SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 337 - Sep/17/24

Sep/17/24 11:03:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very content knowing about all the internal reviews and external reviews regarding the ArriveCAN issue. We always have to put it into the perspective, as I attempted to do, of the many things that the government was responsible for during the pandemic. That is not to say there was not any misspent money. The government is, in fact, ensuring that there is a consequence where tax dollars were abused. That is an absolute. We continue to ensure that there is a high sense of accountability and transparency with every tax dollar. The real challenge we have found is that the Conservative Party is reluctant to discuss its ideas. It is just constantly attacking personalities, which I classify as character assassination.

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Context: House Hansard - 337 - Sep/17/24

Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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Context: House Hansard - 337 - Sep/17/24

Ms. Jennifer O'Connell (Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Safety, Democratic Institutions and Intergovernmental Affairs (Cybersecurity), Lib.)

Sep/17/24 2:53:20 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, ensuring that justice is done for victims and their families is crucially important. It is something I know the minister takes incredibly seriously, and we will continue to work on this specific case with her. When it comes to dealing with systemic racism in policing, this is a crucial issue that we are focused on addressing. It is something we have made progress on, but by no means is it complete. There is much more work to do, and we are committed to doing it.

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Context: House Hansard - 337 - Sep/17/24

Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and Special Advisor for Water, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 7:33:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that the government shares the member's concerns and his desire to hold those responsible to account. This is an issue that the government is not taking lightly. The members of this House and all Canadians are justifiably concerned by what they have been hearing in the media and at committee. We are using many tools and following many avenues of inquiry to understand what went wrong in the case of ArriveCAN. These avenues include the rare and extraordinary measure of a public rebuke in the House, for which the government did vote in favour. This speaks to how seriously we take this issue. It is why we voted for Mr. Firth to present himself here in the House and why we will continue to support the various investigations and inquiries into this matter. While we await the responses that Canadians need and deserve, I can tell everyone about the swift and decisive actions this government is taking to strengthen and protect the integrity of government procurement so that something like this can never ever happen again. When something goes awry, the government takes decisive action to restore trust in the system. That is exactly what our government is doing. Budget 2024 clearly outlines the actions we are taking to enforce and uphold the highest standards of procurement to ensure sound stewardship of public funds. They include new steps to strengthen the government's procurement and conflict of interest regimes and updated procurement guidance for managers to reinforce the prudent use of public funds. This means examining human resources and staffing strategies before procuring professional services, strict evaluation criteria when a supplier is selected, clear due diligence protocols to ensure no conflict of interest and ensuring all contractual obligations are upheld by third party vendors. It also includes government-wide audits to ensure governance, decision-making and controls associated with professional service contracts uphold the highest ethical standards. The results of these audits are expected by the end of this year. Changes are also under way to modernize the new master-level user agreements for a professional services supply arrangement to improve transparency regarding costing and subcontractors. We will launch a new risk and compliance process to ensure government-wide trends, risks and departmental performance meet the highest standards and take corrective actions whenever necessary as soon as possible. We are also bringing forward stronger accountability guidelines for managers when procuring professional services, which include robust validation that a potential contractor is the best fit for the requirements. In closing, our government is committed to ensuring that Canadian tax dollars are used wisely and responsibly. We recognize the seriousness of the ArriveCAN issue, and I want to assure Canadians that we will be acting swiftly and decisively to ensure that it cannot happen again.

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