SDTC's chair moved the motions that paid her company. Ottawa was there.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada was a federal foundation that gave public money to clean-technology companies. It reported through the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry. Cabinet named its chair and 6 other directors on the minister's recommendation; the members named the other 8.

On 4 June 2019 Annette Verschuren spoke to the Ethics Commissioner's office about becoming chair. She was chair, CEO and majority shareholder of NRStor, an energy-storage company she founded, and sat on the boards of the Verschuren Centre and MaRS, business accelerators. By her own account she was told she could serve so long as she recused herself from any decision in which she was in a conflict. Cabinet appointed her on 19 June 2019, on Navdeep Bains's recommendation.

On 23 March 2020, as COVID hit, the board voted $17.9M in relief to 118 companies in its portfolio. A lawyer from Osler had told the board that because the payment was an omnibus measure with no list of projects, directors with conflicts could stay. Verschuren moved the motion, and NRStor was paid. Andrée-Lise Méthot, whose Cycle Capital held stakes in portfolio firms, stayed and voted; she later called it "the only vote I may have cast, unknowingly", for her firm's companies. Andrew Noseworthy, an assistant deputy minister at Industry, regularly attended board meetings. "I was there," he told MPs. He informed his deputy minister, and he knew the fund had written the minister.

In January 2021 François-Philippe Champagne became Industry minister. On 5 February 2021 cabinet named Stephen Kukucha a director; Dominic LeBlanc had recused himself from that decision because Kukucha was his friend. On 9 March 2021 the board did it again: $20.5M to 102 companies. Verschuren moved it again. NRStor's payments came to $217,661.

Around 27 January 2023 a whistleblower went to a director. The Privy Council Office sent the file to Industry on 16 February. Champagne was briefed on 27 September, with a recommendation to pause funding, and new money stopped on 1 October: 227 days after the file arrived. The whistleblower, Israr Ahmad, later told MPs the outcome changed only "when the minister's office became involved". Champagne answered: "People are entitled to their opinion, but they're not entitled to their own facts." Verschuren resigned as chair on 22 November 2023.

In June 2024 the Auditor General reported. In the COVID votes she counted 63 cases where "directors voted while having previously declared conflicts of interest". In all, the fund's conflict policies were not followed in 90 cases. It approved $59.0M for 10 projects that did not qualify, of 58 she examined. Industry knew the COVID payments involved no recusals and supported them anyway, had not asked for the conflict reports it was owed "without delay", and did no audits from 2017 to 2023. The board had read the official's presence as "an implicit agreement by the department".

In July 2024 the Ethics Commissioner found that Verschuren broke the Act: "She participated in those decisions knowing that NRStor would benefit from the funding." The lawyer's advice was no excuse; "relying on an external legal opinion does not absolve a public office holder". That fall the Public Accounts committee heard Méthot, Noseworthy and others. It called on the government to recoup the money, the National Post reported.

In September 2026 Industry tabled its answer to a Conservative MP, Luc Berthold, signed by the minister. The fund's own re-review of 173 projects had found 5 ineligible and another funded for ineligible costs; those 5 "collectively received approximately" $34.0M. The board "determined that it would not pursue recovery", on legal advice, because the agreements were "negotiated and performed by funding recipients in good faith", and it was "determined that further pursuit of recoveries was not likely to be successful, and not in the public interest". Industry sent the fund a notice of breach, and "a letter acknowledging and accepting the approach taken by Sustainable Development Technology Canada's Board".

SDTC was "an arm's length foundation, with an independent Board of Directors responsible for overseeing its operations, including decisions on project funding", Industry says, and it kept "ongoing, but targeted oversight" through the contribution agreement. The COVID decision "was taken with great urgency and with a view that companies were in the process of collapsing", Noseworthy told MPs, on legal advice he took "at face value". The chair relied on the board's lawyer, and told the minister before her appointment that NRStor expected payments. The Commissioner found "there was no evidence that she attempted to influence the decision of her colleagues", and that she did not break section 9 of the Act. Méthot told MPs she declared a conflict on the Cycle companies SDTC funded and recused herself ("I always recused myself"), and that the gain at stake at the COVID vote was small: "the maximum gain from these measures was $155 for GreenMantra and $91 for MineSense." The fund's own re-review found 5 projects ineligible, against the Auditor General's 10, and Industry's answer says the agreements were "negotiated and performed by funding recipients in good faith". Méthot testified that Guilbeault holds no shares in Cycle Capital and has been paid nothing from his passive interest. New funding was paused on 1 October 2023, after Champagne was briefed on 27 September, and the government decided to move SDTC's programming to the National Research Council. Noseworthy: "In the cases where I saw people recuse themselves, they left the room."

Urgency explains March 2020. It does not explain March 2021, a year later, when the same board voted the same way with the same lawyer's cover. The Commissioner threw out the legal-advice defence in one line: "relying on an external legal opinion does not absolve a public office holder". The chair had been told, before she sat, to recuse. Méthot puts the maximum gain for GreenMantra at $155; she told MPs of her firm, "We're 10.0% shareholders, on average." The Auditor General counted 63 cases of directors voting with declared conflicts, not a single lapse. Arm's length is not blindfolded: the contract required conflicts be reported "without delay", and Industry had not asked for them, did no audits from 2017 to 2023, and sat in the room. A recipient's good faith is no answer to whether taxpayers get their money back. It only tells you who the board decided would not pay, with Industry's acceptance.