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Hon. Jonathan Wilkinson (Minister of Natural Resources, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 11:57:03 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would simply say that my hon. colleague is wrong. I was at the meetings of the G7, and Canada participated actively with our colleagues. The member conveniently ignores that the communiqué coming out of the G7 focuses very much on addressing energy security issues within the context of addressing climate. As he also knows, we will accelerate production of oil and gas by 300,000 barrels a day by the end of the year to address some of those energy security issues. We are talking with Europe about LNG and hydrogen as we transition to a low-carbon future. We certainly are partnering very actively with our European friends.

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Mr. Kelly McCauley (Edmonton West, CPC)

Jun/3/22 11:57:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, government departments are continuing to violate Treasury Board rules by allowing Liberal insiders and preferred vendors to split contracts in order to avoid a competitive bid process. An Order Paper question that came back shows several hundred examples of this. This was brought up to the previous Treasury Board president, who frankly could not care less. Will the new President of the Treasury Board address this or will she too turn a Liberal blind eye to this corruption?

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Hon. Mona Fortier (President of the Treasury Board, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 11:58:14 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, our government is committed to providing high-quality services to Canadians while ensuring the best value for taxpayers, which is why contracts are issued in a fair way in accordance with Treasury Board policy. The procurement of professional services is used to complement the work of Canada's professional public service by meeting unexpected fluctuations and workloads and to acquire special expertise, such as in response to the health care needs of remote northern communities. We know a strong federal public service is the best way to deliver for Canadians and we will continue to do so.

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Mr. Angelo Iacono (Alfred-Pellan, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 11:58:55 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, maintaining good jobs in the Quebec region is a key part of sound economic development. Can the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue give us an update on the new tax centre in Shawinigan and the good it will do for the region?

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Mr. Peter Fragiskatos (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of National Revenue, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 11:59:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my colleague from Alfred-Pellan for his important question. The Shawinigan project will create 150 new jobs and provide stability for those who are already working in the region. This, along with the Canada Revenue Agency's pilot project for jobs in the regions of Quebec, demonstrates our deep commitment to the success of these important communities.

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Mr. Chris Lewis (Essex, CPC)

Jun/3/22 11:59:53 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, Statistics Canada and the 2022 budget show that Canada is lacking almost a million workers. As baby boomers retire, the worker deficit will increase to two million. Currently, the number of people entering the workforce is not enough to fill this gap. This absence of workers only puts further stress and strain on those who are already working, because they lack the support they need. How will the government help increase the number of workers entering the workforce and ensure that current workers do not burn out because employers are understaffed?

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Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 12:00:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have the lowest unemployment rate in over 50 years, and the member opposite is absolutely right that here is a labour shortage in this country right now. That is why our government is so focused on ensuring that we welcome new immigrants to this country. I certainly hope the Conservative Party agrees that immigration is an excellent solution to the labour shortage in this country. It is certainly part of our core values to be open and inviting to the world, and I hope the Conservatives will join us.

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Mr. Robert Kitchen (Souris—Moose Mountain, CPC)

Jun/3/22 12:01:00 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the government's lack of action to address escalating gas prices could now literally be a matter of life and death. One city in my riding has had to ask the Minister of Finance for a rebate on fuel costs specifically for ambulances and fire trucks because it can no longer afford to keep them fuelled up. Will the government do the right thing and remove the GST on fuel, thereby delivering much-needed relief to municipalities just trying to fill up the tanks of their emergency service fleets?

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Ms. Rachel Bendayan (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Tourism and Associate Minister of Finance, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 12:01:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are well aware that the global increase in energy prices is hitting us all very hard, which is why we have various measures in the budget to ensure that Canadians will see money go directly back into their pockets. It is also why we have an incentive program when it comes to the price on pollution we implemented, which ensures that eight out of 10 Canadians will receive more as part of the incentive program and as part of our federal subsidy than they pay for the price on pollution.

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Mr. Michael Kram (Regina—Wascana, CPC)

Jun/3/22 12:02:08 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Regina city council has identified the construction of a new aquatic centre as a top priority in its recreational master plan. Fortunately, enough money has already been allocated to the city through the investing in Canada infrastructure program. Unfortunately, much of that money is going unspent because it is locked into mothballed public transit projects. Will the government be reasonable and flexible and approve the request to reallocate these funds?

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Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 12:02:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as a former city councillor, I understand the importance of investing in community infrastructure like recreation and community centres. We are committed to working with all levels of government and all orders of government to ensure that for the priorities they set forward, there are infrastructure dollars there. However, we must also be clear that the need for clean, reliable and efficient transit across this country is incredibly important. I endeavour to work with the member and his local councillors to determine the best way to move forward on these projects, but we are committed to building—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Jun/3/22 12:03:24 p.m.
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The hon. member for Cloverdale—Langley City.

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Mr. John Aldag (Cloverdale—Langley City, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 12:03:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, our country's rail transportation system connects communities and keeps our supply chains running. However, accidents still happen that unfortunately result in injuries and even fatalities. Can the Minister of Transport update the House on what our government is doing to protect Canadians and keep our rail system safe?

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Hon. Omar Alghabra (Minister of Transport, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 12:03:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to thank my hon. colleague for his advocacy. Our government is working to ensure that Canada's rail transportation system remains one of the safest in the world. This morning, I announced that we are investing $24 million for 147 projects across the country under our rail safety improvement program. This is in addition to the $107 million we have invested since 2017. I want to assure my hon. colleague and all Canadians that we will keep taking action to keep our rail system safe.

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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Jun/3/22 12:04:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, last month hurricane-force winds destroyed large sections of the power grids in Ontario and Quebec, and floods inundated the West Point First Nation in the Northwest Territories and the Peguis First Nation in Manitoba. A report from The Globe and Mail showed that even more Canadian communities are at serious risk of flooding. Extreme weather is costing Canada more than $5 billion every year, and that will only increase. When will Ottawa fund significant proactive measures to protect our communities instead of just helping them clean up?

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Mr. Yasir Naqvi (Parliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Emergency Preparedness, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 12:05:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can tell the member opposite that the storm impacted my community right here in Ottawa. We need to invest in building resiliency in our infrastructure. That is why there is an over $3-billion mitigation and adaptation fund available. We will continue to work with our respective local communities so that planning can take place and we can invest in building more resilient infrastructure to deal with the drastic impacts of climate change.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 12:06:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to one petition. This return will be tabled in an electronic format.

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Mr. Tom Kmiec (Calgary Shepard, CPC)

Jun/3/22 12:08:22 p.m.
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moved that the first report of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, presented on Tuesday, February 8, 2022, be concurred in. He said: Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise to move concurrence on the first report of the Standing Committee of Public Accounts presented to the House on Tuesday, February 8. The Standing Committee on Public Accounts is probably known as one of the most powerful committees of the House of Commons. It has, I would say, far more influence than many others. It is one of the very few committees where deputy ministers are obliged to appear in order to respond to questions from members of Parliament, but also to explain why there are often shortcomings in reports from the Auditor General. The report I am interested in debating today is “Report 1, Procuring Complex Information Technology Solutions of the 2021 Reports of the Auditor General of Canada”. This particular report was last tabled in the 43rd Parliament's second session, in June 2021. I had the distinct privilege of briefly being elected chair of the public accounts committee, the standing committee of the House of Commons, late last year or the beginning of this year. What I want to do, as I have done in past concurrence reports, is explain to constituents back home why we are debating this particular report. It comes down to the recommendations found therein and that is where I want to go. This report has eight recommendations in it, and I want to go over them so the constituents back home can understand why this is important. I was trying to download the government's response to the report, but, as with much in the current government, it told me the link was broken and not working so I actually could not get it. It is typical. I tried twice on two different devices to get the contents of the response, so I am going to focus on the recommendations. Often, I have constituents who come to my office and are worried about government spending. They are worried about excess spending and deficits and debt spending that is going on in our country. We saw, during question period, lots of questions about the state of the country's finances. We all remember that, back in 2015, it was the current Liberal government that promised itsy-bitsy, little tiny $10-billion deficits, and no more, to be over by 2019. It is 2022 now and we have massive, structural, permanent deficits. Where am I going with this? I tell constituents that waste in government starts with millions: not billions. It starts with the little things. It starts with things from contract splitting to sole-sourcing to individuals likely close to the government or close to particular public officials in the bureaucracies, and then they have a few hundred thousand dollars here and a few hundred thousand dollars there. That turns into millions of dollars. Then there are delays. There are dry-dock fees, perhaps with the national shipbuilding strategy, that amount to hundreds of millions of dollars and there is sometimes no construction going on. That is a major source of concern to constituents. They think, “Just take this large program of billions and billions of dollars and then cut that.” I say that is not how government works. The government, in its sixth year, with this current budget 2022, will be a half a trillion-dollar operation. Never in my lifetime did I think this would happen. I want to give some credit to the Auditor General. I remember being a much younger man 20 years ago. The Speaker will remember this, because it was important to a particular province. We all remember the sponsorship scandal. The sponsorship scandal and the 1995 referendum happened in my formative years and were how I got interested in politics. I still have a copy of the Auditor General's report and her findings on my bookcase. It is not in mint condition. It is well flipped through and has lots of annotations in it. Those were millions of dollars of wasted, corruptly spent monies that the Auditor General found and then reported on. I am not saying that this report has the same impact, but it talks about millions of dollars being wasted, the opportunities for corruption to exist within government, and how we deal with it as parliamentarians. This place is supposed to provide accountability and oversight in order to ensure that the public purse is spent wisely. It is to ensure that we spend money wisely. It is a challenge function, as a board of directors would have with the executive in a company, where the executive here is the cabinet that typically sits in the front bench to the right of the Speaker. That is the importance of this place. It is to make sure we catch those millions before they become billions. Let me get to the recommendations of the report. Recommendation no. 1: That the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, Public Services and Procurement Canada, and Shared Services Canada provide the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts with reports outlining what progress has been made with regard to developing more comprehensive guidance and training for employees to improve their understanding of agile procurement and how to apply collaborative methods.... Public Services and Procurement Canada should also provide a final report. That is a lot of technical language right there. Very essentially, to constituents back home, it is better training for the Public Service and also better training, as we saw again for matters coming out of Question Period, on what the rules of the Treasury Board Secretariat are on things like splitting contracts in two so they fall under $25,000. It is as big an issue in my province, I suspect, as it is in the Speaker's province. These types of issues will come up where civil servants, at the closest level, are dealing with persons trying to seek grants or organizations trying to seek grants or trying to get a contract in very quickly, perhaps to procure a service or construction material or do quick renovations. The splitting of contracts is not supposed to happen. It is supposed to be an open bid so that the taxpayers can get the best absolute price and service: the two should always go together, hand in hand. Recommendation no. 2: That...the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, in consultation with Public Services and Procurement Canada and Shared Services Canada, provide the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts with a progress report regarding the assessment of the skills, competencies, and experience that procurement officers need to support agile approaches to complex information technology procurements. In this space, I think we can all admit that we have a great amount of technology coming into our spaces, and we have a lot of individuals who are now using things like smart phone devices, but we have large tablets and we are doing a lot of work. I want to make sure my dear colleague, the member for Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola is in the chamber so that I can split my time with him, and he can then continue speaking to the recommendations of the report. I want to make sure that I got it in that I am actually in the chamber so that I could split my time with him. Recommendation no. 3: That the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat provide the House of Commons Standing Committee on Public Accounts with reports outlining the progress made with regard to ensuring that governance mechanisms are in place to engage senior representatives of concerned departments and agencies for the Next Generation Human Resources and Pay initiative. Again, it is more training in place. I know the member for Edmonton West would appreciate this, because he is always hassling me in a friendly way about it. I used to work in human resources before being elected to Parliament. I was responsible for things like HR practices and labour policies. I was not directly involved with it, but I worked for the professional association that was responsible for setting things like the code of ethics or the practice guidelines, so I would often work with large committees of professionals who knew what the guidelines should be. I learned a lot just by sitting at a table for three years with experts in the field: over 6,000 HR professionals in the province of Alberta at the time. It was about things like next generation human resources and pay. Pay is the most basic thing that has to be right in human resources. I see things like the Phoenix pay system, all the travails that have happened since then and all the difficulties in getting it right. If it had just been done right in the first place, all of those problems could have been avoided. I want to just spend a moment on Phoenix. I have a lot of constituents who have been affected by Phoenix, so I am always trying to help them. In fact, my case file manager was “Phoenixed” one month, while she was trying to help constituents. Although hers was a very small amount, others were much larger. I have been given a signal that I am running out of time, but I do have a Yiddish proverb. The one I want to use at this time is one I have used before. I think it is so relevant. It is, “When you sweep the house, you find everything.” We have so many reports that are tabled in the House. Some receive recommendations and get a government response, and some do not. Some of these reports have very valuable content and information. This particular one speaks to avoiding millions of dollars of potential waste so it does not turn into billions. We are running a $50 billion-plus deficit. That needs to stop: It needs to be wound down. We need to make sure we pay down the national debt, and it begins with ensuring that we spend money wisely.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Jun/3/22 12:18:11 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-21

Mr. Speaker, it is interesting that the Conservatives, once again, want to use their political gamesmanship to prevent good legislation from being passed. Bill C-21 is what we are supposed to be talking about today, but they have reached into their not-so-tricky tricky book and they are saying they want to debate this particular issue. Why does the member feel that the Conservative Party wants to continue to play games inside the House and prevent the important debate that Canadians want? Bill C-21 is about guns and so forth. Why are the Conservatives trying to avoid that debate?

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Mr. Tom Kmiec

Jun/3/22 12:18:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yesterday, during the Standing Orders debate, the member talked about making Friday a day when any members could rise in this chamber to speak about an issue they care about. I am simply practising what he is preaching.

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