44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 27, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/27/24 10:34:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start with this: It was actually the Conservative government that cut IT staff in the public service. We saw outsourcing go up with the big six companies; it doubled under the Conservatives. We saw it quadruple under the current Liberal government. It has become unequivocally clear that the corporate-controlled parties, both Liberal and Conservative, are continuing to go to the highly paid private sector to give it taxpayer dollars to provide services that could be provided by the public service.
We put forward a motion, as New Democrats, to expand the study beyond ArriveCAN, as we know GC Strategies started doing business with the government under the Harper regime. We asked to expand it to look at all outsourcing, including Deloitte, which went from $97 million doing contracts with the Government of Canada to $275 million. My question to the Conservative leader is this: Why is it that the Conservatives will not let us expand the study? It has been a year since the motion passed. Is it because Peter MacKay is a director at Deloitte or is it because Pierre Pettigrew is a director at Deloitte? We know that it is the corporate-controlled parties that are blocking us from having a real look at what is going on—
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- Feb/27/24 10:50:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we saw outsourcing to highly paid consultants double under the Conservatives, including GC Strategies owners, who were formerly operating under another company. We saw the Conservatives bring in the Phoenix pay system. It was supposed to save $80 million, but it has cost $3.5 billion. Therefore, we cannot give credit to the Conservatives that they are going to lead the path with respect to taking on highly paid consultants.
I brought forward a motion at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates a year ago to expand the study to include the big six corporations. We saw Deloitte go from $97 million last year to $275 million this year. In fact, it did $11 million worth of business in Canada in 2015 and now it is up to $275 million. However, it did not want to look at it. Why? Because the corporate controlled parties have a former Liberal cabinet minister, Pierre Pettigrew, as a managing director. They have a former Conservative cabinet minister, Peter MacKay, as a managing director.
When will the Conservatives stop protecting their former ministers and their Conservative insiders, and will they start taking a look at all of the outsourcing and actually try to fix this problem?
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- Feb/27/24 11:11:12 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, while we are hearing Conservatives and Liberals fight over who started with which highly paid consultant and who spent more, we actually need to get to fixing the problem and have that conversation. This is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of what is going on at CBSA and ArriveCAN. This is not just deeply concerning, as my colleague talked about. This is outrageous.
We saw Deloitte go from $11 million in outsourcing in 2015 to $275 million, PricewaterhouseCoopers from $20 million to $115 million, and KPMG from $3.9 million to $48 million. It has gone up 546%.
It doubled under the Conservatives. It has skyrocketed under the Liberals. This is on top of layers and layers of commissions that these big firms are taking, including GC Strategies.
They talk about cutting outsourcing by 15%. It will put them at only 464% above when they started in 2015.
When are we going to see a full investigation, broadening beyond the ArriveCAN app, which includes all of the big six and all of the outsourcing?
When are they actually going to demonstrate that they have a plan to cut the outsourcing and put those services and those jobs back through the public service, so that taxpayers are not paying these lucrative, highly-paid consultants tons of profits on the taxpayers' dime?
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- Feb/27/24 11:45:04 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we know that what is happening with ArriveCAN and at CBSA is just the tip of the iceberg.
At the government operations committee, I put forward a motion to expand the study to include the big six highly paid consulting firms. When I put forward that motion, members should have seen the room. Everybody in the corporate control parties ran to their phones, saying to hold on. They were checking in with their friends at the big corporations, including, I am sure, the managing directors at Deloitte, who are both former cabinet ministers from the Liberal Party and from the Conservative Party.
The Conservatives delayed the vote on the motion not once, not for two meetings, but for three meetings. They finally got confirmation and a go-ahead from their corporate-controlled headquarters at Deloitte that they could support the motion. We knew that the Conservatives would never allow that study to happen and to be expanded.
Does the Bloc agree that we need a full investigation that goes well beyond what is going on at CBSA and with the ArriveCAN app and that we need to look at all the outsourcing, especially since it has gone up 546% over the last eight years and has doubled under the Conservatives? We need to get to the bottom of it, and fix this problem.
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- Feb/27/24 12:13:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as I was going to say, what is embarrassing is that the Conservatives continue to protect their friends at Deloitte, including their former leadership candidate, Peter MacKay, and, just like the Liberals, they do not want to talk about it. They are both corporate-controlled parties.
They are trying to mislead us again. Those votes were about allocating $4.6 billion for COVID rapid tests and vaccines. They were about millions of dollars for a national child care program and funding for affordable homes and women's shelters.
It is no surprise that the Conservatives voted against those things, because that is what Conservatives do. They cut and gut the services people rely on.
We will not take any lessons from the Conservatives, who gave over $7 million in contracts to the former owners of GC Strategies. They also created the Phoenix disaster, which was supposed to save taxpayers $80 million but cost us $3.5 billion.
We have been fighting since the beginning to get to the bottom of the ArriveCAN scandal and to reduce the use of wealthy private consultants. We will not stop, and not just on ArriveCAN and not just on CBSA.
We need to look at the whole of government. We need an investigation into all of the outsourcing, something that is being blocked by the Conservatives, a Conservative-led committee, a Conservative chair who will not allow this motion to come back so that we can look at the whole picture. They do not want to look there.
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- Feb/27/24 12:14:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just very briefly, the outsourcing issue is something that governments both present and past, at the national level and at the provincial level, have actually been involved in. All political parties participate in it. I suspect that one would even find New Democratic administrations that have outsourced to Deloitte and Touche, just so that is on the record. The amounts might vary, obviously.
If we take a look at everything that has been done on ArriveCAN, a number of standing committees have been investigating it and thousands of pieces of information have been provided; we have had departments internally and we have had independent offices of Parliament looking at it.
I am wondering if the member feels that there is still a need to continue to try to create more information on the file.
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- Feb/27/24 12:15:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we need a mechanism and tool to do a full investigation. Right now, the Conservatives are focused on ArriveCAN because it is a “gotcha” campaign. They are not actually trying to fix the overall problem with outsourcing.
My colleague talked about an increase in outsourcing, but like I said, Deloitte went from $11 million in 2015 to $275 million, and I can assure my colleague that there is no New Democrat government in this country that has seen such an outrageous increase. This is not just deeply concerning, like the Liberals call it. This is outrageous, out-of-control spending on highly paid consultants. It is an economic leakage, work that should be done by the public service, and money that could be spent supporting people who are struggling right now.
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- Feb/27/24 1:35:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, under the Conservative government, the outsourcing to highly paid consulting firms doubled. Under the Liberal government, it has gone up fourfold.
The ArriveCAN fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. We have been calling for the government, and for the government operations committee, to investigate the big six consulting firms.
We saw Deloitte with over $100 million in contracts just last year. Already this year, it is at $275 million. Deloitte is run by a former Conservative cabinet minister who is the managing director. We put forward a motion to expand the study to include Deloitte. People should have seen the room. Panic ensued, and the Conservatives delayed voting on it, not once but at three meetings.
Will the Conservatives stop blocking and let an investigation ensue on the big corporations, including Deloitte, or are they going to continue to work with the Liberals in protecting their friends and the highly paid consultants through their corporate-controlled parties?
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- Feb/27/24 1:50:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to raise it again. The ArriveCAN scandal fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. We have watched companies like Deloitte go from $11 million to $275 million a year. These are highly paid consulting firms, and the NDP put forward a motion to expand the investigation to look at all outsourcing, including these big corporations.
I have asked Conservatives all day long why they will not talk about expanding it and actually moving forward with an investigation. Is it because one of the former Conservative cabinet ministers is a senior managing director at Deloitte?
Will they comment on why the corporate-controlled parties are working together so that we do not have a full investigation into the outsourcing spending by both of these parties, which is out of control?
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- Feb/27/24 3:54:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, before this I was the executive director of a non-profit and I remember when we wrote proposals to the federal government. We had to define every single thing that went under office supplies. If we missed anything we would not be reimbursed for it.
I see this corporate greed where both Conservatives and Liberals have a long history of just giving money over. The truth is that in 2015 to 2016, Deloitte received $11 million, already an amazing amount of money, from the Conservatives, and then from 2020 to 2023 that shot up to $275 million. What does Deloitte have that is interesting for everybody in this country? They have one former minister from the Liberals working there and one former minister from the Conservatives working there.
When will either of these parties stand up for working people and stop defending their corporate friends?
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- Feb/27/24 4:25:38 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we do know that when the Conservatives were in power, they gave over $7 million to GC Strategies under its former name. We know that $4 million of those contracts was awarded when the Leader of the Opposition was the parliamentary secretary, and of course we know that the Phoenix scandal, which the Auditor General has compared to ArriveCAN, has the same sort of scandal behind it. Phoenix, of course, was done under the Conservatives' government.
I have a question for the member, though. I appreciate the discussion today and have no problem going after GC Strategies, but I am interested to hear whether the member thinks we should also be looking at McKinsey & Company, Deloitte, PricewaterhouseCoopers, Accenture, KPMG and Ernst and Young, which are also getting millions and millions of taxpayer dollars.
I am just wondering.
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- Feb/27/24 5:11:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from the Bloc is correct. The government should be looking in the mirror and asking what it could do to fix its broken procurement system. Whether it is spending three-quarters of a billion dollars over-budget on the offshore patrol ships that do not work or whether it is giving out billions of dollars to Deloitte and KPMG, the government needs to address the issues, stop pointing outward and start looking in the mirror to see where the issue is, and start addressing the issue.
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- Feb/27/24 5:13:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree a tiny bit with my colleague from Vancouver Kingsway's comments. There is some value done that cannot be done internally, but there is a lot being done that should have been done internally.
I will give an example. The government gave three contracts to Deloitte, at $75,000 per contract, to do RFP fairness assessments for a security contract for the same event on Vancouver Island. This is work that PSPC should be doing: fairness assessments. We do not need to hire outside contractors to tell the government that the work it would be doing follows the rules. The government should just follow the rules, and use the employees we have to ensure the work is done correctly.
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