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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 318

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
May 27, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 318 - May/28/24
Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)
  • May/28/24 12:09:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is now clear that the costly, crooked, cover-up coalition engaged in corrupt practices in the arrive scam scandal. The Auditor General's report revealed that the government rigged the process, which was that senior officials sat down with the well-connected insider firm, GC Strategies, and discussed and arranged the terms of a deal, which GC Strategies would then bid on. It was able to rig the process, discuss the terms of the deal, which it then bid on and, surprise, got the contract. However, we still do not know why the NDP-Liberal coalition went to such lengths to favour GC Strategies. Let us paint the picture. GC Strategies is two guys who work out of a basement. They do not do any actual work on projects; they simply receive the contracts and then subcontract them and take massive commissions along the way. It would be as if the member for York—Simcoe and I went out and started Lake Simcoe Enterprises, did no work but just got contracts and passed them along. That would be a good deal for us, but it would be a bad deal for taxpayers. Why is it that the government did not simply hire the IT professionals to do the work rather than going through a couple of middlemen sitting in their basement who know nothing about IT and whose only business is to go on LinkedIn, find people who can do the work, then get the contracts, find the people to actually do the work, and collect millions of dollars in commissions in the process? However, the government chose the two people from GC Strategies. The government chose this company to be the favoured son of Liberal corrupt procurement. Why were they chosen? We still do not have an answer to that. Maybe the parliamentary secretary will be able to explain it to the House. Frankly, we have seen that the government, the Prime Minister and the people working under him, have persistently rigged the process to reward insiders and punish taxpayers, and the process is broken. We will hear Liberals say, “Well, those Conservatives will make cuts. What will they spend less on when they are in government?” I will tell members; it is not rocket science. If there is a two-person firm that receives the contracts then passes them along and does no work in the process, it seems pretty uncomplicated. I mean, it would be ideal to cut out the contracting in general and have the work done inside government, but at least cut out the middleman. GC Strategies has rightly gotten a lot of attention. It has done very well under the current government. It was founded in 2015 and has done extremely well under the NDP-Liberals. However, there are over 600 different companies doing IT middleman contracting and subcontracting, doing so-called staff augmentation for the public service. This is out of control, and it involves massive amounts of money. There has been a dramatic growth in public service spending but also a dramatic growth in contracting out at the same time, and a substantial amount of the contracting out is going to do-nothing middleman companies and is going to advice from professional services. Why is the government spending so much and getting so little for Canadians?
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Context: House Hansard - 318 - May/28/24
Ms. Lisa Hepfner (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth, Lib.)
  • May/28/24 12:13:11 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, taxpayer money needs to be treated with the utmost respect. Departments and agencies must follow contracting rules and handle all procurement processes in a fair, open and transparent manner, in accordance with all policies, guidelines, regulations and trade agreements. The gaps in management processes, roles and controls that the Auditor General of Canada and the procurement ombud have identified in their reports are unacceptable. We welcome the recommendations made in the reports. The CBSA has already taken steps to strengthen its procurement activities and ensure proper oversight of them. The agency has established an executive procurement review committee tasked with approving contracts and task authorizations. This is already providing additional oversight on all contracting activities, with a focus on delivering value for money. Employees will be required to disclose interaction with potential vendors. Furthermore, Public Services and Procurement Canada will continue to strengthen all aspects of the federal procurement system; it will use findings from the Auditor General's report to improve the way the Government of Canada does business with its suppliers. The hon. member will certainly remember the unprecedented context in which the ArriveCAN application was created. After the pandemic was declared in March 2020, the app was developed and launched as quickly as possible by Canada Border Services Agency, at the request of the Public Health Agency of Canada. The data provided by ArriveCAN was essential for the government to monitor, detect and identify new COVID-19 variants of concern and to respond as these variants evolved. The CBSA was working as quickly as possible to replace a paper process that was not meeting public health needs. At the time, there were significant wait times at the border, which disrupted the essential flow of people and goods. I wish to point this out to the hon. member: In her report, the Auditor General recognized that the government improved the speed and quality of information collected at the border by using the ArriveCAN app rather than the paper form. We should not forget that this app helped ensure the continued flow of essential goods, including food and medical supplies, for all Canadians. The CBSA played a key role in facilitating the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines in this country. The public health measures that were taken have supported Canadian businesses that depend on secure and timely cross-border shipments. They kept food and goods on store shelves and ensured our frontline workers were equipped with essential supplies such as personal protective equipment. I would like to emphasize the efforts of frontline border officers and all CBSA personnel, who diligently served and protected Canadian citizens during the pandemic. They continue to do so every single day in Canada and around the world.
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