Listen to this article
Estimated 4 minutes
The audio version of this article is generated by text-to-speech, a technology based on artificial intelligence.
The Newfoundland and Labrador government says it’s been in contact with the private company responsible for a new report meant to guide the province into the future, which was found to contain fake citations.
Online newspaper The Independent reported over the weekend that the province’s Department of Health recently released a health human resource plan, conducted by the consulting firm Deloitte, which contains four fake citations.
The situation comes months after the province’s Education Accord was called into question after Radio-Canada reported it contained at least 15 citations for non-existent journal articles and documents.
In a statement to CBC News on Monday, Department of Health communications director Brian Scott said Deloitte has been contacted and asked to confirm the accuracy of the report’s citations and literature review.
“Deloitte has since acknowledged the four citations noted below are incorrect; however they stand by the conclusions and findings in the report,” Scott wrote.
“Deloitte has committed to expeditiously conducting a full … review of all the citations, and will be required to report back to government with its findings.”
Scott said after the company completes its review, they can then “assess how serious an issue” it is and “take the appropriate steps.”
The 526-page document, commissioned and released by the former Liberal government in May, was a 10-year health-care staffing plan to fill gaps in the workforce with a focus on the retention and recruitment of health-care professionals.
CBC News has asked Deloitte for an interview.
According to an access-to-information request obtained and shared by activist Matt Barter, the province’s Department of Health and Community Services paid Deloitte Management Services LP $1,598,485 for the plan.
The payments were broken down in eight installments over a two-year period, the first dated March 2023 and the final being March 2025.
Calls for refund
NDP Leader Jim Dinn calls the situation “troubling,” that two reports on important issues like education and health care had problems and the province paid money for them.
He wants to see the province recoup some of the money it paid for the report, pointing to a situation where Deloitte gave a partial refund to the Australian government for a report that was found to contain AI-generated content.
“To me, I would have little confidence in this report and I would definitely be looking for a refund,” Dinn told Radio-Canada.
Previously, MHA Bernard Davis — Liberal education minister at the time — defended the contents of the Education Accord, saying the fake citations were disappointing but didn’t impact the plan’s credibility.
Co-chairs Karen Goodnough and Anne Burke, both education professors at Memorial University, said their months of work to deliver the Education Accord is still valid.
“We don’t know where the errors were made, we can only assume that it happened with government. We are saying that we submitted a report at the end of March and anything that did not look kosher, we provided the feedback,” Goodnough told CBC Radio’s The Signal in September.
In a statement to the NLTA, and later forwarded to Radio-Canada by the PCs, current Premier Tony Wakeham called the situation “embarrassing.”
“Our first step will be to review the Education Accord in detail and speak directly with the writers about the content. We will determine what is factual and what is not,” he said.
Sonja Pritchett, a spokesperson for Opposition Leader John Hogan, refused to answer the CBC’s questions about the report the Liberals contracted.
“Any reports with inaccurate citations related to the use of AI should be reviewed and addressed,” she told CBC News in an email.
Download our free CBC News app to sign up for push alerts for CBC Newfoundland and Labrador. Sign up for our daily headlines newsletter here. Click here to visit our landing page.
