44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2023 02:00PM
- Nov/1/23 2:42:05 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry welcomes the decision of the Auditor General to conduct an audit. He also welcomes the invitation he received to committee next week, where he will be answering Conservative questions with respect to this entire issue. I would also note that the organization has agreed to co-operate fully and is enabling all documents and information to be provided to the Auditor General.
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- Nov/1/23 3:07:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I mentioned earlier with respect to SDTC, the Minister of Innovation welcomes the decision of the Auditor General to conduct a full audit. The SDTC has agreed to provide all of the information and documents necessary to the committee. I understand the Minister of Innovation will be appearing before the committee next week in order to answer everyone's questions.
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- Nov/1/23 3:08:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we expect the organizations to adhere to the strictest standards of governance. As I was saying, the Minister of Innovation welcomed the decision by the Auditor General of Canada to proceed with an audit. The minister himself is appearing before the committee next week to answer questions.
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- Nov/1/23 3:09:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I can confirm today that the department has been working in close collaboration with the Office of the Auditor General of Canada on this issue from day one. As I said, the Minister of Innovation welcomes the decision of the Auditor General to proceed with an audit and he is prepared to answer questions from the Conservatives and all members of the committee next week.
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- Nov/1/23 6:59:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the look I gave was enough.
As I was saying, the audit report of the Auditor General of Canada was expected to be presented this month. However, because of new allegations made in the newspapers, the Auditor General of Canada told us during the special committee meeting that she would be extending the deadline for her audit into the winter.
I will briefly summarize the main points of the article, which is very interesting. I have to point out that a healthy democracy needs this kind of real investigative journalism. Two IT experts from the Botler company say they witnessed dubious or at least questionable practices in the procedure used to allocate public funds for software development contracts. Specifically, they received money from a contract that they had not even signed and that had been signed without their knowledge. That is serious.
There were also ties to CBSA staff, and the GC Strategies firm is being particularly hard hit by the potential scandal.
GC Strategies, the consulting firm, has been singled out. It has not yet been charged, but is potentially being charged with transferring data to third-party, unknown companies that are potentially dubious once again. We are talking about personal data. People who travel and put personal information on a government platform expect their data to be respected. We know that potentially dangerous data transfers have occurred.
This controversy is in addition to the $54-million price tag for the ArriveCAN app last year. As I said, the first thing is that there was a very high price tag for a rather simple app. On top of that, the contracts that were awarded to companies for developing this app are especially dubious. We are very much looking forward to seeing the report of the Auditor General of Canada.
I would like to mention one last thing about the special meeting that we had. The Globe and Mail reported that the Canada Border Services Agency received warnings about the questionable ties between the IT consultants and some federal public servants, so people at the CBSA had the information. What happened is that they decided to launch an investigation themselves on their end. We know that the RCMP and the CBSA launched investigations at the same time as the Auditor General of Canada's audit.
What comes next is very important. During the special meeting that was held about the ArriveCAN app, during which we spoke to the Auditor General of Canada, I asked her the question and she answered that she was not even aware that those investigations were taking place. The Auditor General herself was not informed of the fact that government agencies and departments were conducting an investigation on their end, when that is her job and she had been mandated by the House to conduct an audit. There was no communication there.
It is rather typical of the government not to consult interested parties, but it is rather inappropriate that it did not inform the Auditor General of Canada that it was conducting its own investigation into a potential scandal.
From day one, ArriveCAN has been a clear example of government incompetence. Before even knowing that the RCMP was investigating allegations of criminal misconduct in the awarding of contracts, we already knew that the app cost a lot of money.
Nearly a year later, we find out other things from the article in The Globe and Mail. The Auditor General of Canada confirmed that she is not aware of an investigation being conducted by the Canada Border Services Agency and by the RCMP. When the articles came out, we were able to hold a special meeting. However, the report of the Auditor General of Canada still not having been published, we wonder why the focus on wanting to talk about this app.
It goes without saying, but we think that the Auditor General should carry out her work with the collaboration of all the departments. Given that she is mandated by Parliament, we expect the Auditor General of Canada to present her report so that we can get to the bottom of things and find out what happened with ArriveCAN. We know that there were some questionable actions, but we do not know exactly what happened. A professional person and third party needs to conduct the investigation and settle the matter.
We are dealing with a government that voted against the motion calling on the Auditor General to conduct an audit. On the face of it, that does not look good for our current democracy. Meanwhile, motion after motion is moved, and we are currently debating a third-party committee report about an app when the Auditor General is already investigating the matter.
We cannot help but wonder what the Conservatives are up to. Are they trying to block the work of Parliament? That is what I am wondering, and that is what the folks in my party are wondering. We would like to move on to serious matters and get to work.
The Conservatives' actions today are not worthy of a party that wants to be in power. At the end of the day, we are the only ones acting responsibly in this Parliament.
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