Reports of the Auditor General of Canada. Report 1

Spring 2016 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada REPORT 1 Venture Capital Action Plan Office of the Auditor General of Canada Bureau du vérificateur général du Canada Performance audit reports This report presents the results of a performance audit conducted by the Office of the Auditor General of Canada under the authority of the Auditor General Act. [...] Officials from the Department of Finance Canada told us that the size of the market gap informed the size of the federal government’s investment in the Action Plan. [...] We found that Report 1 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada—Spring 2016 the weighting of the criteria changed during the review, affecting the ranking of the applicants. [...] In order to leverage the knowledge, expertise, and capital of private-sector partners, which are requirements for contributing to the success of the Action Plan, selection processes were designed to balance the private-sector principles of confidentiality and flexibility in negotiations, with the public-sector principles of fairness, openness, and transparency for overall benefits of the public in [...] Should the government decide to develop a new initiative that involves private-sector partnerships and formal selection processes to assist the government in making venture capital investments, as was the case under the Action Plan, it will, in the context of the venture capital market at that time, design the selection processes to balance the principles of confidentiality and flexibility for pri