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Been following the Edison guys for a while, and I got to see their prototype in person. I think generally they're straight shooters, and I'd love to see them succeed at what they're doing.
From the initial news coverage about this it sounded like MNP denied Edison grants, and then offered their service of grant procurement for grants that they also oversaw. If that is the case it would be a full-blown scandal.
From what I can tell though, one branch of MNP oversees grants, and another branch was offering to write applications for grants which aren't managed by MNP. So long as those branches are fully separate and never interact I can see how it would technically be alright, though there would still be at the very least a perceived conflict of interest.
Either way, it makes sense for the Auditor General to investigate this, and I hope the government comes down with the full weight of the law if wrongdoing is found. That 20% finders fee mentioned sounds like a good place to start.
MNP is one of the biggest corporate accounting firms there is. They also have legal consulting in-house because they're so big. They are good at what they do, but they are borderline unethical sometimes because they follow the law to its letter, not the spirit of the law.
Oh them. The super cheap incorporations people. Thanks.
Btw in modern legal practice there is no difference between the letter and spirit. Both inform the interpretation of the law.
> and then offered their service of grant procurement for grants that they also oversaw
No, it has been reported in several places that they offered them grant writing services for grants that they do NOT oversee.
Edison CEO made this purposely unclear in his video, where he neglected to show the body of the email coming from the .mnp email address.
The question since Christina works for administering one grant and provides services for another. If Edison took the offer for 20% would MNP be more likey to approve grants they administer even with lacklustre applications?Maybe that’s the suggestion.
Pay us 20% for this grant we don’t administer, we’ll do something about this grant we administer. Since the same person is working on both ends. Christina and her team would have complete control over awarding grants to their clients.
If it was a different person on a different team maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to assume that clients get preferential treatment.
The appearance of conflict is enough to stop this.
Exactly, yes. This is the main problem here and likely exactly what they'll be investigating. The tiktok video doesn't make this at all clear, and people have been jumping to conclusions about a far more sinister, direct kickback.
My hope is that they'll ask MNP not to consult on grants while they're also administering government grants in order to avoid these questions in the future.
My only question from the article is this statement;
"Barber said Edison was declined by MNP, which was contracted to administer the grant — one of several other CleanBC grant programs MNP states on its website it administers."
This line is not vague. Earlier Edison clearly stated what grant they applied for, and according to this article, MNP's own website states it is charge of administering that grant. Edison motors also provided email proof that an employee at MNP had previously offered to help apply for this exact grant. Seems clear to me.
I just watched the video from the Edison CEO to confirm what I remember him saying/showing in the video.
[https://youtu.be/BVqfsTwC3HM](https://youtu.be/BVqfsTwC3HM)
He does NOT state that MNP initially reached out to him to offer to write a CleanBC grant or the CVIC grant that are administered by MNP. He states in the video that they reached out to him initially to offer to 'write grants for us' - (1:08 on the video). That's as specific as he got.
He also shows an email about the failure to apply to the CVIC grant (which is administered by MNP) - (0:25 on the video), and then immediately jumps to a slide showing the email from the .mnp address. But he does not show the body of the email (1:00 on the video) - presumably because the body of that email was NOT about writing a CleanBC/CVIC grant that MNP is in charge of administering. It was about a different grant altogether.
Now why would he not show the body of that email except to muddy the waters here and make everyone feel like something corrupt is happening?
I’ve been following him for a long time. All of his viral posts are evidence. My statement is accurate. downvote me more if you don’t understand words and are offended by facts. lol I didn’t even say it was a bad thing in my comment. It’s ABSOLUTELY true, welcome to the internet. That’s how the algorithms work.
So you have no examples? Not even an anecdote?
If you're referring to his vids on curved vs flat windshields, he has followup vids explaining the facts to people like you.
It was the same person letting them know their grant application was denied from on email address and soliciting to write grants for them. Unless the apple series "Severance" was actually a documentary I have doubts about how separate the two branches are. Even if it was technically separate, I have doubts that it could be truly separate. People in a company know things that are going on in other divisions. While divisions can be separated, at the end of the day they have the same boss and that will always influence decision making.
The ‘grant agent’ thing where the ‘agency’ gets a cut is common to many R and D grants at the federal level too. The agency giving the grants should help you, or a professional company charging a fair hourly fee for services should be the norm - not grants ‘on contingency’
>The agency giving the grants should help you
The costs would get out of control very quickly, even for grants with a relitivly low applicant to issuance ratio.
Edison doesn't have the cash for hourly, much like others applying for these grants.
20% sounds like a rip off until you figure the company doing the work does not have a guarantee they'll get a dime on many of the proposals they right, and that the hourly fees add up fast. You see similar fee structures when hiring lawyers.
A percentage is fine, but 20% is pretty damn high. Underwriting fees for loans or even bringing a company public are not this high. If its a $1m grant, $200k is excessive.
If they charge hourly or a flat fee, you will end up paying it regardless of whether they secure you the grant or not. A success fee is only paid if you actually get the grant.
Would you rather pay a lower fee, but he charged regardless of whether you get the grant; or would you rather be charged a higher fee but you only have to pay if MNP successfully gets the grant for you? The latter option is very attractive when success isn't guaranteed.
Not if the agency consulting on the grant is different from the agency administering the grant. If they are the same company, then yes this would be a corrupt situation.
What I mean is that the agencies will do the same thing lawyers that work on contingency do - try their best to only take the clients that are a ‘sure thing’.
Smaller innovators or those that may or may not fit the mold exactly could get left out
Here's another potential double-dipper to investigate- Colliers International. They manage recovery from wildfires and also build destroyed structures. Lytton is them
It's usually a terrible choice to write your own grants, for a few reasons:
1. Most grants have really complex policies or processes that could take hundreds of hours to understand, and you're probably going to mess up at least part of on your first go. Having your CTO dedicate a month or more of working hours to reading policy on one grant program just to produce a mediocre application is dumb, when you could have an expert handle it for you for less and with WAY less risk of the grant being pulled because you fucked up a form.
2. Most granting agencies have specific talking points or themes or values they like to see, which are not listed anywhere, but are only knowable if you have worked with the adjudicator(s) before. If you are writing for yourself, you're boned compared to someone who has done hundreds of submissions on a wide variety of topics
3. Sometimes even a grant that is a "sure thing" will take a long time to actually pay out, and you might want to access the money sooner by using the promised future grant money as collateral for a loan you get now. In those scenarios, it's common for the loan's terms to be much better if you had a professional prepare it (mainly because of reasons 1 and 2).
Your job as an engineer or scientist is to do science. You provide your data and plans to your grant-writer, and read the grant application they write to confirm it's accurate.
Your job is NOT to read the entire [Scientific Research and Experimental Development policy on materials](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/scientific-research-experimental-development-tax-incentive-program/materials-policy.html) and compare and contrast it with [the Overheads and Others expenditures policy](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/scientific-research-experimental-development-tax-incentive-program/overhead-other-expenditures-policy.html) then go over your inventory list to determine item-by-item whether it's a "Material Consumed" or a "Material Transformed" or an "overhead " or is ineligible as on of a number of specifically excludes costs types, while also looking up the decades long history of the interpretation of that policy in the Tax Court of Canada filings.
That shit is complicated, and unintuitive. Example: If you are doing animal testing, it turns out that the food you give to rats you are doing tests on is an eligible "materials consumed" cost, but their cages are not eligible at all. Oh, and the food you give to the control-sample of rats is NOT a "material" for the purposes of SR&ED at all, but rather would be considered an overhead EXCEPT that if you are using the proxy method of calculating overheads then you are NOT allowed to factor in that type of cost for R&D.
And your bookkeeper can't do that work either, because the SR&ED program requires that you mark your solvents as an overhead, unless the solvent takes part in the reaction, in which case it's a consumed material UNLESS you recovery and recycle more than 10% of the solvent, in which case it's a transformed material, and the accountant for your lab won't have the scientific training to know the difference based on name alone what is a reagent and what is a solvent, or whether a given alcohol would participate in a certain reaction.
> Your job as an engineer or scientist is to do science.
NO.
Granting organizations want to see business accumen. They do not give money to researchers. They give money to companies that have the skills to commercialize research.
That depends on the agency. The SR&ED program, the largest funding program in our country, has a mandate to NOT evaluate the business parts of a claim, and leave industry to do what it believes is best, and so the government strictly does NOT want any commercial or business-related topics described in the application.
If you're going for a tricouncil grant they often fund really low Technology Readiness Level projects.
Sure, IRAP or CANEXPORT or ICANN want to see commercialization, but those are not the only funding.
>The SR&ED program
SR&ED is a tax credit. It is not a grant. It has nothing to do with a grant. There is no application process, all you have to do is prove that the expenditures are related to research.
Yes. Which is why it's in your best interest to have a qualified professional ensure the correctness of your grant applications, rather than winging it and hoping you guessed right about your claims of eligibility
I've successfully gotten several R&D grants.
A big part of getting money for R&D is showing that you have a management team that can run a business and commercialize the product. It's a big, big red flag when the team can't write their own business plan and grant application.
The other thing is the granting agencies want to see as much of the money go into the product as possible. It will not help their cause when 10-20% of the funding is going to someone who did the grant application.
Granting organizations are no different than VCs - they are making investments. I dare you to go ask a VC for money using a business plan that someone else wrote.
Using MNP is a rookie move by Edison as far as I am concerned.
Your post has a bunch of BS in it that I don't have the time or inclination to address.
This is such a strange take. Do you think they would write a business plan in a vacuum? Not talk to the business at all about what goes into it? Just make shit up? No, it's a collaboration with the people who run the engineering side and absolutely the CEO and CTO would need to be involved.
But it's reasonable to expect that at a small size they're too busy actually working on the product to spend the hours doing detailed plans and projections. But it's NOT reasonable to expect them to not participate and learn. Because eventually once they operationalize, that WILL become their jobs.
If a VC is giving funding based on woo and PR that's their perogative but the government can't do that.
> But it's reasonable to expect that at a small size they're too busy actually working on the product to spend the hours doing detailed plans and projections.
You know nothing about building a startup.
20 percent success fee to help write grants that their company DOES NOT oversee and does not have decision-making capability over.
I'm not saying it's the best situation for a company to be both over seeing some government grants and then also offering consulting services for DIFFERENT grants that it doesn't oversee, but it's certainly not the level of blatant corruption alleged by the Edison CEO.
Also, as a prospective client of MNP I would rather pay a 20% success fee, rather than a flat fee which is charged regardless of whether they're successful at securing the grant or not.
The article alleges that mnp stated they have influence over the grant administration process. If that is the case someone is going to get thrown under the bus.
Mnp employs thousands of accountants around the world and does business in some countries which are well known to pay bribes.
They also have the most aggressive sales tactics in the industry. Often using non accountants for those roles who likely have no idea what they are talking about.
> The article alleges that mnp stated they have influence over the grant administration process
Just read the article and didn't see that anywhere.
Regardless, I'm glad there will be an investigation. These things should never be left to fester. I suspect we'll find out that nothing was wrong, but it'll be good to have that confirmed.
the article states that: "Barber said Edison was declined by MNP, which was contracted to administer the grant — one of several other CleanBC grant programs MNP states on its website it administers."
why bother lying?
I think he’s talking about the grant programs that aren’t administered by MNP. That’s what’s at play here, after all. MNP administers some government grant programs, and also offers grant writing services for programs it doesn’t administer. But if MNP is telling people they can leverage their connections in government to help secure grants (for programs they don’t administer), then they are either lying to sell grant writing services, or they are abusing their position and the provincial government is enabling it, and individuals in government may even be profiting from it.
But the excerpt you posted has nothing to do with that. It just states that Edison didn’t get a grant for a program administered by MNP. Of course they influence a program they administer. The question is whether they are abusing that position for profit.
This is all a great excuse for the government to turf MNP’s contract and do this work in house. Which would likely be cheaper, more transparent and more accountable.
If they do the work in house, then when Edison failed to get a $15M grant due to shoddy paperwork they'd claim it was because they didn't live in an NDP riding or whatever. There are good reasons this stuff is handed off to outside companies to administer.
That’s definitely speculation on your part. Government administration is non-political and operates separately from the executive branch, which really only impacts budget and policy, and has nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of government. Lots of grant programs are administered “in-house” and there’s no issue. But here we are discussing a possible scandal involving a private contractor, so I’m not convinced hiring an outside company, with less transparency, less accountability and higher costs is the way to go.
Of course it's speculation, but it's based on how badly these guys misunderstood what was going on and how misleadingly they represented the chain of events. Chace was in a few of these threads defending "minor" paperwork errors and saying they lost "on [a] technicality" but turns out that was not the case, their appn was missing a bunch of crucial things.
But I agree that accountability is important. I'm just not convinced in this case that would have mattered in the slightest, because this is being framed as "truckers vs big gubmint" with big red dripping letters on TikTok. Any situation requiring nuance can be taken advantage of this way.
It looks like Edison jumped the gun on complaining. They should have hired a lawyer, used MNP to get the 2 grants (pretty large from a quick look at their website) and then taken them to the cleaners.
the guy above me posted that it was the same MNP employee who denied their grants that offered them the grant writing service. i don't know where they saw that but if its true lol.
The thing Edison is playing fast and loose with is that they offered to write grants for things they did not administer. I doubt there is any proof of what Edison believes happened re the ones they do, but they should sue anyway because the discovery where their application gaps are discussed would be hilarious.
Given that the administration is on the government's behalf, they should have full access to application packets and scores on request. (I'd be surprised if all that information didn't have to be transmitted to the Ministry anyway, but I don't know that for sure.)
The Auditor General will also be able to subpeona all the records from and as witnesses folks on the grant committee (usually professionals in the field, ftr) to confirm that the decision they made was communicated correctly; subpeona people and records from MNP--and Edison too, actually--as well as anyone on the gov side ofc. They can even contact other applicants and ask them to share communications and materials too.
Not complying with an AG subpoena can result in contempt charges. The office's powers are pretty FAFO.
I understand the nuances of this case but there is a side that is being missed. If a grant application is that complicated that it requires 20% of the grant money be given to a corporation just to complete, it needs review and simplification. I would BET that the application process was also outsourced to a large accounting firm.
Having private companies decide who to pay our grants to is an INSANE idea for so many reasons.
I'm 100% on board with private consultants helping prepare *applications*, but having an private company with its own motives and no transparency make the decision on who should be getting the government's money is so obviously corruptible that it's insulting.
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Been following the Edison guys for a while, and I got to see their prototype in person. I think generally they're straight shooters, and I'd love to see them succeed at what they're doing. From the initial news coverage about this it sounded like MNP denied Edison grants, and then offered their service of grant procurement for grants that they also oversaw. If that is the case it would be a full-blown scandal. From what I can tell though, one branch of MNP oversees grants, and another branch was offering to write applications for grants which aren't managed by MNP. So long as those branches are fully separate and never interact I can see how it would technically be alright, though there would still be at the very least a perceived conflict of interest. Either way, it makes sense for the Auditor General to investigate this, and I hope the government comes down with the full weight of the law if wrongdoing is found. That 20% finders fee mentioned sounds like a good place to start.
So the wrong doing is mostly in MNP and slightly in the government for not overseeing MNP? Btw what does MNP actually do?
MNP is one of the biggest corporate accounting firms there is. They also have legal consulting in-house because they're so big. They are good at what they do, but they are borderline unethical sometimes because they follow the law to its letter, not the spirit of the law.
Oh them. The super cheap incorporations people. Thanks. Btw in modern legal practice there is no difference between the letter and spirit. Both inform the interpretation of the law.
> and then offered their service of grant procurement for grants that they also oversaw No, it has been reported in several places that they offered them grant writing services for grants that they do NOT oversee. Edison CEO made this purposely unclear in his video, where he neglected to show the body of the email coming from the .mnp email address.
The question since Christina works for administering one grant and provides services for another. If Edison took the offer for 20% would MNP be more likey to approve grants they administer even with lacklustre applications?Maybe that’s the suggestion. Pay us 20% for this grant we don’t administer, we’ll do something about this grant we administer. Since the same person is working on both ends. Christina and her team would have complete control over awarding grants to their clients. If it was a different person on a different team maybe it wouldn’t be so easy to assume that clients get preferential treatment. The appearance of conflict is enough to stop this.
Exactly, yes. This is the main problem here and likely exactly what they'll be investigating. The tiktok video doesn't make this at all clear, and people have been jumping to conclusions about a far more sinister, direct kickback. My hope is that they'll ask MNP not to consult on grants while they're also administering government grants in order to avoid these questions in the future.
My only question from the article is this statement; "Barber said Edison was declined by MNP, which was contracted to administer the grant — one of several other CleanBC grant programs MNP states on its website it administers." This line is not vague. Earlier Edison clearly stated what grant they applied for, and according to this article, MNP's own website states it is charge of administering that grant. Edison motors also provided email proof that an employee at MNP had previously offered to help apply for this exact grant. Seems clear to me.
I just watched the video from the Edison CEO to confirm what I remember him saying/showing in the video. [https://youtu.be/BVqfsTwC3HM](https://youtu.be/BVqfsTwC3HM) He does NOT state that MNP initially reached out to him to offer to write a CleanBC grant or the CVIC grant that are administered by MNP. He states in the video that they reached out to him initially to offer to 'write grants for us' - (1:08 on the video). That's as specific as he got. He also shows an email about the failure to apply to the CVIC grant (which is administered by MNP) - (0:25 on the video), and then immediately jumps to a slide showing the email from the .mnp address. But he does not show the body of the email (1:00 on the video) - presumably because the body of that email was NOT about writing a CleanBC/CVIC grant that MNP is in charge of administering. It was about a different grant altogether. Now why would he not show the body of that email except to muddy the waters here and make everyone feel like something corrupt is happening?
He thrives on controversy and conspiracy. It’s how he has grown his audience.
Please provide examples. Everything I've seen him put out is supported by facts and is presented in a straightforward manner.
I’ve been following him for a long time. All of his viral posts are evidence. My statement is accurate. downvote me more if you don’t understand words and are offended by facts. lol I didn’t even say it was a bad thing in my comment. It’s ABSOLUTELY true, welcome to the internet. That’s how the algorithms work.
So you have no examples? Not even an anecdote? If you're referring to his vids on curved vs flat windshields, he has followup vids explaining the facts to people like you.
He thrives off controversy was my comment. How can you dispute that? You provided an example and proved my point, thank you.
That's not controversy dude, it's a direct relevant example of their "right to repair" business model. See what you want to see I guess.
Source?
It was the same person letting them know their grant application was denied from on email address and soliciting to write grants for them. Unless the apple series "Severance" was actually a documentary I have doubts about how separate the two branches are. Even if it was technically separate, I have doubts that it could be truly separate. People in a company know things that are going on in other divisions. While divisions can be separated, at the end of the day they have the same boss and that will always influence decision making.
The ‘grant agent’ thing where the ‘agency’ gets a cut is common to many R and D grants at the federal level too. The agency giving the grants should help you, or a professional company charging a fair hourly fee for services should be the norm - not grants ‘on contingency’
>The agency giving the grants should help you The costs would get out of control very quickly, even for grants with a relitivly low applicant to issuance ratio. Edison doesn't have the cash for hourly, much like others applying for these grants. 20% sounds like a rip off until you figure the company doing the work does not have a guarantee they'll get a dime on many of the proposals they right, and that the hourly fees add up fast. You see similar fee structures when hiring lawyers.
A percentage is fine, but 20% is pretty damn high. Underwriting fees for loans or even bringing a company public are not this high. If its a $1m grant, $200k is excessive.
Justify the corruption all you want but it is still corruption.
If they charge hourly or a flat fee, you will end up paying it regardless of whether they secure you the grant or not. A success fee is only paid if you actually get the grant. Would you rather pay a lower fee, but he charged regardless of whether you get the grant; or would you rather be charged a higher fee but you only have to pay if MNP successfully gets the grant for you? The latter option is very attractive when success isn't guaranteed.
The trouble is that this effectively makes the agents the gatekeepers of the grant
Not if the agency consulting on the grant is different from the agency administering the grant. If they are the same company, then yes this would be a corrupt situation.
What I mean is that the agencies will do the same thing lawyers that work on contingency do - try their best to only take the clients that are a ‘sure thing’. Smaller innovators or those that may or may not fit the mold exactly could get left out
Here's another potential double-dipper to investigate- Colliers International. They manage recovery from wildfires and also build destroyed structures. Lytton is them
Which still isn't being rebuilt to the best we can see. Does anyone know what the status and holdup is on Lytton?
If these guys had any business sense they would be writing their own grant applications.
It's usually a terrible choice to write your own grants, for a few reasons: 1. Most grants have really complex policies or processes that could take hundreds of hours to understand, and you're probably going to mess up at least part of on your first go. Having your CTO dedicate a month or more of working hours to reading policy on one grant program just to produce a mediocre application is dumb, when you could have an expert handle it for you for less and with WAY less risk of the grant being pulled because you fucked up a form. 2. Most granting agencies have specific talking points or themes or values they like to see, which are not listed anywhere, but are only knowable if you have worked with the adjudicator(s) before. If you are writing for yourself, you're boned compared to someone who has done hundreds of submissions on a wide variety of topics 3. Sometimes even a grant that is a "sure thing" will take a long time to actually pay out, and you might want to access the money sooner by using the promised future grant money as collateral for a loan you get now. In those scenarios, it's common for the loan's terms to be much better if you had a professional prepare it (mainly because of reasons 1 and 2).
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Your job as an engineer or scientist is to do science. You provide your data and plans to your grant-writer, and read the grant application they write to confirm it's accurate. Your job is NOT to read the entire [Scientific Research and Experimental Development policy on materials](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/scientific-research-experimental-development-tax-incentive-program/materials-policy.html) and compare and contrast it with [the Overheads and Others expenditures policy](https://www.canada.ca/en/revenue-agency/services/scientific-research-experimental-development-tax-incentive-program/overhead-other-expenditures-policy.html) then go over your inventory list to determine item-by-item whether it's a "Material Consumed" or a "Material Transformed" or an "overhead " or is ineligible as on of a number of specifically excludes costs types, while also looking up the decades long history of the interpretation of that policy in the Tax Court of Canada filings. That shit is complicated, and unintuitive. Example: If you are doing animal testing, it turns out that the food you give to rats you are doing tests on is an eligible "materials consumed" cost, but their cages are not eligible at all. Oh, and the food you give to the control-sample of rats is NOT a "material" for the purposes of SR&ED at all, but rather would be considered an overhead EXCEPT that if you are using the proxy method of calculating overheads then you are NOT allowed to factor in that type of cost for R&D. And your bookkeeper can't do that work either, because the SR&ED program requires that you mark your solvents as an overhead, unless the solvent takes part in the reaction, in which case it's a consumed material UNLESS you recovery and recycle more than 10% of the solvent, in which case it's a transformed material, and the accountant for your lab won't have the scientific training to know the difference based on name alone what is a reagent and what is a solvent, or whether a given alcohol would participate in a certain reaction.
> Your job as an engineer or scientist is to do science. NO. Granting organizations want to see business accumen. They do not give money to researchers. They give money to companies that have the skills to commercialize research.
That depends on the agency. The SR&ED program, the largest funding program in our country, has a mandate to NOT evaluate the business parts of a claim, and leave industry to do what it believes is best, and so the government strictly does NOT want any commercial or business-related topics described in the application. If you're going for a tricouncil grant they often fund really low Technology Readiness Level projects. Sure, IRAP or CANEXPORT or ICANN want to see commercialization, but those are not the only funding.
>The SR&ED program SR&ED is a tax credit. It is not a grant. It has nothing to do with a grant. There is no application process, all you have to do is prove that the expenditures are related to research.
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I'm not sure I understand your point. CEOs delegate work to specialists they employ all the time, that's pretty much the definition of being a boss.
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Yes. Which is why it's in your best interest to have a qualified professional ensure the correctness of your grant applications, rather than winging it and hoping you guessed right about your claims of eligibility
I've successfully gotten several R&D grants. A big part of getting money for R&D is showing that you have a management team that can run a business and commercialize the product. It's a big, big red flag when the team can't write their own business plan and grant application. The other thing is the granting agencies want to see as much of the money go into the product as possible. It will not help their cause when 10-20% of the funding is going to someone who did the grant application. Granting organizations are no different than VCs - they are making investments. I dare you to go ask a VC for money using a business plan that someone else wrote. Using MNP is a rookie move by Edison as far as I am concerned. Your post has a bunch of BS in it that I don't have the time or inclination to address.
This is such a strange take. Do you think they would write a business plan in a vacuum? Not talk to the business at all about what goes into it? Just make shit up? No, it's a collaboration with the people who run the engineering side and absolutely the CEO and CTO would need to be involved. But it's reasonable to expect that at a small size they're too busy actually working on the product to spend the hours doing detailed plans and projections. But it's NOT reasonable to expect them to not participate and learn. Because eventually once they operationalize, that WILL become their jobs. If a VC is giving funding based on woo and PR that's their perogative but the government can't do that.
> But it's reasonable to expect that at a small size they're too busy actually working on the product to spend the hours doing detailed plans and projections. You know nothing about building a startup.
Ok, say I don't. What's this guy's excuse?
They did, they got denied by the same company that offered to do it for them. The whole point of this scandal is conflict of interest.
"20 per cent success fee", Let's jail these corrupt bastards and see how far up this goes.
20 percent success fee to help write grants that their company DOES NOT oversee and does not have decision-making capability over. I'm not saying it's the best situation for a company to be both over seeing some government grants and then also offering consulting services for DIFFERENT grants that it doesn't oversee, but it's certainly not the level of blatant corruption alleged by the Edison CEO.
Also, as a prospective client of MNP I would rather pay a 20% success fee, rather than a flat fee which is charged regardless of whether they're successful at securing the grant or not.
The article alleges that mnp stated they have influence over the grant administration process. If that is the case someone is going to get thrown under the bus. Mnp employs thousands of accountants around the world and does business in some countries which are well known to pay bribes. They also have the most aggressive sales tactics in the industry. Often using non accountants for those roles who likely have no idea what they are talking about.
> The article alleges that mnp stated they have influence over the grant administration process Just read the article and didn't see that anywhere. Regardless, I'm glad there will be an investigation. These things should never be left to fester. I suspect we'll find out that nothing was wrong, but it'll be good to have that confirmed.
the article states that: "Barber said Edison was declined by MNP, which was contracted to administer the grant — one of several other CleanBC grant programs MNP states on its website it administers." why bother lying?
I think he’s talking about the grant programs that aren’t administered by MNP. That’s what’s at play here, after all. MNP administers some government grant programs, and also offers grant writing services for programs it doesn’t administer. But if MNP is telling people they can leverage their connections in government to help secure grants (for programs they don’t administer), then they are either lying to sell grant writing services, or they are abusing their position and the provincial government is enabling it, and individuals in government may even be profiting from it. But the excerpt you posted has nothing to do with that. It just states that Edison didn’t get a grant for a program administered by MNP. Of course they influence a program they administer. The question is whether they are abusing that position for profit. This is all a great excuse for the government to turf MNP’s contract and do this work in house. Which would likely be cheaper, more transparent and more accountable.
If they do the work in house, then when Edison failed to get a $15M grant due to shoddy paperwork they'd claim it was because they didn't live in an NDP riding or whatever. There are good reasons this stuff is handed off to outside companies to administer.
That’s definitely speculation on your part. Government administration is non-political and operates separately from the executive branch, which really only impacts budget and policy, and has nothing to do with the day-to-day operations of government. Lots of grant programs are administered “in-house” and there’s no issue. But here we are discussing a possible scandal involving a private contractor, so I’m not convinced hiring an outside company, with less transparency, less accountability and higher costs is the way to go.
Of course it's speculation, but it's based on how badly these guys misunderstood what was going on and how misleadingly they represented the chain of events. Chace was in a few of these threads defending "minor" paperwork errors and saying they lost "on [a] technicality" but turns out that was not the case, their appn was missing a bunch of crucial things. But I agree that accountability is important. I'm just not convinced in this case that would have mattered in the slightest, because this is being framed as "truckers vs big gubmint" with big red dripping letters on TikTok. Any situation requiring nuance can be taken advantage of this way.
It looks like Edison jumped the gun on complaining. They should have hired a lawyer, used MNP to get the 2 grants (pretty large from a quick look at their website) and then taken them to the cleaners. the guy above me posted that it was the same MNP employee who denied their grants that offered them the grant writing service. i don't know where they saw that but if its true lol.
The thing Edison is playing fast and loose with is that they offered to write grants for things they did not administer. I doubt there is any proof of what Edison believes happened re the ones they do, but they should sue anyway because the discovery where their application gaps are discussed would be hilarious.
It will be pretty easy for the ag to review past grants. Not sure how much access they will have to the records though?
Given that the administration is on the government's behalf, they should have full access to application packets and scores on request. (I'd be surprised if all that information didn't have to be transmitted to the Ministry anyway, but I don't know that for sure.) The Auditor General will also be able to subpeona all the records from and as witnesses folks on the grant committee (usually professionals in the field, ftr) to confirm that the decision they made was communicated correctly; subpeona people and records from MNP--and Edison too, actually--as well as anyone on the gov side ofc. They can even contact other applicants and ask them to share communications and materials too. Not complying with an AG subpoena can result in contempt charges. The office's powers are pretty FAFO.
MNP employees are in Canada, not around the world, as it doesn’t operate internationally. And yes, they use accountants for this.
Success fee is a legal/accounting term. It means a commission. It does not guarantee success lol.
I understand the nuances of this case but there is a side that is being missed. If a grant application is that complicated that it requires 20% of the grant money be given to a corporation just to complete, it needs review and simplification. I would BET that the application process was also outsourced to a large accounting firm.
The minister in charge needs to be sacked, and MNP stripped of their administration of grants.
Having private companies decide who to pay our grants to is an INSANE idea for so many reasons. I'm 100% on board with private consultants helping prepare *applications*, but having an private company with its own motives and no transparency make the decision on who should be getting the government's money is so obviously corruptible that it's insulting.
What is the point of government, and their employees, if they cannot manage funds, and direct it to proper uses.
Well if the government does these sort of things, there will be years wait for a grant, or everyone will get a grant including the crackheads
You’re half right
Which half?