Videotron at the trough

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by GEMMA WILSON

News media are awash with talk of Shovelgate, the scandal which has rocked Canada's Human Resources Department over the alleged mismanagement of $1 billion in government grants. What kind of mismanagement are we talking about? Consider the case of Montreal-based Videotron Telecom Ltd., one of the 37 organizations to receive "questionable" grants.

According to the now-famous internal HRDC audit, the $2.5-million deal with Videotron was initially set up create 500 permanent jobs in the Montreal area, with HRDC granting $5,000 for each newly created long-term job. As it turns out, most of the contracts signed by Videotron were for temporary positions, many lasting only for the summer. In addition, a few of the people hired by the company actually earned less than the $5,000 grant.

By the time the project was over, Videotron had managed to use only $1.92 million of the $2.5 million allocated for their particular proposal. No matter, though: HRDC still saw fit to simply give the remaining $580,000 to Videotron anyway.

Neither Videotron nor HRDC returned the Mirror's calls by press time. :

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