Two federal climate programs that received more than $300 million in public funding failed to deliver promised job creation or verifiable emissions reductions, according to an internal report by the Department of Natural Resources.
The programs launched in 2018 under the late Jim Carr, former Liberal natural resources minister, and were touted as opportunities to build “cleaner, safer, better-connected electricity systems” and create “well-paying jobs for middle-class Canadians.”
However, auditors found that important performance metrics were either not tracked at all or were inconsistently reported, making it impossible to assess whether their advertised goals were met.
The $301.38 million in multi-year subsidies were aimed at supporting clean power projects.
However, department managers “stopped collecting certain performance metrics, e.g. greenhouse gas emission reductions, throughout the project duration,” according to the evaluation, first reported by Blacklock’s Reporter.
“These metrics will only be collected in final reporting,” the report states. “At that time, evidence suggests it will most likely be too difficult and too late to identify weaknesses or errors and make changes and corrections.”
Auditors concluded that project records were incomplete and lacked consistency across funding recipients, raising serious questions about value for money.
“Removing annual reporting increases the risk of poor-quality performance information,” the report says, noting that documentation provided by project recipients had “some gaps in actual outcomes and results.”
“There are inconsistencies in how the programs collect performance information,” it adds. “The lack of a consistent approach in how data were reported rendered it impossible to aggregate the results and thus accurately assess the extent to which some of the indicators have been met.”
No job creation projections were published when the programs were initially announced, and the internal evaluation confirms that none were later verified.
The report acknowledges “areas of improvement and lessons learned,” but warns that the government’s failure to track annual data means future evaluations may be limited in their ability to assess impact or correct course.