Consultation : Lignes directrices sur les rapports visant l’octroi de subventions et de contributions

The Canadian Partnership Against Cancer supports the proposed measures to increase transparency for federal government Grants and Contributions. The guidelines and fields provide reasonable and clear direction for implementation of these measures. Overall, we believe that this proposal will provide an increased level of accountability for results to Canadians achieved through government funding.

Transparency and accountability of government grants are an expectation of taxpayers. If there is a confidentiality issue with potential recipients, then they should not apply for government grants.

I am all for transparency and accountability. There is always the potential to better track the use of government funds, and identify and curb misuse or waste.

However, I am greatly concerned with the suggestion that the current lower limit of G&C funding will be reduced from $25,000 CAD to $1 CAD. The cost of administering awards is not negligible, particularly with the proposed tracking system. If the administration cost per award is $500, for example, should the Government even entertain awards less than $5,000? If such small awards have been disbursed in the past, there should be a review of what were the purpose and necessity of these awards. If they were necessary, what will be the impact of eliminating these awards?

I suggest that program information be sufficiently vague that it does not give away information which individuals or companies may consider commercially or competitively sensitive. There are many times when small companies receive funding to develop technology that is critical to their growth and if competitors are made aware of the exact nature of the technology or technology path they are working on this could easily hurt their financial position.

Some questions :
1- Does the transparency apply for provincial government grant too ?
2- Are you going to reveal the applications review team as well ?
3- Is it possible to see how many application received in any area and easily follow how much each sector get the fund ?
4- Are the Federal / Provincial government going to clearly set the priorities and announced it ?

This program should be revised as indicated in the preamble. I suggest a lower grant value for reporting at $10,000 Canadian. It seems to me that much of this information is already available in granting agency databases and could be assimilated quite rapidly. Then recipients could be contacted for verification of their funding. The program would also be useful as information to the general public and among funding agencies to determine where future efforts should be directed in order to optimize progress where the greatest need exists.

Supportive of anything that increase transparency and accountability which currently achieves a high standard.

It is usually scary to get gov reviews because most of the time means to cut grants and subsidies to industry, especially to specific research industries that need lots of gov support to be competing against industries like the German, the British, the Chinese or the Dutch, which are heavily subsidized by their governments.

Peut-être faudrait-il établir un seuil critique, comme 100 000 $ ou 250 000 $ comme seuil critique afin de limiter les dépenses de gestion et permettre d'aider davantage les entreprises. Pour des montants limités, l'influence n'est pas très grande, mais peut permettre à de jeunes entreprises de percer, cela fait toute la différence, mais c'est certain qu'il devrait y avoir davantage de transparence pour tous les montants importants.

The principles of transparency and accountability have always proven to be an asset in the management of our national not-for-profit association, so we applaud their application in the reporting of grants and awards. Collectively we can optimize the use of public resources. The Canadian Association of Occupational Therapists.

Excellente initiative-idée. Toutes les subventions grandes ou petites devraient être divulguées publiquement. Question de transparence.

Excellent idea. After all, all funds belong to public but managed by those elected or selected to do so for the development of public life standards by way of creating facilities and comforts. Therefore all funds issued to any body in any quantity, shape or form must be known to the end user or the final beneficiary....the public...citizens...the people. This will help stop misuse of these funds by such organizations or bodies when the visibility becomes 100%.

I like the changes - all awards should be posted for others to see, in a place where it's easy to access. This complete information will help others considering for applying to see what has been awarded previously. Thank you.

I also agree that all Government funds should be accounted for 100%.Record keeping should be done to account for all movement of funds and accountability.

As the leader of a not-for-profit organization whose main objective is geared towards proactively working inside remote fly-in First Nations reserves; I strongly feel that the government is doing the right thing by publicly disclosing "all" funding and grants that are distributed to the communities and the consultants who work with them. Based on our experience, 99.9% of the people who live inside First Nations reserves have no idea how much funding is given to their chiefs and band councillors, so more transparency is desperately needed in this particular area. If the government could find a way to ensure "The People" (not the chiefs/band councillors) are more involved in their communities financial affairs, the proposals being submitted for funding, then this would mitigate corruption on various levels and thus, prevent consultants like Joe Crupi or many of the other "Joes" out there from siphoning funding.

I agree 100% that government grants and contributions should be visible to taxpayers. This will make for a better system. I would add that a reasonably detailed accounting for the disposition of funds must be part of the obligation of any recipient. This latter requirement will help ensure the monies are appropriately spent, and that the expected results are captured.