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[Excerpts:]

"Accountability and oversight have been the focus of our recent board meetings. The board has been trying to fulfill its mandate of ensuring that project and grant monies are being sent overseas in a transparent manner which satisfies internal financial control standards. Spending decisions need to be fully accountable and satisfy the Canadian public’s sense of fairness and reasonableness. The board took especially seriously a number of unauthorized staff decisions to spend taxpayers’ money for purposes that most taxpayers and most political leaders would find appalling. Some of the sums were large, and some were small. The amounts involved are less important than the poor judgment and lack of accountability demonstrated in approving certain grants." "As a result, the board voted to repudiate these grants and temporarily freeze the discretionary funds under the president’s control which were used to provide them. What has not been reported is that the president, the late Rémy Beauregard, who was a voting member of the board, actually voted with the majority of the board, in agreement with this decision. The freeze decision is meant to allow the staff time to complete a redesign of decision-making processes to help the organization avoid such situations in the future."