VANOC communication breakdown

The response from ex-VANOC employees that I have been in touch with has been common.

None expressed bitterness about the cancellation of the final instalment of the promised bonuses for fulfilling all work requirements. (Read more here about the surprise memo and the unanswered questions about the multi-million-dollar VANOC trust fund).

All, however, are a tad miffed that they didn't get the Jan. 6, 2011 bad news memo. They reasonably believe that what remains of VANOC is in possession of their current email address. For example, they received information about CEO John Furlong's upcoming memoir, Patriot Hearts.

This is what Renee Smith-Valade, who was the vice-president of communications, said in response to my question about the process of disseminating that Jan. 6, 2011 memo:

"As many employees as possible were informed of the change to the retention plan. The vast majority were aware well before the Games ended and John's memo served as confirmation. As you might imagine, not everyone left forwarding contact information so it may be that they did not get John's e-mail.

"There was a request in the memo to forward it on to colleagues as much as possible and to encourage those who wanted to leave accurate forwarding addresses to contact VANOC at a specified e-mail address."

You're welcome to comment below or email me directly bob.mackin@sunmedia.ca

Putting two and two together

Last week, this blogger broke stories on how the Vancouver Olympic committee cancelled its final instalment of bonuses for certain workers and that the Department of Canadian Heritage found discrepancies in the use of federal taxpayers' funds by VANOC.

Canadian Heritage was the ministry that oversaw federal involvement with and funding of the Olympics. The October 2010-dated audit document was itself dated Dec. 8, 2010. It appeared on the Canadian Heritage website's audits and evaluation section very quietly, after Christmas... after the Dec. 17, 2010 VANOC post-Games financial report and after the Dec. 23, 2010 Government-wide Canada's Games report. The latter report did not answer a key question: how much did the feds spend?

Canadian Heritage didn't find any improprieties and made no recommendations to VANOC. But the auditors who went over VANOC books last May and June and found $10 million in accounting discrepancies that needed adjusting. They were unable to look at how ceremonies producer David Atkins used almost $500,000 because the files were in Australia.

Canadian Heritage Minister James Moore was "not available" according to his press secretary. VANOC chief financial officer John McLaughlin did not respond directly to my queries about the cancelled bonuses or the Canadian Heritage audit. But if VANOC had to rejig its books after the audit, it may be reasonable that the first place it turned was the trust fund that contained those bonuses.

A trust fund that was reported quarterly in 2008 and 2009, but mysteriously not in the only report issued in 2010.

Here is the Canadian Heritage audit.

Canadian Heritage VANOC audit, October 2010