SoVote

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

Nov/1/23 2:28:52 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the hon. Leader of the Opposition seems to be too busy patting himself on the back to do his homework. At the end of the day, heating oil costs anywhere between two and four times the price of natural gas. It is a particular driver of energy poverty in this country. We have taken steps forward to improve affordability by enabling the implementation of heat pumps, which will save people up to $2,500 a year, but we are doing so in the context of a plan to fight climate change, something he has said nothing about in the year since he became the Leader of the Opposition.

110 words

Context: House Hansard - 244 - Nov/1/23

Ms. Lianne Rood

Nov/1/23 6:20:21 p.m.
Watch
Re: Bill C-322

Madam Speaker, if it costs the farmer more to grow food and costs the trucker more to ship food, it is going to cost families more to buy food to feed their children. When the Bank of Canada governor, Tiff Macklem, appeared on Monday before the finance committee, my colleague, the member for Northumberland—Peterborough South asked the governor how the carbon tax affects inflation. Governor Macklem said that it is really two separate questions.

76 words

Context: House Hansard - 244 - Nov/1/23

Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, BQ)

Nov/1/23 6:56:07 p.m.
Watch

Madam Speaker, I am continuing a speech I was able to start a few days ago. I would like to start from the beginning, but quickly, and present a chronology of the whole ArriveCAN affair. On April 29, 2020, the government launched the ArriveCAN app nationwide. It then took several months for it to make the app mandatory, which happened on November 21, 2020. This meant that anyone re-entering Canada from that point on had to register and use the ArriveCAN application. Everyone who left the country and returned to Canada realized that the ArriveCAN app was not very sophisticated. On October 24, 2022, the Canada Border Services Agency announced the costs of the application on its website. We are talking $55 million over three years. Costs totalled more than $55 million over the three-year period from 2020 to 2023, including $80,000 for the first mobile version of the app and $8.6 million for more than 70 updates to the app and the related website. It is worth nothing that 70 updates is a lot, especially for an app that, on the whole, is pretty straightforward. Another $7.9 million was spent on data management and $6.4 million on data storage and cloud services. That is a lot of money. That is the first observation. Second, on October 31, 2022, pursuant to a motion adopted by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, the Canada Border Services Agency provided an updated table of non-salary expenditures related to ArriveCAN, along with the names of the companies contracted to develop the app. On November 2, 2022, one year ago tomorrow, the House voted in this very chamber to adopt the motion calling on the Auditor General to investigate and audit the ArriveCAN app. I point out that this motion was adopted by a majority in the House of Commons, but not unanimously. On January 23, so about two months later, when the Prime Minister was asked about it, he replied that the contracting process for ArriveCAN had been illogical and inefficient. On October 4, 2023, so just under a month ago, two articles in The Globe and Mail reported allegations of misconduct in the Canada Border Services Agency's IT contracting process. On Thursday, October 12, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, on which I have the pleasure of sitting, convened an emergency meeting to ensure that the information gathered by The Globe and Mail would be taken into consideration by the Auditor General, who, I would remind the House, is to conduct an audit on the matter. The chair of our committee explained that he convened that meeting following the announcement of an RCMP investigation into allegations of misconduct in the contracting process. Madam Speaker, there is a lot of background noise. I would like to be able to deliver my speech in a more conducive environment.

496 words

All Topics