The report, originally flagged by Blacklock’s, shows numerous inconsistencies and the lack of accounting for many projects. 

“We found that Infrastructure Canada could publish only a partial list of projects funded by programs included in the Plan […]

The project list published online by Infrastructure Canada in June 2020 had approximately 33,000 entries and had not been updated. […]

We found there was a difference between the project list and the summary of spending”, Auditor General Karen Hogan wrote. 

“Infrastructure Canada’s reporting captured only some programs each year making it impossible to compare results year over year […] The absence of clear and complete reporting on the Investing In Canada Plan makes it difficult for Parliamentarians and Canadians to know whether progress is being made against the intended objectives”, the Auditor added. 

When asked how many billions were “missing from the list” by Conservative MP Pierre Poilievre, Jason Jacques, director-general of costing at the Budget Office answered: “about half of the [$187.8 billion] program”. 

In August 2020, a federal audit found breaches in the Treasury Board Contracting Policy by the Minister of Environment and Climate Change when Catherine McKenna was at its helm. 

In October 2020, another internal audit found substantial mispractices on the Minister of Infrastructure and Communities of which McKenna was put in charge in November 2019. 

The audit found the department lacked mandatory checklists, proper due diligence and presented serious “control failures”.

The Auditors studied 32 projects at random and found that 22 of them had incomplete checklists, signalling a failure rate of nearly 70%.