44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 17, 2024 10:00AM
- Sep/17/24 10:26:34 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent speech and for the opportunity he is giving us today to examine the Liberal government's incompetence and inability to govern the affairs of the state and of all Canadians. The motion before us reads as follows:
That, in light of new reports that GC Strategies and other companies incorporated by the cofounders have received millions of dollars in government contracts, including a number of sole-sourced contracts, the committee request the Auditor General of Canada to conduct a performance audit, on a priority basis, of all payments to GC Strategies, and other companies incorporated by the cofounders....
It is very technical, but that is important because, sometimes, if one does not ask the right question, one does not get all the answers. Now, thanks to my colleague's motion, we will be able to get the answers, but only if we have the support of enough MPs to proceed.
I will keep reading:
...and all contracts with the Government of Canada, including all departments, agencies and Crown corporations, including all subcontracts which GC Strategies and the before mentioned have been awarded under those contracts and that the committee report this request and these findings to the House.
With hundreds of thousands of Canadians lining up at food banks after nine years of this Liberal government's inflationary policies and inflationary spending that has doubled the cost of housing and food since 2015, Canadians and Quebeckers might expect the government to manage their money efficiently.
Unfortunately, as we saw in the case of GC Strategies and the Liberal green fund, or the “green slush fund” as many now call it, and as we saw in the case of the $21 billion in subcontracts awarded to outside consultants, the Liberal government sees its responsibility to Canadians and to government finances as a mere triviality. However, it is no trivial matter for Canadians who are unable to make ends meet at the end of the month. It is no trivial matter for families who cannot afford groceries and who are forced to make hard choices to feed their children or forced to decide between driving themselves to work or the kids to school. That is the new reality now, after nine years of this Prime Minister.
The GC Strategies case illustrates the way this Liberal government operates, which, I would remind everyone, has caused Canadians to lose all confidence in this Prime Minister's ability to control both himself and the affairs of state. The example is being set from the top, and that is the problem. When the example is set from the top, when we have a Prime Minister who has twice been found guilty of ethics violations and his sole explanation and response to the Canadian public is that he takes full responsibility for his actions, yet he faces no financial penalty and no consequences other than having to utter that statement in the House, what sort of message does that send to the rest of the government, to all the deputy ministers, to all the people whose job it is to manage the public purse? It sends the message that they can cross the line and there will be no consequences.
That, unfortunately, is what happened in the case of GC Strategies. I would remind members that the ArriveCAN app should have cost $80,000 but ended up costing $60 million. From $80,000 to $60 million: what a perfect illustration of the indolence this Liberal Prime Minister has infused into the workings of government since he was first elected nine years ago.
Let us consider the situation as a whole. I too was out and about in my riding. Over the summer, I met with hundreds, if not thousands, of residents, and every one of them told me they struggle to pay their bills at the end of the month and asked me how things got to this point. There was GC Strategies, the use of consultants, the Liberal green fund and the $500 billion in inflationary spending supported by the Bloc Québécois. This spending inflated the economy, made more and more public funds available and drove up costs across the board. That is what happened. Unfortunately, I hear people laughing, but this is no laughing matter. There is nothing funny about people struggling to understand why they can no longer pay their bills when they used to be able to a few years ago. There is nothing funny about people getting their paycheque and discovering there is less and less money left over to pay their bills at the end of the month.
This government, which has been propped up by the Bloc Québécois in recent years, has made things harder for people, even in Quebec. I am not referring to the wealthy or those receiving billions of dollars in contracts from this Liberal government. I am not referring to bankers or those who make money off of other people's money. I am referring to people who have to work hard in a factory, school or hospital. These are the people who are finding it harder to cope. These are the people we need to work for. These are the people we are here for, and it is for their sake that the Conservatives intend to introduce a common-sense plan to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime.
I hear my Bloc colleagues saying “yeah right”. It seems they could not care less about what is going on. What I just heard is insulting. Needless to say, they have no clue what is going on. For them, there are no tent cities in Montreal and no spike in violent crime happening in Montreal and in regions across Quebec. Those things simply do not exist. The Bloc Québécois seems to be ignorant of Quebeckers' current realities. The Bloc will try to downplay the gravity of the situation because they want to keep propping up the Liberal government. They need to downplay the damage the Liberals have done over the past nine years so they can justify their support for this Liberal government.
Given the comments I just heard, I cannot get over the way these people claim to stand up for Quebeckers' interests when they cannot even recognize that all Quebeckers are suffering after nine years under this Liberal government. I listened to the speeches that the Prime Minister and the ministers gave right before the House returned. They said that they would keep on doing what they are doing, that they would stay on course, but staying on course means even more street crime. It means more and more Quebeckers having to rely on food banks at the end of the month. It means fewer and fewer young families being able to afford a home. Fewer and fewer young families will be able to have a home, and fewer and fewer families will have access to housing, period. That is what will happen if the Liberal government stays on course, and that is what the Bloc Québécois wants.
Standing up for Quebeckers' interests means making it possible for them to own a home, access housing, put food on the table at the end of the month and have bigger paycheques that enable them to make the right choices for their family. That would serve all Quebeckers' interests, not just the interests of Bloc Québécois supporters. That is why we are going to fight for the interests of all Quebeckers. That is why it is important to get to the bottom of the scandals in which this government is embroiled. That is why it is important that the Bloc Québécois and the NDP support us when it comes time to denounce the government and vote for a non-confidence motion against it so that voters can finally elect a common-sense government.
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- Sep/17/24 1:00:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to this motion to make sure that we continue to look into this as much as we can. We have to ensure that Canadians get their eyes on it and that the government does not bury it under the floor one more time and say that while it is incompetent, it is not guilty of anything. Well, incompetence is guilt in itself.
It is $60 million that we have identified so far of money going off the table that belongs to Canadians. This money is going from one hand to the hands of people who are well connected with the Liberal Party of Canada. This cannot continue. It is not the only instance where this has happened. It happens again and again. This is one instance where the Liberals have tried to obfuscate in the House of Commons and at committee repeatedly in order to not have this looked at.
For my colleagues across the way to pretend at this point in time that they want to get to the bottom of this is completely false and is misleading the House in the greatest sense. I cannot believe he stands up and says this after leading his caucus in voting against all of the transparency that we have tried to bring to the table and against getting this matter before Parliament and before Canadians to make sure the government has some accountability and transparency in what it does for Canadians with Canadian taxpayer dollars.
My colleague talked earlier about what Canadians contribute in taxes to run the government. Right now, they see very clearly that the government is misusing those taxes again and again. It is spending on its friends. It is spending excessively through all kinds of measures in order to whittle away the hard-working tax dollars of Canadians.
We were almost $50 billion in deficit this past year, and getting back to balance is, of course, very important. I know that $60 million in a sea of $50 billion looks like a drop, but this drop is indicative of how bad and how insincere the government is as far as accountability goes. Our friends do not worry about it; it is a drop in the bucket, but it is not a drop in the bucket. It is a significant amount of money that Canadians no longer have. Canadians have contributed to running the government, and the respect the government is showing for their money and the taxes they pay is not there.
Any government has to allocate scarce resources. The number one thing, whenever we are allocating resources, is to allocate scarce resources as effectively as possible. That is not happening here whatsoever. Whenever Liberals can get money from some program or another into the hands of their friends, they will do it. That is a problem we are here to unearth. The number one role of His Majesty's loyal opposition is, of course, to make sure that we hold the government to account on what it is doing for Canadians with Canadian dollars.
At this point in time, we have seen repeated instances of misuse, this one being the most egregious we have shown so far in the House of Commons, one the Liberals have tried to hide several times. This is very important for Canadians to understand. We are doing our job. We are doing our job in holding the government to account on its misuse of Canadian taxpayer dollars, its nepotism in giving to insiders and friends and its non-delivery of real programs to Canadians.
Canadians need a government that responds to their needs. This one is not responding to their needs. It is responding to the needs of its friends, who are getting an excess return right now because they see a government that has no accountability whatsoever. While the government is here, it will just use the money printer and put a bunch of dollars in their jeans. Canadians expect much better from the House. Canadians expect much better from the people who run this country.
I have heard my colleague across the way blame this on bureaucrats. Somewhere the buck has to stop. This is the government that recently raised taxes on capital gains, so more Canadians are paying more money to the government so it can shovel more out unaccountably through the back door. When it goes out badly, that is just the bureaucrats' mistake. That is not their problem, because they do not provide leadership in this realm. What we need to do is ensure that we get some accountability, that this is exposed and that we make some procedures available so it does not happen again.
I have seen enough of people trying to shovel this under the rug. This is very important. We had a man brought to the bar in the House of Commons for the first time in almost a century. That was obviously an exception, so something exceptional happened here. One of the people who was very connected with this party deemed that he did not have to provide available information, which was required, at a parliamentary committee. The committee chair told him that he was in contempt, and he was brought here to Parliament to answer to the person who was in the chair at that point in time, acting as judge. He was compelled to give evidence, and in that giving of evidence, he showed absolutely no shame: “I took the money. I have the money. Tough luck.”
That was the money of a bad government that has no checks and balances to make sure that Canadians' dollars are spent wisely and effectively to deliver programs for the benefit of Canadians. That did not happen here. It did not happen here in an egregious sense. We have to stand up as the opposition and make sure we expose that for what it is. It is a gross oversight of the Liberals, and they are trying to avoid accountability for it. Our job here is to make sure they own it and put procedures in place so they cannot say that while they are incompetent, they are not guilty of anything that they should go to jail for, or anyone should go to jail for for that matter. They are completely incompetent, and we have already proven that over the last nine years.
The Liberals cannot balance a budget. They cannot deliver programs. It is a government all about narrative and no execution whatsoever and it has lost the faith of Canadians. It is time to move on and get to a government that is actually accountable, provides transparency for Canadians and shows respect for the dollars that Canadians contribute to the tax system in Canada.
That is not happening and it is a shame. We hope to bring that to a head. We have some mechanisms in this House of Commons, and we are going to continue to use those mechanisms to hold the government to account.
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- Sep/17/24 1:09:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the name-calling and vitriol. I apologize if I have gotten under his skin one more time. It seems like it is a habit here.
We need a government that is accountable. That was the entire perspective of my speech. I hope he listened to some of the words I said, rather than just speak off his cheap little talking notes.
We need accountability in government and he should stand for accountability in government. I know he tries to avoid that at every step and tries to cover up the mistakes his government continues to make. As I have said, incompetence is as bad as being complicit in the crime that has been committed.
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