"Canada is spending billions of dollars on poorly planned climate change programs and could miss its modest 2020 target for greenhouse gas emission cuts, Parliament's environmental watchdog said on Tuesday."

"Scott Vaughan's critical report is the latest attack on the record of the Conservative government, which critics say cares little for the environment and is far too close to the influential energy industry.

Vaughan said a probe of the government's 2010 climate change plan revealed almost C$9.3 billion ($8.8 billion) had been earmarked for 35 different programs.

'There are some basic management weaknesses that we saw in terms of the plan ... right now it's looking to us to be disjointed, confused, non transparent (with) a lack of good coordination between many of the programs,' he said."

David Ljunggren reports for Reuters October 5, 2011. [2]