Farm Credit Canada, the Regina-based Crown corporation, has cancelled two lucrative employee recognition programs that cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, while vowing to review expense policies.
The board decision came after newspaper reports, based on access-to-information documents, revealed that trips to the United States for selected employees and top managers through Bravo Club and President’s Club, cost FCC close to $600,000 over two years.
A planned five-day Bravo Club trip to Disney World in Florida, scheduled to depart today, has been canceled
The stories by Sun Media detailed tens of thousands of dollars spent on Saskatchewan Roughrider tickets, executive class airline tickets, expensive hotel rooms and meals for employees traveling on business.
“FCC understands that it has a responsibility to spend its money wisely and carefully,” corporate secretary Greg Willner said in a statement after the board decision last week. “The full board of directors and FCC executive committee members would like to extend sincere apologies for any negative perceptions caused by recent media coverage.”
The board decision and apology came after agriculture minister Gerry Ritz let it be known he was not amused.
“Farm Credit is there to serve farmers and taxpayers and this obvious excess is completely unacceptable,” he said in a March 3 statement in response to questions. “I have instructed the FCC board to immediately provide a comprehensive assessment to determine what went wrong and implement a plan to rectify the situation and ensure this kind of excess does not happen again.”
Ritz noted that details of the spending spree were made public because the Conservative government made Crown corporations subject to information access requests.
Outraged Opposition MPs suggested they will be calling FCC executives before the House of Commons agriculture committee to explain themselves.
“FCC has really lost touch with the farming community that they are supposed to represent,” complained Liberal agriculture critic Wayne Easter. “These guys think they’re bankers.”
Willner said in his statement from the board meeting that during the past year, president Greg Stewart had “taken steps to exert more fiscal restraint. However, it is clear that the corporation did not move quickly enough.”
One of the examples cited by Sun Media was a March 2009 all-expenses-paid trip Stewart and his wife made to Disney World with Bravo Club winners.
FCC also paid the $300 tab for childcare in Regina while they were away.
Corporation leaders had several years of warning that employee perks could become an issue.
In a 2007 special investigation, federal auditor-general Sheila Fraser questioned payment of both rich retention bonuses for some managers with appropriate business justification and she flagged the employee rewards program.
“Farm Credit Canada should review its awards program against a formal reputation risk policy to ensure that all awards are in keeping with positive public perceptions and the desired image-reputation of FCC as a Crown corporation,” she wrote.
FCC promised to review its awards program.
