TORONTO: Access to Information documents obtained by the Canadian Taxpayers Federation (CTF) reveal that the Royal Canadian Mint spent at least $1,374,846 to determine that the $20 million in gold that the Mint thought was lost or stolen wasn’t missing or stolen after all.
The $1.4 million in costs do not include the costs of an RCMP investigation, a public relations contract to Hill and Knowlton or polling research conducted by Angus Reid regarding the issue.
“The good news is that taxpayers aren’t out $20 million. The bad news is it cost us $1.4 million to find out it wasn’t missing in the first place,” said CTF Federal director, Kevin Gaudet. “The irony is rich here.”
In June 2009 Canadian media began reporting that the Royal Canadian Mint was investigating 17,514 missing troy ounces of gold. That is the equivalent of 44 – 400 ounce – gold bars. The investigation included accountants, computer specialists, security experts and the RCMP. International media across the world picked up the tantalizing story of a possible theft of more than $20 million in gold from the Mint.
In November 2009 the investigation revealed that $3 million worth of gold was sold to the United States as slag, for almost nothing, and 1,500 ounces were recovered. The rest were accounting and inventory errors. However, the $1.4 million cost of the investigation is equivalent to losing 44 bars of gold.
“Even though the gold wasn’t actually lost, Canadians still come out losers with this pricy investigation,” continued Gaudet.
Gaudet concluded, “executive bonuses had been suspended pending the outcome of the investigation. It is unclear whether they were reinstated. A mess like this certainly should not merit reward by bonus!”
Summary Table Of Expenses:
A pdf copy of the CTF’s Access to Information results from the Canadian Mint can be downloaded HERE
