Deloitte's $1.6M Newfoundland Health Workforce Report Contained AI-Fabricated Research Citations

In May 2025, the Government of Newfoundland and Labrador released a 526-page Health Human Resources Plan commissioned from Deloitte at a cost of nearly $1.6 million. The plan was intended to guide a decade of workforce planning across 21 healthcare occupations.

In November 2025, The Independent (NL) reported that the document contained fabricated academic citations. Professor Emerita Martha MacLeod of the University of Northern British Columbia confirmed that a cited paper — “The cost-effectiveness of a rural retention program for registered nurses in Canada” — was “false” and “potentially AI-generated,” noting that while her team had done rural nursing research, they had never conducted a cost-effectiveness analysis. Professor Gail Tomblin Murphy of Dalhousie University confirmed another cited paper “does not exist,” adding that only three of the six listed co-authors had ever worked together. A third citation, purportedly from the Canadian Journal of Respiratory Therapy, could not be found in academic databases.

Deloitte responded that “AI was not used to write the report” but was “selectively used to support a small number of research citations,” and stated it would issue corrections that “do not impact the report findings.” The Premier and Health Minister did not respond to media inquiries. In June 2025 — one month after the report’s release — Deloitte had been selected for an additional contract: a core staffing review of nursing resources.

The incident follows a parallel case in July 2025 where a Deloitte Australia welfare report was found to contain a fabricated court quote and nonexistent research, for which Deloitte refunded AUD $290,000. That report’s appendix disclosed the use of Azure OpenAI.