of Representatives and covered Arizona political campaigns for America Rising during the 2020 election cycle.

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Fuelled by federalism—America’s economically freest states come out on top

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From the Fraser Institute

By Matthew D. Mitchell

Do economic rivalries between Texas and California or New York and Florida feel like yet another sign that America has become hopelessly divided? There’s a bright side to their disagreements, and a new ranking of economic freedom across the states helps explain why.

As a popular bumper sticker among economists proclaims: “I heart federalism (for the natural experiments).” In a federal system, states have wide latitude to set priorities and to choose their own strategies to achieve them. It’s messy, but informative.

New York and California, along with other states like New Mexico, have long pursued a government-centric approach to economic policy. They tax a lot. They spend a lot. Their governments employ a large fraction of the workforce and set a high minimum wage.

They aren’t socialist by any means; most property is still in private hands. Consumers, workers and businesses still make most of their own decisions. But these states control more resources than other states do through taxes and regulation, so their governments play a larger role in economic life.

At the other end of the spectrum, New Hampshire, Tennessee, Florida and South Dakota allow citizens to make more of their own economic choices, keep more of their own money, and set more of their own terms of trade and work.

They aren’t free-market utopias; they impose plenty of regulatory burdens. But they are economically freer than other states.

These two groups have, in other words, been experimenting with different approaches to economic policy. Does one approach lead to higher incomes or faster growth? Greater economic equality or more upward mobility? What about other aspects of a good society like tolerance, generosity, or life satisfaction?

For two decades now, we’ve had a handy tool to assess these questions: The Fraser Institute’s annual “Economic Freedom of North America” index uses 10 variables in three broad areas—government spending, taxation, and labor regulation—to assess the degree of economic freedom in each of the 50 states and the territory of Puerto Rico, as well as in Canadian provinces and Mexican states.

It’s an objective measurement that allows economists to take stock of federalism’s natural experiments. Independent scholars have done just that, having now conducted over 250 studies using the index. With careful statistical analyses that control for the important differences among states—possibly confounding factors such as geography, climate, and historical development—the vast majority of these studies associate greater economic freedom with greater prosperity.

In fact, freedom’s payoffs are astounding.

States with high and increasing levels of economic freedom tend to see higher incomesmore entrepreneurial activity and more net in-migration. Their people tend to experience greater income mobility, and more income growth at both the top and bottom of the income distribution. They have less poverty, less homelessness and lower levels of food insecurity. People there even seem to be more philanthropic, more tolerant and more satisfied with their lives.

New Hampshire, Tennessee, and South Dakota topped the latest edition of the report while Puerto Rico, New Mexico, and New York rounded out the bottom. New Mexico displaced New York as the least economically free state in the union for the first time in 20 years, but it had always been near the bottom.

The bigger stories are the major movers. The last 10 years’ worth of available data show South Carolina, Ohio, Wisconsin, Idaho, Iowa and Utah moving up at least 10 places. Arizona, Virginia, Nebraska, and Maryland have all slid down 10 spots.

Over that same decade, those states that were among the freest 25 per cent on average saw their populations grow nearly 18 times faster than those in the bottom 25 per cent. Statewide personal income grew nine times as fast.

Economic freedom isn’t a panacea. Nor is it the only thing that matters. Geography, culture, and even luck can influence a state’s prosperity. But while policymakers can’t move mountains or rewrite cultures, they can look at the data, heed the lessons of our federalist experiment, and permit their citizens more economic freedom.

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