National
Liberal Patronage: $330 Million in Questionable Allocations at Canada’s Green Tech Agency

What we learned from the committee is as clear as it is disturbing: Liberal ministers and appointees at SDTC have been funneling taxpayer dollars to friends under the guise of green technology funding.
In a damning House of Commons Public Accounts Committee (PACP) meeting, details emerged that Canada’s flagship “green” agency, Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC), funneled hundreds of millions of taxpayer dollars into companies connected to Liberal insiders. An Auditor General’s report shed light on the staggering scale of this apparent Liberal patronage scheme, revealing that $330 million was awarded to projects with board members tied to the SDTC itself. Another $59 million found its way into initiatives that didn’t even meet SDTC’s green-tech mandate, fueling accusations of political favoritism and cronyism within Prime Minister Trudeau’s government.
Opposition MPs, led by Conservatives Rick Perkins and Michael Cooper, along with Bloc MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné and NDP MP Richard Cannings, took turns dissecting former Liberal Minister Navdeep Bains’ role in appointing Annette Verschuren as SDTC’s board chair. Testimony from the hearing, corroborated by statements from SDTC’s CEO, revealed that Bains reached out to Verschuren multiple times about her appointment, despite his claims of following an “open, transparent, and arm’s-length” process. Yet, when grilled by the opposition, Bains repeatedly invoked “process” and shifted blame onto the Privy Council Office (PCO), claiming he merely encouraged a diverse pool of applicants.
But the evidence doesn’t line up with the former minister’s narrative. Witnesses testified that Assistant Deputy Minister Noseworthy had informed SDTC CEO Leah Lawrence of Verschuren’s appointment even before it was finalized, indicating a behind-the-scenes process driven by Liberal influence. These revelations throw the credibility of the appointment process into question, suggesting it may have been less about selecting qualified candidates and more about ensuring loyal Liberal allies held key positions.
The committee’s findings, sparked by the Auditor General’s investigation, expose a serious issue of conflicts of interest within SDTC’s funding operations. This is a public agency with a mission to advance sustainable development, yet the Liberal government’s management seems to have turned it into a cash machine for insiders. The Auditor General’s report has revealed a troubling pattern of funding allocations going to companies with board connections, undercutting the government’s credibility on environmental stewardship and transparency.
What we learned from the committee is as clear as it is disturbing: Liberal ministers and appointees at SDTC have been funneling taxpayer dollars to friends under the guise of green technology funding. This isn’t just a lapse in oversight; it’s a systematic approach that prioritizes insider deals over real environmental progress, putting the Trudeau government’s commitment to transparency and sustainability squarely in doubt.
Opposition MPs Call Out Lack of Accountability
During this pivotal Public Accounts Committee meeting, opposition MPs went on the offensive, exposing a deep pattern of evasion and mismanagement in how taxpayer dollars were funneled into the hands of Liberal insiders under former Liberal Minister Navdeep Bains. Conservative MPs Rick Perkins and Michael Cooper led the charge, calling out Bains’ deflections and demanding straight answers. They pointed to the $330 million awarded by Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) to projects connected to its own board members, questioning why this blatant conflict of interest was permitted under Bains’ watch.
Perkins and Cooper’s approach was blunt. They challenged Bains on his repeated reliance on vague, bureaucratic defenses, pointing out that as minister, he had a duty to exercise oversight on SDTC’s operations. Perkins in particular questioned Bains about his involvement in appointing Annette Verschuren as chair of SDTC’s board. Despite Bains’ claims that he couldn’t “recall” specific discussions with Verschuren, evidence surfaced that he contacted her multiple times prior to her appointment. For Perkins and Cooper, this level of involvement, coupled with Bains’ repeated refusal to acknowledge conflicts of interest within SDTC, painted a damning picture of a Liberal minister who prioritized insider appointments over accountability to Canadian taxpayers.
Bloc MP Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné and NDP MP Richard Cannings focused their questioning on the government’s failure to ensure responsible oversight of SDTC’s environmental funds. Sinclair-Desgagné highlighted Bains’ “arm’s-length” defense as an excuse, given the testimony indicating that senior officials had preemptively informed SDTC’s CEO about Verschuren’s appointment, suggesting an internal network of influence rather than a transparent, merit-based process. She called out the apparent detachment of Bains from SDTC’s operations, underscoring how his office either ignored or bypassed red flags.
NDP MP Cannings raised critical points about the hypocrisy of a government that claims to champion green innovation while allowing SDTC to devolve into a taxpayer-funded favor bank. Cannings pointed out that SDTC’s funds, meant for real environmental progress, were instead granted to projects with questionable ties and little sustainability impact. For Canadians concerned with climate action, Cannings’ questions laid bare the truth: the Liberal government’s commitment to “green” initiatives is far weaker than their dedication to keeping insiders funded.
This unified front by Conservative, Bloc, and NDP MPs highlighted the same disturbing trend: a Liberal government that talks about accountability and climate action but delivers neither, choosing instead to use taxpayer funds to benefit those closest to the party.
Bains’ Defense: Hiding Behind “Process” and Arm’s-Length Excuses
When faced with tough questions on SDTC’s mismanagement, former Liberal Minister Navdeep Bains clung tightly to procedural defenses, repeatedly deflecting responsibility to the Privy Council Office (PCO) and downplaying his role as minister. Bains insisted that the PCO alone was responsible for vetting board members, suggesting his involvement was “hands-off” and strictly procedural. Yet, opposition MPs saw right through this tactic, viewing it as a clear attempt to dodge accountability.
Throughout the hearing, Bains deflected pointed questions by portraying SDTC’s oversight as out of his hands, claiming his office only followed standard processes. He avoided addressing why his appointee, Annette Verschuren, landed the SDTC board chair role despite potential conflicts of interest, with millions later flowing to companies linked to board members. By painting himself as a mere bystander to PCO’s vetting process, Bains sidestepped responsibility for ensuring taxpayer funds went to projects with genuine environmental merit, rather than those benefiting Liberal insiders.
When pressed about specific discussions surrounding Verschuren’s appointment, Bains leaned on what can only be described as selective memory. Asked about his personal involvement, he claimed he “couldn’t recall” multiple key conversations — a response that only raised eyebrows among committee members. Testimonies from SDTC’s CEO and other witnesses indicated Bains contacted Verschuren several times, yet his failure to acknowledge this directly cast doubt on his narrative of impartial oversight.
Opposition MPs argued that Bains’ procedural evasions were thinly veiled attempts to cover for what looks like a Liberal patronage pipeline. His refusal to answer clearly and his dependence on “I don’t recall” responses drew sharp criticism, with opposition leaders labeling it as a standard Liberal tactic to avoid admitting responsibility. The result? A testimony that shed little light on how SDTC was run but spoke volumes about the government’s willingness to dodge accountability whenever insiders are involved.
Inclusion and “Transparency” Won’t Save Liberals from Accountability
Throughout the Public Accounts Committee hearing, Liberal MPs Jean Yip and Francis Drouin took on a clear mission: protect Navdeep Bains at all costs. Instead of addressing the mountain of allegations around SDTC’s blatant cronyism and taxpayer waste, Yip and Drouin turned the hearing into a platform for Liberal talking points, spinning tales of “transparency” and “diversity” that conveniently dodged the actual corruption in front of them. Let’s be clear: hiding behind “inclusivity” doesn’t make the Liberals less corrupt, nor does it absolve them of responsibility when taxpayer money is at stake.
Jean Yip’s questioning gave Bains endless opportunities to recite the “open and competitive” process that supposedly led to Annette Verschuren’s appointment as SDTC board chair. Yet she never asked about Verschuren’s Liberal ties, or why so many millions were awarded to companies connected to SDTC board members. Yip’s focus on “inclusion” and “diverse voices” on the board was a distraction — a slick attempt to shift attention away from the Auditor General’s findings and avoid the reality that those “diverse voices” are well-connected Liberal insiders benefiting from your money.
Francis Drouin was right there to keep the narrative going, pivoting to SDTC’s supposed “green mandate” and giving Bains a platform to tout his government’s commitment to sustainability. But let’s call it what it is: a cover. By talking up sustainability and diversity, Drouin helped Bains avoid explaining why SDTC mismanaged $330 million on projects tied to its own board members, and why an additional $59 million went to ineligible initiatives. This wasn’t accountability — it was damage control, plain and simple.
Yip and Drouin’s interventions were textbook Liberal tactics: deflect, divert, and dilute the discussion. They may have repeated “transparency” and “inclusivity” all they wanted, but these buzzwords are nothing more than a smokescreen for taxpayer-funded favoritism. For Canadians watching, it was an unmistakable display of damage control — the Liberals doing everything they can to dodge real accountability while your tax dollars keep flowing to their inner circle.
Broader Implications: A Systemic Liberal Culture of Avoiding Accountability
The revelations from this Public Accounts Committee meeting show us something far darker than the mismanagement of a single agency. They expose a deeply entrenched system where Trudeau’s Liberal government doesn’t just waste taxpayer money — they use it to reward political cronies and shield insiders from accountability. This isn’t just negligence; it’s the Trudeau Swamp in action, a well-oiled machine funneling your money to friends and allies under the thin cover of bureaucratic “process.”
At the center of this scandal is a strategy the Liberals have perfected: hide behind procedural jargon and “arm’s-length” defenses to dodge any responsibility. The moment former Minister Navdeep Bains took the stand, you could see the tactics at work. Facing questions on how Sustainable Development Technology Canada (SDTC) turned into a cash cow for Liberal insiders, Bains and his fellow Liberal MPs defaulted to the same tired script — insisting every questionable allocation, every insider appointment, was just “routine process.” They claim “independence,” they claim “transparency,” but the evidence paints a different picture: Liberal insiders filling key roles and pulling the strings to channel your money into their pockets.
This scandal isn’t an isolated incident. It’s a glimpse into a troubling pattern, where taxpayer funds — meant for genuine public service — have become Trudeau’s political currency, up for grabs to those with the right connections. And make no mistake: Navdeep Bains’ refusal to answer real questions isn’t just about protecting himself. It’s about preserving a whole Liberal network that thrives on government patronage, hidden behind bureaucratic red tape. The Liberals have turned “process” into a shield, protecting ministers from facing the consequences of their actions.
The stakes couldn’t be higher for Canadians. This isn’t just about misusing a few dollars — it’s about a government prioritizing loyalty over public good, rewarding insiders while millions of Canadians wonder where their taxes are actually going. Under Trudeau’s watch, the promise of accountability has become a punchline, replaced with cronyism and evasion. So here’s the real question: Is Canada governed for its citizens, or for an elite network of well-connected Liberal insiders? Because after this committee meeting, the answer seems painfully clear.
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2025 Federal Election
Post election report indicates Canadian elections are becoming harder to secure

Chief Electoral Officer Stéphane Perrault highlights strong participation and secure voting, but admits minority politics, rising costs, and administrative pressures are testing the system’s limits.
Monday in Ottawa, Stéphane Perrault, Canada’s Chief Electoral Officer, delivered a long press conference on April’s federal election. It was supposed to be a victory lap, record turnout, record early voting, a secure process. But if you listened closely, you heard something else: an admission that Canada’s election machinery is faltering, stretched thin by a system politicians refuse to fix.
Perrault touted the highest turnout in 30 years, 69 percent of eligible voters, nearly 20 million Canadians. Almost half of those ballots were cast before election day, a dramatic shift in how citizens take part in democracy.
“Twenty years ago, less than 7% voted early. This year, nearly half did,” Perrault told reporters. “Our system may have reached its limit.”
That’s the core problem. The system was built for one decisive day, not weeks of advance voting spread across campuses, long-term care homes, mail-in ballots, and local Elections Canada offices. It’s no longer a single event; it’s an extended process that stretches the capacity of staff, polling locations, and administration.
Perrault admitted bluntly that the 36-day writ period, the time between when an election is called and when the vote happens, may no longer be workable. “If we don’t have a fixed date election, the current time frame does not allow for the kind of service preparations that is required,” he said.
And this is where politics collides with logistics. Canada is once again under a minority government, which means an election can be triggered at almost any moment. A non-confidence vote in the House of Commons, where opposition parties withdraw support from the government, can bring down Parliament in an instant. That’s not a flaw in the system; it’s how parliamentary democracy works. But it leaves Elections Canada on permanent standby, forced to prepare for a snap election without knowing when the writ will drop.
The result? Sixty percent of voter information cards were mailed late this year because Elections Canada couldn’t finalize leases for polling stations on time. Imagine that, more than half the country got their voting information delayed because the system is clogged. And that’s when everything is supposedly working.
The April election cost an estimated $570 million, almost identical to 2021 in today’s dollars. But here’s the kicker: Elections Canada also spent $203 million just to stay ready during three years of minority Parliament. That’s not democracy on the cheap. That’s bureaucracy on retainer.
Perrault admitted as much: “We had a much longer readiness period. That’s the reality of minority governments.”
No Foreign Interference… But Plenty of ‘Misinformation’
Canada’s top election official wanted to make something perfectly clear: “There were no acts of foreign interference targeting the administration of the electoral process.” That’s the line. And it’s a good one… reassuring, simple, the kind of phrase meant to make headlines and calm nerves.
But listen closely to the wording. He didn’t say there was no interference at all. He said none of it targeted the administration of the vote. Which raises the obvious question: what interference did occur, and who was behind it?
Perrault admitted there was “more volume than ever” of misinformation circulating during the 2025 election. He listed the greatest hits: rumors that Elections Canada gives voters pencils so ballots can be erased, or claims that non-citizens were voting. These are hardly new — they’ve appeared in the U.S. and in Europe too. The difference, he said, is scale. In 2025, Canadians saw those narratives across more channels, more platforms, more communities than ever before.
This is where things get interesting. Because the way Perrault framed it wasn’t that a rogue actor or a foreign intelligence service was pushing disinformation. He was blunt: this was a domestic problem as much as anything else. In his words, “whether foreign or not,” manipulation of information poses the “single biggest risk to our democracy.”
Perrault insists the real danger isn’t foreign hackers or ballot-stuffing but Canadians themselves, ordinary people raising questions online. “Information manipulation, whether foreign or not, poses the single biggest risk to our democracy,” he said.
Well, maybe he should look in the mirror. If Canadians are skeptical of the system, maybe it’s because the people running it haven’t done enough to earn their trust. It took years for Ottawa to even acknowledge the obvious , that foreign actors were meddling in our politics long before this election. Endless commissions and closed-door reports later, we’re told to stop asking questions and accept that everything is secure.
Meanwhile, what gets fast-tracked? Not a comprehensive fix to protect our democracy, but a criminal investigation into a journalist. Keean Bexte, co-founder of JUNO News, is facing prosecution under Section 91(1) of the Canada Elections Act for his reporting on allegations against Liberal candidate Thomas Keeper. The maximum penalty? A $50,000 fine and up to five years in prison. His reporting, incidentally, was sourced, corroborated, and so credible that the Liberal Party quietly dropped Keeper from its candidate list.
If people doubt the system, it isn’t because they’re gullible or “misinformed.” It’s because the government has treated transparency as an afterthought and accountability as an inconvenience. And Perrault knows it. Canadians aren’t children to be scolded for asking questions, they’re citizens who expect straight answers.
But instead of fixing the cracks in the system, Ottawa points the finger at the public. Instead of rebuilding trust, they prosecute journalists.
You don’t restore faith in democracy by threatening reporters with five years in prison. You do it by showing, quickly and openly, that elections are beyond reproach. Until then, spare us the lectures about “misinformation.” Canadians can see exactly where the problem lies, and it isn’t with them.
The Takeaway
Of course, they’re patting themselves on the back. Record turnout, no servers hacked, the trains ran mostly on time. Fine. But what they don’t want to admit is that the system barely held together. It was propped up by 230,000 temporary workers, leases signed at the last minute, and hundreds of millions spent just to keep the lights on. That’s not stability. That’s triage.
And then there’s the lecturing tone. Perrault tells us the real threat isn’t incompetence in Ottawa, it’s you, Canadians “sharing misinformation.” Excuse me? Canadians asking questions about their elections aren’t a threat to democracy, they are democracy. If the government can’t handle people poking holes in its story, maybe the problem isn’t the questions, maybe it’s the answers.
So yes, on paper, the 2025 election looked like a triumph. But listen closely and you hear the sound of a system cracking under pressure, led by officials more interested in controlling the narrative than earning your trust. And when the people running your elections think the real danger is the voters themselves? That’s when you know the elastic isn’t just stretched. It’s about to snap.
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Health
MAiD should not be a response to depression

This article supplied by Troy Media.
Canadians need real mental health support, not state-sanctioned suicide
If the law Parliament plans to roll out in 2027 had been on the books 15 years ago, Member of Parliament Andrew Lawton says he’d probably be dead. He’s not exaggerating. He’s referring to Canada’s scheduled expansion of medical assistance in dying (MAiD) to include people suffering only from mental illness.
Lawton, who survived a suicide attempt during a period of deep depression, knows what’s at stake. So do others who’ve shared similar stories. What they needed back then wasn’t a government-approved exit plan. They needed care, time, and something MAiD quietly discards: the possibility of recovery.
MAiD, medical assistance in dying, was legalized in Canada in 2016 for people with grievous and irremediable physical conditions. The 2027 expansion would, for the first time, allow people to request MAiD solely on the basis of a mental illness, even if they have no physical illness or terminal condition.
With the expansion now delayed to March 2027, Parliament will once again have to decide whether it wants to cross this particular moral threshold. Although the legislation was passed in 2021, it has never come into force. First pushed back to 2024, then to 2027, it remains stalled, not because of foot-dragging, but due to intense medical, ethical and public concern.
Parliament should scrap the expansion altogether.
A 2023 repeal attempt came surprisingly close—just 17 votes short, at 167 to 150. That’s despite unanimous support from Conservative, NDP and Green MPs. You read that right: all three parties, often at each other’s throats, agreed that death should not be an option handed out for depression.
Their concern wasn’t just ethical, it was practical. The core issues remain unresolved. There’s no consensus on whether mental illness is ever truly irremediable—whether it can be cured, improved or even reliably assessed as hopeless. Ask 10 psychiatrists and you’ll get 12 opinions. Recovery isn’t rare. But authorizing MAiD sends the opposite message: that some people’s pain is permanent, and the only answer is to make it stop—permanently.
Meanwhile, access to real mental health care is sorely lacking. A 2023 Angus Reid Institute poll found 40 per cent of Canadians who needed treatment faced barriers getting it. Half of Canadians said they outright oppose the expansion. Another 21 per cent weren’t sure—perhaps assuming Canada wouldn’t actually go through with something so dystopian. But 82 per cent agreed on one thing: don’t even think about expanding MAiD before fixing the mental health system.
That disconnect between what people need and what they’re being offered leads to a more profound contradiction. Canada spends millions promoting suicide prevention. There are hotlines, campaigns and mental health initiatives. Offering MAiD to people in crisis sends a radically different message: suicide prevention ends where bureaucracy begins.
Even Quebec, normally Canada’s most enthusiastic adopter of progressive policy experiments, has drawn the line. The province has said mental disorders don’t qualify for MAiD, period. Most provincial premiers and health ministers have called for an indefinite delay.
Internationally, the United Nations Committee on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities has condemned Canada’s approach and urged the government not to proceed. Taken together, the message is clear: both at home and abroad, there’s serious alarm over where this policy leads.
With mounting opposition and the deadline for implementation approaching in 2027, Parliament will again revisit the issue this fall.
A private member’s bill from MP Tamara Jansen, Bill C-218, which seeks to repeal the 2027 expansion clause, will bring the issue back to the floor for debate.
Her speech introducing the bill asked MPs to imagine someone’s child, broken by job loss or heartbreak, reaching a dark place. “Imagine they feel a loss so deep they are convinced the world would be better off without them,” she said. “Our society could end a person’s life solely for a mental health challenge.”
That isn’t compassion. That’s surrender.
Expanding MAiD to mental illness risks turning a temporary crisis into a permanent decision. It treats pain as untreatable, despair as destiny, and bureaucracy as wisdom. It signals to the vulnerable that Canada is no longer offering help—just a final form to sign.
Parliament still has time to reverse course. It should reject the expansion, reinvest in suicide prevention and reassert that mental suffering deserves treatment—not a state-sanctioned exit.
Daniel Zekveld is a Policy Analyst with the Association for Reformed Political Action (ARPA) Canada.
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