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The South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP) claims “$93.20 per capita annual ROI on SIPP initiatives”, fails to provide evidence for their claim, when asked.

The organization, which has received millions of dollars of public funding, has not responded to questions as to the location of the supposed report by Perrin Thoreau and Assoc., that it cited in regard to its ROI claim in its June 2023-2024 “Our Impact Journey” document.

Only a post office box in Brentwood Bay can be located as a contact for the business that supposedly generated the missing report. The business appears to serve almost exclusively government clientele.

By Sasha Izard
May 31, 2026


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Recently, I wrote the following article: In 2020, Saanich made a “5 year membership agreement” for close to a million dollars to the South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP). This is what it was to get in return. – CRD Watch Homepage

Despite that the membership agreement which provided 5 years of membership fees to SIPP, was signed by Saanich’s former mayor in 2020, it doesn’t appear that the “5 year membership” was approved by council until over a year later, begging questions of how a mayor could have signed off unilaterally on such an agreement, seemingly without the approval of council until well after the fact.

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On May 24, 2026 – I sent the following email to info@southislandprosperity.ca, the email contact for the organization provided on SIPP’s website.
Home – South Island Prosperity Partnership

Hello,

On page 3 of the June 2024 “Our Impact Journey” publication by the South Island Prosperity Partnership, it is stated under the category “SIPP By the numbers”: “$93.20 per capita annual ROI on SIPP initiatives (*Perrin Thorau & Assoc.)”.

Do you have a copy of the report cited from Perrin Thorau & Associates that states that the per capita annual ROI on SIPP initiatives is $93.20?

Thank you,
Sasha Izard


Screenshots for reference:

Zoomed excerpt:

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With no response from the publicly funded private organization forthcoming, I also emailed SIPP’s Executive Director, Regional Economic Development Dallas Gislason on May 27, 2026 with the same question. I had briefly corresponded with Dallas 2 years previously, in regard to my Open Letter to the organization.

Team – South Island Prosperity Partnership

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After a week after sending my initial email to the organization, I have still received no response from the organization or from Dallas.

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As a result, I was left to do some research of my own.

A quick Google of Perrin Thoreau & Associates brought up the following:

Dan – Perrin Principal, Perrin, Thorau & Associates LTD.

Brentwood Bay, British Columbia, Canada * Principal * Perrin, Thoreau & Associates LTD.

Perrin, Thoreau & Associates LTD. is a public policy consultancy located in Vicotira BC. We provide policy analysis services to primarily to public sector…

Dan Perrin – Perrin, Thorau & Associates LTD. | LinkedIn

An open government document on the Province of BC’s website yielded more information:

It provided a point of contact, a post office box in Brentwood Bay.

Box 66

Brentwood Bay, BC
V8M1R3

Response_Package_EMC-2023-30044.pdf

The contract referred to in the Open Document was for a maximum of close to half a million dollars ($475,000) from the provincial government.

The document included a subcontractor company Hill + Knowlton Strategies.

At the time of writing according to Wikipedia: Hill & Knowlton is an American global public relations consulting company, headquartered in New York City. The firm has over 80 additional offices in more than 40 countries.

Hill & Knowlton – Wikipedia

I’ve read a bit about Hill & Knowlton in the past.

“An organisation calling itself Citizens for a Free Kuwait (financed by the Kuwaiti government in exile) had signed a $10m contract with the giant American public relations company, Hill & Knowlton, to campaign for American military intervention to oust Iraq from Kuwait.

The Human Rights Caucus of the US Congress was meeting in October and Hill & Knowlton arranged for a 15-year-old Kuwaiti girl to tell the babies’ story before the congressmen. She did it brilliantly, choking with tears at the right moment, her voice breaking as she struggled to continue. The congressional committee knew her only as “Nayirah” and the television segment of her testimony showed anger and resolution on the faces of the congressmen listening to her. President Bush referred to the story six times in the next five weeks as an example of the evil of Saddam’s regime.

In the Senate debate whether to approve military action to force Saddam out of Kuwait, seven senators specifically mentioned the incubator babies atrocity and the final margin in favour of war was just five votes. John R Macarthur’s study of propaganda in the war says that the babies atrocity was a definitive moment in the campaign to prepare the American public for the need to go to war.

It was not until nearly two years later that the truth emerged. The story was a fabrication and a myth, and Nayirah, the teenage Kuwaiti girl, coached and rehearsed by Hill & Knowlton for her appearance before the Congressional Committee, was in fact the daughter of the Kuwaiti ambassador to the United States. By the time Macarthur revealed this, the war was won and over and it did not matter any more.”

The disinformation campaign | Social sciences | The Guardian

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Why was Hill & Knowlton a public relations firm with such a track record being subcontracted to for work for the government of British Columbia?

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Of course, I could pick up the phone and ask for the report with the claimed SIPP ROI, but there would be no paper trail. I would prefer an answer in writing. If I send a letter to the post office box, there would also be no trail that a letter was ever sent.

A quick Google search indicates that Perrin Thorau & Associates does not have a public facing website.

It’s either not the most transparent business, or the business is defunct. Or the businesses contact details are simply not open to the public.

Yet SIPP’s report that cited the business on its ROI claim was released only 2 years ago.

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Yet the business Perrin Thorau & Associates Ltd. has done significant consultation work involving significant amounts of money for the provincial government of British Columbia.

BC Gov News
Response_Package_EMC-2023-30044.pdf
Response_Package_MAG-2017-73495.pdf
BC Gov News

Dan Perrin was previously a public servant for the provincial government.

I asked Google AI, the following question:

What Ministries in BC did Dan Perrin work for?

This was its response:

During his time in the British Columbia public service, Dan Perrin worked for the Ministry of Finance, the Office of the Premier, and the former Ministry of Social Services. [1]

Additionally, as part of his extensive career as a deputy minister across Western Canada, he served in BC government ministries spanning forests, trade and investments, and education. [2]

After his formal career inside the public service, he founded Perrin, Thorau & Associates Ltd. and continued to lead independent, expert regulatory and economic reviews for several other provincial bodies. [2]

If you are researching a specific report or policy, would you like details on the expert panels he led, or the years he served in these roles?

[1] https://www.einpresswire.com

[2] https://news.gov.bc.ca

https://share.google/aimode/xgwwsu4b0wtjod9Ep

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Conclusion:

While a quick investigation has yielded some details about the source of the report that the South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP) cited for its claim of “$93.20 per capita annual ROI on SIPP initiatives” – the elusive report itself remains missing, and there is no point of contact, which would have a paper trail, to the author of the report Perrin Thorau & Assoc., as they do not have a public facing website, and hence no public email address.

The buck then stops with the South Island Prosperity Partnership. Why has it cited a report that the public do not have access to that supposedly claims what can only be described as having a sky high return on investment ($93.20 per capita annually on SIPP initiatives), while taking millions of dollars of public funding?

If the organization will not turn the report over to the public that finances it through its taxes, then organization is acting in my view in contempt of it. The organization is not transparent, and it is not accountable even for its own claims.

The organization should be cut from government funding as a result.

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References:

Impact Report 2023-24

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See also:

Index of articles and other resources about the South Island Prosperity Partnership (SIPP). – CRD Watch Homepage

An Open Letter to the South Island Prosperity Partnership – CRD Watch Homepage

List of articles and other resources on corporate regionalism. – CRD Watch Homepage