Auditor general’s final report into summit spending finds Parliament was misled
Canada’s auditor general has released the report into G8 spending that prompted criticism of the Conservatives during the past election campaign. The conclusions of the final version of the report are largely the same as those of the draft report that was leaked during the campaign: Parliament didn’t know it was signing off on $50 million in ‘legacy spending’ on the Muskoka region and the choice of projects was largely undocumented. The legacy funds were in fact drawn from an $83 million pot earmarked for improving the border. And of the 32 projects which received legacy funds, public servants weren’t consulted on any of them. In all, government spending came in much lower than initially projected. Parliament approved a total of $1.1 billion in funding for last summer’s G8/G20 summits, but total costs came in at $664 million.