44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 17, 2024 10:00AM
- Sep/17/24 10:07:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the following two reports of the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.
The 42nd report is entitled “Report 6, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, of the 2024 Reports 5 to 7 of the Auditor General of Canada”. Specifically, it was passed in the committee that we report it to the House; it asks the Auditor General to undertake a value-for-money and performance audit of the work done by SDTC since Monday, January 1, 2017.
The 43rd report is entitled “Report 6, Sustainable Development Technology Canada, of the 2024 Reports 5 to 7 of the Auditor General of Canada”. Specifically, the committee expressed extreme concern with the blatant disregard for taxpayer funds. Therefore, it calls on the Government of Canada to recoup these funds for Canadian taxpayers, following the adoption of this motion that the committee report this matter to the House.
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- Sep/17/24 11:05:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am absolutely in favour of accountability and transparency, and ensuring that there is a consequence where there has been abuse of tax dollars. That is what I believe and will continue to advocate for, whether it is through the Auditor General of Canada, the standing committees or the RCMP.
I look at what is happening in that particular environment and expect, like my constituents, that there will be accountability. Those who were abusive with our tax dollars will be held to account in many different ways, everything from potential criminal charges to having to pay back tax.
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- Sep/17/24 11:27:46 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, today we are here to talk about the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
The report is on the GC Strategies contracts. It requests that the Auditor General conduct a full audit of those contracts. In other words, we want to know what we got for our money. The auditor has already produced a report based on samples of the contracts, but she did not—
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- Sep/17/24 11:28:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, before I start, I would like to point out that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed and extraordinary colleague on the team investigating ArriveCAN and GC Strategies, my colleague from Terrebonne.
The Auditor General's report noted omissions in the processes for awarding and monitoring contracts with GC Strategies. We are requesting an additional step: verifying whether taxpayers got their money's worth. I will remind you of a few elements concerning GC Strategies, which also concern everything surrounding ArriveCAN. This reminder is important because it will help us better understand why we are talking about the report, as well as the request it contains.
In recent years, the Government of Canada has been awarding more and more contracts to consultants. The number of contracts awarded for consulting services, coordination or outsourcing and the total amounts associated with these contracts have significantly increased, not to say skyrocketed.
ArriveCAN was one of these contracts. ArriveCAN got under way between 2015 and 2017. When the pandemic hit, the machinery of government went on overdrive to help Canada Border Services Agency officers manage our borders and travellers once the borders reopened. The problem was that, instead of looking to government employees to see if there was anyone specialized in programming, the work was outsourced. Perhaps we did not have the necessary internal resources. I would be surprised, because a lot of money has been spent in recent years on cybersecurity services, updating the cloud and building telecommunications and Web infrastructures.
Still, let us say that no one was available and that we had to outsource. Apparently, not only did we not have any employees specializing in web applications programming, whether Android, iOS or website platforms, but we also had no employees who were capable of searching LinkedIn or other networks to find such specialists. Therein lies the problem.
Beyond the fact that millions of dollars were given to a company, it is the shortcomings we must bring to light. It is the process for hiring and monitoring employees. It is about making sure to have the right person in the right place, and ensuring that their competencies are recognized, even if the person is not necessarily where they should be based on their skills. For example, an officer working for employment insurance may well have programming skills, but they were not hired for that. It is quite possible that another officer working for employment insurance has archives-related skills but they were not hired for that. If we do not consider these people's skills from the outset, then, when they are needed, we will be out of luck. We will then hire a consultant who ends up doing a search on LinkedIn and receive 10% to 30% of the total contract amount just for finding people who are sitting around. Are we truly getting our money's worth when this happens?
With ArriveCAN, there were problems. Perhaps my colleagues will say that, for the number of downloads and uses, the number of problems was minimal, and in percentage terms that is true, to be sure. Then again, try talking to the 10,000 people who were stuck in a hotel or at home for two weeks and who lost wages because the thingamajig made a mistake and the human being in charge of the thingamajig failed to check whether there was a problem with the machine or whether the person made a false declaration.
We should keep in mind that every app is prone to errors. I know that artificial intelligence is all the rage right now, but let us not forget that although AI can learn by itself, it was programmed by a human being, and human beings are fallible. The same was true of ArriveCAN.
There is also the fact that this app was imposed on Canada Border Services employees who had not been properly trained, and that this was over and above their other duties. This caused problems at the border, which comes under federal jurisdiction.
Earlier, my colleague mentioned the official opposition, which is against anything having to do with social programs, such as pharmacare or dental insurance. We may oppose the way these programs were rolled out, for instance, the fact that they do not respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, and still agree with the principle of insurance. However, if we wasted less money consulting people and recognizing their competencies, the provinces that accept these intrusions into their areas of jurisdiction might have more money.
Consultation, particularly when it comes to ArriveCAN and other contracts, like GC Strategies, causes other problems and raises other questions. I mentioned these briefly earlier in my question. The issue is responsibility. Who is responsible? Do we put enough money into training public servants and managers? At some point, a manager needs to manage. If they do not manage, is that one of the reasons why we end up with situations where money seems to fly out the window, as if we thought it grew on trees? Money does not grow on trees; it comes directly out of the pockets of taxpayers who earned it by the sweat of their brow.
Let us get back to requesting the Auditor General to do a complete analysis of the situation. She is responsible. She seeks transparency. She seeks accountability. She does not try to point fingers at a guilty party. She works to make sure that processes are applied properly and that taxpayer money is managed responsibly. Responsibility does not mean that someone will lose their job because they made a mistake. Responsibility means that an individual is able to recognize they made a mistake and to present a solution to improve the situation and become more responsible.
That is what the 13th report requests.
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- Sep/17/24 11:41:18 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my honourable and extraordinary colleague from Beauport—Limoilou. It is always difficult to speak after her, given her vast knowledge of the subject. I would also like to congratulate Louis-Philippe Sauvé on his victory this morning. I send out 8,884 thank yous to the people who placed their trust in Louis-Philippe and the Bloc Québécois. They do not have to worry, we are there for them.
A few months ago, the Office of the Auditor General submitted a report on the management of the ArriveCAN app. To quote the Auditor General, management of the app was the worst she had seen in her career. The ArriveCAN app, which was to have cost $80,000, ended up costing taxpayers $60 million. In the same report, we learned that one company composed of two people was paid $19.1 million for ArriveCAN. That company is GC Strategies. We also learned that the ArriveCAN affair is only the tip of the iceberg. After putting several questions to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, of which I am a member, the comptroller general revealed that GC Strategies and its former incarnation Coredal had obtained contracts worth almost $108 million since 2011. Manual searches show that there were probably other contracts as well. In other words, at least $108 million was paid in recent years to a two-person company that did not deliver any services.
We also learned from the Auditor General's report on ArriveCAN, as well as from several witnesses, that there were whiskey tastings, dinners and golf tournaments, dozens of events attended by public servants. Kristian Firth stood here at the bar of the House of Commons. We called him in. I asked him how many gifts in cash or in kind he had offered public servants. In an arrogant tone, he replied that he had not offered any gifts to public servants. I challenged him. Do whiskey tastings not count? Do dinners not count? Do golf tournaments not count? Mr. Firth replied that yes, there had been certain events.
That is what we got from Kristian Firth. We never got a clear answer from him. Worse yet, the government never admitted to any real problems with our procurement system. We are still waiting. That admission should have been made as soon as the report on ArriveCAN was published. A decision should have been made to reform the procurement system. To get back to Kristian Firth, he refused to answer several questions. I gave an example. He compromised the parliamentarians' work by not submitting the documents requested on time. He even lied in committee. In particular, he refused to submit the list of public servants with whom he had worked, a list we have since received but that is incomplete.
Clearly, if it has come to this, there are huge problems with procurement. The government has been operating this way for at least 15 years. It is so difficult to do business with the government, to enter into contracts with the government, that some companies—we are talking about GC Strategies, but we know there are others—set up a kind of unit that signs the contract but then delegates the work. In some cases, it is not even the company, it is not even GC Strategies that finds the expertise, but the government itself.
Take the case of KPMG, which was considered as a company that could provide services needed by the government. KPMG was called by a government official who told them that the government was not going to sign the contract directly with them, even though it could. The government was going to go through GC Strategies, which ended up pocketing a commission for doing absolutely nothing.
What we have here is a company that profited from a broken system and pushed things to the extreme. GC Strategies received most of its contracts from the Canada Border Services Agency for the ArriveCAN app. It was awarded a number of these contracts untendered, while others were obtained via a rigged tendering process. We now have the evidence. A tendering process was rigged so that GC Strategies would be the only successful bidder. In the case of KPMG, GC Strategies received $84,000 while offering absolutely no service as part of the contract between the government and KPMG. Why did the public servant do this? Why does the system allow this?
The motion presented for our consideration calls on the Auditor General to conduct a performance audit, on a priority basis, of all payments made to GC Strategies and Coredal, including all contracts with departments, agencies and Crown corporations. As we know, it can be difficult to see what is going on in these agencies and Crown corporations.
They consider themselves independent, even though they receive taxpayer money. This makes it difficult to obtain information from them, but that is why they are included in this motion. They too must be accountable.
In the case at hand, we would like to know how many other cases there were. The ArriveCAN app is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, we know that there was the KPMG contract I just spoke about, but how many other cases were there like that? How many other times did the government find a company that could provide a service, consultants or people who could truly provide the product the government needed, only to end up with GC Strategies? That is theft.
When someone provides no service and receives money for doing absolutely nothing, that is called theft. It is theft of taxpayer money, something the Liberals seem to forget on occasion.
Kristian Firth justified his hourly rate of $2,600 by the fact that he was not doing a nine-to-five job. He claimed to have issued over 1,500 invoices per month, maintaining that the amount suddenly increased in the case of ArriveCAN. The contract we are talking about went from $2.35 million to $13.9 million, and again, no service was provided.
According to the witness, in the entire history of federal contracts with GC Strategies, the gross margin for all 65 contracts signed with the federal government is approximately 21%. I gave a few examples. GC Strategies was just a shell company that enabled the government to enter into contracts. We do not know why the government used GC Strategies, but the company was pocketing an average of 21% a contract. The two owners of GC Strategies, Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, met when they were both employees of Veritaaq Technology House, where they worked until 2010. The witness was therefore working for that company when its directors pleaded guilty to bid-rigging in 2009. At that time, the judge ordered that all employees, including Mr. Firth and Mr. Anthony, be given training on bid-rigging. However, we now know that they engaged in bid-rigging to win a multi-million dollar contract from the CBSA for the ArriveCAN app.
From the motion and from everything I said, it is clear that we urgently need to know the extent of the damage caused by GC Strategies for the government. GC Strategies obtained at least $108 million. How much of that can we potentially get back? In the case of GC Strategies, there has obviously been a breach of trust and theft. That is a strong word that I am using.
However, the following is clear. In the report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates that we are discussing today, we may be asking the Auditor General of Canada to study the issue and conduct a performance audit to get a clearer idea, but we are obviously not directing the Auditor General, far from it. We cannot make repeated requests like others do all the time and like a certain party enjoys doing by bombarding the Office of the Auditor General of Canada with requests for studies when it already has so much on its plate.
I am therefore adding a bit of nuance because, as the Auditor General of Canada pointed out, she does not have additional funding for all the extra studies she is being asked to do. Nevertheless, and this is the most important point of my speech, the report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates was unanimously adopted because it embodies the feelings of our constituents, the taxpayers who felt cheated in this matter. It epitomizes the anger, it must be said, of the people who talk to us back home on the ground about the story of ArriveCAN and GC Strategies. No one understands how this could have happened. We were cheated by a procurement system that needs to be overhauled. It is the right thing to do.
I would really like the government to truly take responsibility, as my colleague from Beauport-Limoilou said, and acknowledge the fact that GC Strategies is a perfect example of the fact that there is a real problem in the federal procurement system.
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- Sep/17/24 11:50:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to pick up on the member's last statements and go to the Auditor General's comments. From what I understand, there was a clear indication the Auditor General found that the government has appropriate contracting rules that are actually in place. The problem is that the rules were not properly followed. When that occurs, there is an obligation for the government to take action.
When the government did discover this, there were actions. Internal reviews were done. The Auditor General was brought in. The RCMP is also now looking into the matter. I do not know exactly where it is at in regard to it, but there seems to be a great deal of attention being brought to the issue, and justifiably so.
The government has not been shy in terms of recognizing the need for transparency and accountability on the issue. The government believes that there have to be and will be consequences for those who have broken the rules and taken advantage of taxpayers.
I wonder whether the member could provide her thoughts in regard to the Auditor General's comments that we seem to have the right system.
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- Sep/17/24 11:55:52 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to talk about this issue with regard to the Auditor General of Canada conducting a performance audit. It is ironic that the Conservatives have brought this forward. It was the party that attacked the Auditor General and sought to defund the Auditor General under the Harper regime. I was here during the debates on that.
The Conservatives not only did it behind closed doors but also did in here. We can watch the video. We can watch all the different things in the past that took place. They sought to defund the Auditor General and they did that at the expense of Parliament. That was done under Stephen Harper.
The Conservatives are asking the Auditor General to do more work and more investigation after they attacked the Auditor General very publicly. On top of that, they cut the budget, defunding the Auditor General. The Conservatives now run back to the Auditor General. I wonder about that in terms of their secret plans that could come forward later on. If they ever were able to get into government again, would they defund the Auditor General even more?
Using this as a motion is rather curious. It really comes at the expense of other accountability that took place, because the Conservatives defunded the Auditor General in the past and the Liberals never really restored that. It has been an attack on that house of independence for overseeing Parliament on many other issues that have consequences.
The Conservatives are asking the Auditor General to do more work for their political agenda right now, and it is a political agenda with regard to their attack on ArriveCAN. I will get into what they have not talked about in this motion and what they have asked for versus the results that we can get for Canadians. There are a couple things to point out specifically on that.
In the motion and in the talking points of the Conservatives, we will never hear them question or raise concerns related to personal privacy, the expenditure of resources and the effects on CBSA officers at all. They call it arrive scam. They have their slogans that they package up into a little box, but they really do not get to some of the things that are germane.
When we look at GC Strategies and what it has done with the money it received, there is a very legitimate discussion to be had. How did it get so much money? How was there so little accountability? How did all this happen? At the same time, what is not discussed is why we even outsourced such an important provision that was being sought in the first place?
The Harper regime cut the public service and CBSA officers. It cut frontline officers, and it cut off other types of systems in place that dealt with gun smuggling, drug smuggling and so forth. Over $100 million of cuts to our border services took place under the Harper regime. It was one of the first things it did.
Then later on in Parliament, they come back and we see an outsourcing by the Liberals, because that is a convenient way to do it for an application that deals with personal privacy and border management, which is significant. I come from a border region, the busiest border in North America, where we need that commerce to run efficiently.
During COVID, we had a blockade at the Ambassador Bridge. The Conservatives basically stood by and they denied all the different consequences that took place for the auto industry. They denied the consequences for the tool-and-die industry and mould-making industry. They denied the consequences of people not being able to get to their jobs. They denied the consequences of kids not going to school. They denied the consequences of people, including children, going to their health care appointments, including cancer treatments. They stood down as this illegal blockade took place to the point where we had to put Jersey barriers all along Huron Church Road.
Why is that important and germane to this? They have been part of this outsourcing that took place to GC Strategies and others to deal with an application that would have helped us potentially deal with COVID. The problem was that it manifested itself into a blockade and disgruntlement. Now the Conservatives continue to have that disgruntlement with regard to their focusing solely on GC Strategies, something they probably would have employed, or a different strategy organization, themselves because they love outsourcing.
The Conservatives love the fact that they cancelled and defunded our in-house capabilities when it came to creating applications and processes related to the border crossing. ArriveCAN was about that. It was an attempt to deal with COVID, the complications of the border and so forth. The Conservatives will not talk about how it really related to the exposure of personal privacy and the inefficiencies that it created for the industry and other economic issues that we had.
This motion focuses on the priorities of GC Strategies and the payments of contracts and all those different things that took place. It is important to note that both the Liberals and Conservatives feel differently about how we can deal with these contracts and this information in the future. Had we done that in house, had we had the capability for the public service to do those things, we would have had more control.
Let us remember that we have lessons for that, lessons created in the past with the Phoenix system, when we outsourced, again, potential in-house applications that could have been done by public servants even with regard to payment. The government turned the switch on that, despite knowing that it would cause a problem, and it has cost us billions of dollars and has been a scandal. It has caused anguish among the public service and other people who are looking to get a paycheque. That is sad because those things were totally avoidable.
One of the things I want to touch on, which is important with regard to this issue and beyond it, is that we can have this on GC Strategies but I am just not convinced, whether it is the Liberals now with their friends in the GC Strategies group or whether it is in the past or later on with the Conservatives and their friends getting these contracts and these types of things, that we have really learned anything that systemically will change what is taking place. That is what we really need, because, if not, we will be spending another day in the House of Commons talking about another strategy, or another scandal or another type of problem related to a practice that functionally we have not changed.
One of the things I do want to talk about is the accountability of government information and contracting that could be different, and which is different in other industrialized nations, and we are not even dealing with it. That is Crown copyright.
Crown copyright in our country is done differently than in any other place. Crown copyright is the availability to the public of documents, studies and information that is done in house. Both the Liberals and the Conservatives have opposed reforming Crown copyright from the early 1900s. Our law has been in place since 1926, and it is different from that in the United States, the U.K and everybody else across the board. Why is it important? Because if it were done in house, if it were done by the public servants and if it were done by taxpayers, the New Democrats believe that information, those studies and those accountability documents that are being sought after now would be public information.
Under the best circumstances, when we contract those information pieces and we get them done, they are very helpful for businesses, academics and a number of different things for our economy and accountability. We would not have to spend time in the House of Commons debating that because it would already be available. That is what the United States does. That is what the Americans have done since the 1800s. However, in Canada, we have a system in place right now that is protected by sensitive so-called information by the government, where people cannot see when the Liberals or Conservatives do those types of studies from by public servants. Why? Because some of that information that the Conservatives and Liberals have done over the past have been polls, research opinions and other types of information to guide their principles and other things. That should have been paid by their political parties but taxpayers have paid for it.
If people cannot get their head around why they would, as taxpayers, pay for all those different things and never get access to them, it is because of the power interests that have taken place here. That needs to be changed significantly. If we did this materially and if we did these studies that GC Strategies did, that would be automatically available to the public.
Today's discussion to get the documents, to get the contracts that have been through a committee, and it is on the Auditor General now to actually deal with these issues, all would be readily available anyway. How much money does it cost the taxpayers to run Parliamentary committees, run discussion in the chamber, make the Auditor General do something after the Auditor General's budget has been cut in the past and then try to get a document back into our system, to talk about that accountability and complain about it? The Conservatives will use arrive scam and then the Liberals will try to defend it and all those different things, but the solution is right in front of us.
Had we actually done that with in-house and Crown copyright, which every other industrialized nation actually has in a different fashion than Canada, it would not even have been a fight. It would have been automatically available. Why is it okay, and I cannot believe the motion does not even talk about this, that we can allow a continuation of a whole bunch of companies, this one being GC Strategies, which appears to be done in somebody's basement, to get millions and millions of dollars on the whim, with the least accountability, and then we do not get that information to the Canadian public?
Coming from a border region, I would have been interested, as I am sure our chamber of commerce and others would have, with any real application like this ArriveCAN app, in having the data and information they used to create an application, which was unnecessary and has huge flaws. That is almost beside the point in many respects. We saw that on a regular basis at the border. However, why are we even fighting to get that, when the solution has been in front of us? The reason is because of the continuation of control of public information and the control of the civil servants.
There is disenfranchisement of the public, because people cannot get the information on a free and regular basis from GC Strategies, which should have been available from the start. The reason is that it is better to continue with that issue right now. The Conservatives do not put that in the motion here because they are hoping they can get over on that side and get the same access to the public purse strings and public money to do whatever they want on these accountability issues. Then later on it will be up to the opposition or others to expose that.
Over the years, I have seen that so many times, especially under the Harper administration. There have been so many different issues with regard to accountability that have never been answered. Sadly, I am looking at the situation back in the time when I sat closer over there, and I sat a couple seats across from the now Prime Minister. They supported Stephen Harper on confidence votes without a single concession from Stephen Harper. Over 100 times, the Liberals agreed with the Conservatives and did not get a single thing for Canadians.
That is important, because this motion, which we are going to agree to because it is an improved situation, still would not change the fundamental problem that we have, which is the outsourcing of that accountability and on top of that, ensuring that businesses, the public and others have access to the information before we have to fight for it in the House of Commons.
I know the Conservatives do not want to hear that, and that is okay. I can tell members that it is not the norm in other democracies. In fact, the United States fixed part of the problem by not outsourcing some of the material, the studies and so forth, and by setting up its information-sharing system. It goes back to 1895. I know the Conservatives do not want to hear this, but their predecessors, in many respects, actually agreed with me. In Canada, there were attempts in 1981, in 1993 and so forth to try to make some of these changes, but the 1980s seems like a long time ago. People forget that today's Conservatives used to be called the Progressive Conservatives. Then they were taken over by the Canadian Alliance party.
An hon. member: Hear, hear!
Mr. Brian Masse: Madam Speaker, I just heard a “hear, hear”. If we look behind the veil, we see exactly what I have said.
I remember those days. I remember Peter MacKay and David Orchard. I remember all those behind-the-curtain deals that took place as Erin O'Toole and others were running out the door. The Conservatives want everybody to forget about those things, but it is interesting that when I talk about those things here I get heckled with a “hear, hear”. They are happy about those days, because those days are still here. A takeover took place, and that is why they dropped the “Progressive”, I suppose. I do not know. At any rate, it is interesting.
This is important, because the motion does not get to the fact that there is still a responsibility thrust upon the Auditor General. It would be interesting to see what the Conservatives would have put in there. They could have put in there that they would reinstate the cuts they made to the Auditor General's office. That would have been helpful. It would have been really good if they said the money they took out of the Auditor General's office under Harper, and was voted on, including by the now leader of the official opposition, who was there at the cabinet table when they decided they were going to attack and defund the Auditor General's office, could specifically be used to go after this issue. They could have done that, which would have been really helpful, because we know the Auditor General is taxed, in many respects, with regard to what has taken place on the Liberal side.
As I conclude, I want to focus on this. If we want a real and responsible solution, we will simply make sure our public service is funded properly, that it can do the research and that the research is then open to the public, businesses, employers and so forth so it performs well for our economy with respect to Crown copyright renewal and reform. However, we do not have this. Instead, what we have is a systematic problem of outsourcing continually, not having control and spending lots of money. However, it has gone to the government side in the past, whether Liberal or Conservative. It does not matter whether it is blue, red or whatever; governments will find a way to pass that public money on to their friends. That has been the consistency of what is happening here. It is time to end that consistency with respect to Ottawa and pass it on properly back to the taxpayers to ensure they are not involved in this boondoggle or any other in the future.
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- Sep/17/24 12:30:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, now I will go back to the speech where I was talking about Liberal corruption, and in particular how over the course of the last number of years we have seen an unprecedented level of corruption take place, and that is no more true than in the case of GC Strategies. The report from OGGO specifically talks about the need for the basic level of accountability. In fact, what the motion before us does is take the politics out of it by asking the Auditor General to step in and do a performance audit on GC Strategies.
Most notably, and it has been mentioned in the discussions that have happened thus far this morning, this two-person firm is named GC Strategies not because it is associated with the Government of Canada but because it wants that perception in order to be able to manipulate the process in order to get contracts.
ArriveCAN, specifically, was originally budgeted at $80,000, but ended up ballooning to a cost for which we do not even know the final number, other than that it is probably north of $60 million. That is a level of corruption that is astonishing and that Canadians are demanding answers for.
What is so frustrating is that I hear from my constituents on a regular basis, and from Canadians from coast to coast, that there is a level of frustration and an erosion of trust that has taken place in the institutions that normally, historically, we could have been able to trust. There was a very poignant statement made to me by somebody who did not consider themselves that political. They did not really have a particular party that they championed; they were just a regular Canadian. What they had shared with me is that we used to be a country where if we did not like the guy in charge, we could still respect the office they held.
Unfortunately we have come to the point where the actions of the Prime Minister and the Liberals, supported by the NDP, include a refusal to commit to put their foot down, and not just do press stunts, to actually oppose the agenda they still support. What we see in this country is that there has been an erosion of trust in our institutions.
The fact is that, like the previous member mentioned, this could have been done in-house for significantly less. It could have had the basic level of accountability through the process. The Liberals are saying that they might have made mistakes but that we should just move on. I am sorry, but $60 million spent, and close to $100 million that went to GC strategies with various contracts, showcases the corruption and the scandal at a time when Canadians are going hungry.
Food banks are seeing record usage. We are seeing a level of an erosion of trust, because Canadians look at how the friends of the Liberal Party are getting rich while they are being stripped of everything. The fact is that I know that is the case across this country, and it is so regrettable that the NDP, when given the opportunity, refused to take a stand. I will let Canadians judge that for what it is.
We will have a vote on the issue after question period, asking the Auditor General to take a look and to dig into the details of $100 million. I would like to, if I could, remind all members of this place that whenever the government has a dollar, whether it is the salary that we earn as parliamentarians, whether it is the dollar that goes to pay for the services that public servants provide, whether it is the dollar that is paid out in benefits, whether it goes to things like our military or the RCMP, or we could go down to other levels of government, at the core of every dollar that the government has is the fact, and this is a fact that I would hope defines the respect that needs to be shown for the dollars the government has, that it is not the government's money.
It is the money of taxpayers, hard-working Canadians who pay a percentage of their income and a percentage of the things they buy, whatever the case is, to the various taxes that exist, which goes into government coffers. Those are hard-earned dollars. The sweat, the work and the blood of so many Canadians go into earning those dollars, and it is bewildering how little respect those Canadians are shown, because it is Canadians' money. Therefore when we talk about a two-person firm getting $100 million, most of which was in sole-source contracts, friends of the Liberal Party who wine and dine Liberal staffers and Liberal elites, it is astonishing the arrogance with which the government and the other parties that support it approach this lack of accountability.
There is the work that the OGGO committee has done. I know that my colleagues, including an Alberta colleague who chairs it, have done a tremendous amount of work exposing some of the corruption and the need for accountability. In the case of the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, often referred to as the mighty OGGO, there is a simple request to call in the Auditor General, the non-partisan auditor who can look at the books. I would suggest that in a country like Canada, that should not be controversial, and it is so regrettable that opposing corruption has become something that the Liberals try to turn into controversy.
I stand here as a representative of about 110,000 people, over 53,000 square kilometres in beautiful East Central Alberta, proud to stand up for accountability, for the people I represent and the hard-earned dollars they send to Ottawa to steward with the most basic level of accountability, which they and all Canadians deserve.
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- Sep/17/24 12:57:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, if the member looks in the mirror, he will see inappropriate behaviour, not only by him but by the entire government. The government has done nothing other than try to hide, obfuscate and distance itself from this scandal.
Every single member of the Liberal Party voted down the Auditor General investigating the ArriveCAN scam. That was on November 2, 2022. Over the course of numerous committees, it was the Liberal Party that routinely shut down debate, refusing to hear from the Auditor General and the RCMP commissioner.
Yes, I do blame the Liberals. They are responsible, and their ministers refuse to accept responsibility for this boondoggle.
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- Sep/17/24 12:58:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his speech and his work on the ArriveCAN file. I know that he questioned the witnesses effectively. Working with him is a pleasure.
However, I have noticed a tendency in the Conservative Party lately. Additional requests to the Auditor General have increased significantly, on top of the work already being done by the Office of the Auditor General.
If the Conservatives were to form a government, would they increase the budget of the Office of the Auditor General?
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- Sep/17/24 12:59:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, when the leader of the Conservative Party forms government, and he will, and becomes Canada's next prime minister, we will ensure that all of these scandals are fully explored and will, indeed, ensure that resources are available to the Auditor General so she can complete her job and provide a more fulsome picture as to how much more the government has fleeced the taxpayer. We know it is approximately $60 million, and that is the tip of the iceberg. We need to find out more.
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- Sep/17/24 1:10:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, my colleague from Calgary Centre always adopts the right tone in addressing these issues, which need to be raised. They are the result of this government being worn out and the culture of cronyism that is too often part of the Liberal brand. Once again, the country will go further into debt, and this will have a very negative impact on Canadians and their trust in their government. This explains why Quebeckers want to separate from this country and go their own way.
Having said that, I would like to ask my hon. colleague the following. How can we ensure this never happens again? Could the government, possibly a Conservative government, commit to maintaining and increasing the Auditor General's funding to ensure that these scandals can be exposed?
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- Sep/17/24 7:37:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the parliamentary secretary claims that the Liberals are good stewards who ensure the responsible and wise use of tax dollars. He talked about taking this seriously and wanting to get to the bottom of it.
My question is very simple. In this $60-million arrive scam scandal that lies at the feet of the Liberal Prime Minister, himself twice found guilty of breaking ethics laws, the member, the cabinet, the Prime Minister and all members over there voted against having the Auditor General investigate. If they wanted to get to the bottom of it, were not trying to protect their friends and Liberal insiders and wanted to do the right thing for Canadians, even if it made them look bad, why would they not allow Canada's Auditor General to investigate?
The motion passed in the House without the Liberals' and the member's support. Why did the parliamentary secretary and his government vote against the Auditor General investigation?
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