A former manager at the Department of Industry, Marc Primeau, has pleaded guilty to breach of trust after a five-year investigation revealed he awarded federal contracts to his own company, Access Security Logistix, earning a 39% profit. Blacklock's Reporter says the RCMP confirmed that Primeau, who was the sole owner of the firm, directed 72 sole-sourced contracts to his business and won an additional six purchase orders.The investigation revealed that Primeau personally ensured that the goods were received by the department, a role that allowed him to profit from the contracts. He was fired in 2019 after pocketing $90,000 in profits from $231,663 worth of contracts. He has since repaid the $90,000.Primeau’s case follows the recent arrest of Clara Visser, an Ottawa contractor charged with overbilling $250,000 over 18 months. Fraud within federal departments, particularly Public Works, has become an ongoing concern, with Minister Jean-Yves Duclos addressing the issue earlier this year. “Fraud undermines our ability to ensure value for money on behalf of Canadians,” Duclos stated in March, adding that proactive investigations would continue.Catherine Poulin, assistant deputy public works minister, testified at the Commons government operations committee that fraud is widespread across various departments. “No department is entirely safe from this type of fraud,” she said.When pressed on the scale of the fraud, Conservative MP Michael Barrett questioned Poulin on the total value of suspected fraudulent activity. Poulin responded, “It would be very difficult for me to estimate a total sum. The very nature of fraud is to evade detection.”Federal spending on contractors reached $21.6 billion last year, and Barrett voiced concerns over the lack of accountability. “Is it not true at this very minute there are middlemen just soaking Canadian taxpayers?” he asked, criticizing the ongoing fraud and calling for greater scrutiny over public funds.
