SoVote

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

Sep/17/24 10:40:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, with respect to affordability, his party brought in the GST. Later, under Stephen Harper, it brought in the HST, bribing other provinces to the tune of $6 billion in historic deficits and borrowing. Maybe my colleague can explain how the HST helps seniors with affordability, because it is a tax that was put on consumers instead of the businesses to which it gave corporate tax cut reductions. Could the party responsible for the GST and HST please explain how that has helped consumers by putting that debt on them versus the companies?

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Mr. Luc Berthold

Sep/17/24 10:41:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the reason we are in this situation today, with housing prices doubling, food prices doubling and Canadians unable to make ends meet, is because the NDP signed a coalition agreement to support spending, thereby creating the current situation with the Liberal government.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 10:41:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, listening thus far to the debate this morning has been interesting. As I indicated in my question, I am not surprised that the Conservatives have decided to take a path of playing that destructive force on the floor of the House of Commons. That is not new. The Conservative Party has been very much focused on doing that for years now, and it is unfortunate. The Prime Minister indicated yesterday about the importance of listening to what Canadians were actually saying. Take a look at the questions that were being asked of the member, whether it was my question, or the Bloc question or NDP question. We will see that they were not necessarily directly on the report itself and concurrence in that report. Rather, they related to issues that Canadians would actually be concerned about at this point in time. The Conservatives are masters at spin. They are masters at these single, simple messages. Even when the Prime Minister was the leader of the third party, they have consistently targeted character assassination as their first priority with respect to developing issues on the floor of the House of Commons. We saw it yesterday, when there was the personal attack on the Minister of Finance. It is not the first time we have seen that. It happens time and again with the Conservatives. Today, they want to talk about GC Strategies and the ArriveCAN app. For them, it is all about the issue of corruption and character assassination. Canadians, on the other hand, are having a challenging time in dealing with a wide spectrum of issues, issues that the government of the day has been addressing, in good part. In introducing the motion, what was the first thing the member did? He talked about statistics coming from Statistics Canada and doing what the Conservatives do so well. They travel the country trying to convince people that Canada is broken when it is not broken. It is still the best country in the world to live, but we would not know that by listening to Conservatives. Every opportunity they get, the Conservatives are more focused on spreading misinformation. To their credit, they are being somewhat effective at doing that. The introducer of the motion talked about Statistics Canada and then tried to emphasize how Canada was broken. What he did not talk about was the report by Statistics Canada on the inflation rate. The inflation rate is 2% today. Canadians are very much concerned about the inflation rate. I would compare Canada's performance to any other G7 or G20 over the last number of years, especially postpandemic. Even though we have done exceptionally well as a nation, Statistics Canada, the organization that the introducer of this motion brought forward, can reinforce these types of statistics. If we look at the inflation rate and interest rates, we are going in the right direction and it is having an impact. These are the types of issues that I think Canadians want us to talk about, but not the Conservatives, because they do not want to share their ideas. That is giving them credit, assuming they have some. What were we supposed to be talking about today instead of ArriveCAN? The Citizenship Act. There are individuals in Canada, second-generation Canadians, who do not have their citizenship. We will see that there are New Democrats, Bloc members and members of the Green Party who recognize that we need to pass this legislation. In fact, before the summer, a New Democrat stood in her place and made the suggestion that we pass each of the stages through unanimous consent, and yesterday, we tried to get it passed. That is what we are supposed to be debating today, but we have come to learn, by listening to the debate yesterday, that the Conservatives have absolutely no intention whatsoever of passing that legislation. Even though a clear majority of members of the House have decided that this is good legislation that should pass, the Conservatives do not like it, and they do not want to be thrown off topic, so today they introduced a motion on the ArriveCAN issue. They want to talk about ArriveCAN. ArriveCAN was there as a direct result of a worldwide pandemic. It was upon us. Actions were being taken by the government to support Canadians every day. Billions of dollars were being spent. The majority of that money was supported even by Conservative members, not to mention New Democrats, Bloc members and others, as Canada was coming together to ensure that the interests of Canadians were going to be served. As a House working in a co-operative fashion, we were able to make a difference. We brought forward programs that positioned Canada well, going into the postpandemic era. We were there to support Canadians and their disposable income through programs such as CERB. We were there saving literally tens of thousands of jobs through the wage subsidy program. We were there to support small businesses through business loans. We were there to support our seniors through one-time payments and support individuals with disabilities with payments. We were there to support non-profit organizations to ensure that they could support Canadians at the grassroots level. We were there to support provinces, territories and indigenous people. As a national government, we were there in a very real and tangible way, and that meant we spent billions and billions of dollars. Today I look at our independent AAA credit rating. Canada is still financially strong, and even during those difficult times and in the postpandemic, we still had the Conservatives taking the cheap shots with the character assassinations. I will give a couple of examples, including ArriveCAN. They say those Liberal friends got all these contracts. They are kind of right, in the sense that Conservatives got contracts, New Democrats got contracts and even some Bloc members got contracts, and when I say “Bloc”, I am not identifying the parties. I am talking about the individuals within those political parties. Yes, there were some individuals within the Liberal party. There are entrepreneurs, businesses and Canadians of all political parties who have dealings with the Government of Canada, but to try to give the false and misleading information that Liberals were given an advantage is just wrong. They try to give impressions about ArriveCAN. I think about ArriveCAN. Let us focus a bit of attention specifically on ArriveCAN. Anthony and Firth, between 2010 and 2015, were part of another small firm called Coredal, which was later amalgamated into GC Strategies. Coredal was awarded a number of contracts. Actually, one or more of these individuals received federal contracts from the Conservatives. Members can imagine that. The Conservatives gave contracts to at least one of the two individuals, possibly under a different name. They try to say that the Government of Canada said, “We want you”, when in fact it was done through the public service. There was a protocol in place. The Auditor General actually found that the government has appropriate contracting rules in place, but in this situation, the rules were not followed. If the rules were not followed, then it begs this question: What was done in regards to it? The minister and the government took immediate action. There were audits, both internal and external, to deal with this issue. The minister and the government have been very clear. If there were abuses, as it appears there has been, there will be consequences to that. That is something that we would expect for anyone sitting in this chamber or any individual that we represent outside of this chamber. We do not condone in any way, in any fashion, inappropriate behaviour with respect to the procurement process. In fact, the Auditor General came back with a report. We have accepted the recommendations of the public auditor, whether they concern Canada border control, the CBSA; the Government of Canada; or the minister. However, the Conservatives say the government is bad. One of the largest scandals that we have seen was the ETS scandal. That was a procurement scandal. There were direct links and indirect links to the Conservative government at the time. What did the Conservatives do? They avoided any sort of public accountability on the issue. They went out of their way to hide information connected to the ETS scandal. Do colleagues want to know about the ETS scandal? If they do a quick Google search, they will see the hundreds of millions of dollars at issue. While in government, whether it be the federal government or a provincial government, sometimes problems arise. Yes, at times getting the Auditor General or a provincial auditor is necessary because it is good for all concerned. The same principle applies here. Here we have a situation that is concerning, not only to Conservative members. I would like to think that every member of the House of Commons is concerned about it, as I am. I want to ensure that there is a consequence for the inappropriate behaviour of individuals who inappropriately use tax dollars because I value those tax dollars, as I know my colleagues do. We recognize the true value of spending tax dollars to the benefit of Canadians. Let me cite a few examples. There was a question put forward by the member for Kildonan—St. Paul to her colleague asking where the Conservatives would save money. His response was a little bit modest of where the Conservatives would be saving money. Let me talk about where the Conservatives are looking at saving money, based on the question that was being posed there, while understanding the value of a tax dollar and a progressive government that is here to make a difference. We know there is the child care program that supports children every month. It is estimated that, every month, over $9 million goes into Winnipeg North alone because of the Canada child benefit. Imagine the impact that has on the local economy in Winnipeg North alone. It is something which we as a government established shortly after forming government in 2015. Think of the progressive policies that we have been able to elevate and put into place, such as the dental care program. Where are the Conservatives with respect to the dental care program? Maybe that should have been the question that the member for Kildonan—St. Paul asked her colleague because I can say there are literally hundreds of thousands of Canadians who are very much interested in the Conservatives' actual position on the dental care program. We know that the Conservatives oppose it. Are they going to flip-flop with respect to it? We hear often from constituents, and I can say that the number one concern that constituents raise with me, in my over 30 years of personal parliamentary history, is health care. Health care, in my books, is number one. As a government, we have spent those valuable tax dollars on things such as generational commitments to future health care. We are talking about $198 billion over 10 years. We are talking about bringing forward, in a gradual way, a national pharmacare program. We are talking about improving the standards of long-term care for our seniors. I made reference to the dental program. When the member for Kildonan—St. Paul asks her colleague, in regard to this motion, where we can save money, and the member said that we can save it from the ArriveCan, I would suggest that is a bit of a flippant answer because what Canadians are more concerned about is the Conservative right-wing MAGA agenda for Canadians. That will come out in time. We will see that. Instead, the Conservatives like to amp up the issue of character assassinations and spreading of misinformation. Here is a lovely quote. I am going to say something and members will be able to figure out who said it right away. The Conservative Party had a caucus meeting over the weekend, and their inspirational leader had this to say to the caucus— Some hon. members: Oh, oh! Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, the members are feeling really excited because of the misinformation they have been spreading about the tax cut. What did the leader of the Conservative Party have to say? He tried to paint this picture during a Sunday morning speech to his caucus, saying that “the Liberal government's plan to increase the price would cause a 'nuclear winter' for the economy.” He said “nuclear winter”. Get that. Wow. He said, “There would be mass hunger and malnutrition with a tax this high...our seniors would have to turn the heat down to 14 or 13 C just to make it through the winter”. He also said, “Inflation would run rampant and people would not be able to leave their homes or drive anywhere.” What is he going to say next? Will he say that refugees are eating cats and dogs? Seriously, this is something that the leader of the Conservative Party today is saying, trying to scare Canadians. He is spreading misinformation consistently. I would welcome a debate anywhere in Canada with the leader of the Conservative Party because his ideas are so much out of this world that I do not think he would be able to stand his ground in front of any university grouping, and I would welcome that particular challenge. I appreciate being allowed to share those few thoughts.

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Debating

Mr. Damien Kurek (Battle River—Crowfoot, CPC)

Sep/17/24 11:01:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am a bit worried because the member seems to be the only one who is able to respond to very serious questions. We are debating concurrence on a report that has to do with the basic level of accountability that a government should be able to provide for the dollars it spends. The dollars spent are not the government's money. They are hard-earned dollars paid by Canadians in the form of taxes. What does the member do? He is the only member who seems to be given permission by the PMO to be able to speak on that side. He seems to be able to say, with many words, very little. He talks about character assassinations. To assassinate character, someone has to have some. We are looking for the basic levels of accountability that Canadians expect the government to have when it comes to spending. Does the member not find it concerning that time and time again, the government is plagued by scandals to the point where Canadians from coast to coast to coast are simply saying the government cannot be trusted with the public purse?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Sep/17/24 11:04:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important to assume responsibility for being accountable with tax dollars. What we are asking for in our report from the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates is that accountability. Where do things stand? How was the money spent? The Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Bloc members voted in favour of this report in committee. I get the impression that my esteemed colleague is against it. I would like to understand the disconnect between what happened in committee and what we are seeing today.

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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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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Sep/17/24 11:06:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad that my colleague from Winnipeg North mentioned the wild statement about nuclear winter, made by the Conservative leader, coming from the carbon tax. The carbon tax is scheduled to go up 17¢ more by 2030. In six years, it will be 17¢ more. That would put gas prices at the pump, in my riding at least, at around $1.75. We have had prices over two dollars a litre because of corporate greed and the work of the big oil companies. Will the Liberals attack those excess profits with a wealth tax to bring those prices down? That is what is hurting Canadians.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Sep/17/24 11:07:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I look forward to the fall economic statement, where we will be able to get into more of those details. I want to pick up on what I believe is the biggest misleading information out there today with respect to the carbon tax versus the carbon rebate. I could talk to a number of random people and what I would find is the following. A vast majority of Canadians, 80%-plus, receive more money back through the carbon tax-carbon rebate system, yet that message is not necessarily getting through. At the end of the day, that means the collective disposable income in Winnipeg North, under this administration, is actually higher with that policy, and we are dealing with an environmental issue. If Conservatives were to come into power, I can say that collective disposable income in Winnipeg North would go down because of that one single policy itself. The carbon rebate matters. It is helping people. Why is the Conservative Party not as blunt on that as it is about the carbon tax?

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Ms. Leah Taylor Roy (Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 11:08:29 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is an honour to be back in the House and hopefully debate things that are of real concern to our constituents. This summer I spoke to many of them, and not one person talked about ArriveCAN, other than to say that they had used it when they came back from a trip and that it actually facilitates re-entry into the country. We heard from the member opposite that this is hard-earned taxpayers' money, and I agree wholeheartedly with that. I wonder if my colleague could address the costs to Canadians of this kind of filibustering and what the Conservative Party has done over the past year in this House, such as having us sit late to hear ridiculous debates on issues that do not matter to most Canadians.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Sep/17/24 11:09:23 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know that many of my colleagues, if not all my colleagues, are very much concerned about the finite amount of time that we have here on the floor of the House. What we have witnessed over the last number of years from the Conservatives is what I classify as a destructive force. They do not want legislation passed, even legislation that is good for Canadians, the people we represent. Whether it is with respect to dental care or what we were supposed to be debating today, the Citizenship Act, the Conservatives are an obstructive force. They do not want legislation to pass. They show no remorse for not recognizing that, as members of Parliament, there is a responsibility to appear to work with government legislation and the government's agenda to at least try to advance it. There is a responsibility for all members with respect to that, but the Conservative Party completely disregards it. All it wants to do is focus on character assassinations. It ties anything and everything to the words “corruption” and “scandal”, and ultimately says nothing about its own policies. Shame on the Conservative members.

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Mr. Richard Bragdon (Tobique—Mactaquac, CPC)

Sep/17/24 11:10:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always interesting to hear from the hon. colleague across the way, who truly is a workhorse in this House. He is here almost every day the doors are open. I commend him for that. I will say this. I find it quite humorous when he talks about disinformation and misinformation and starts to go on these wonderful tirades about these things. I always seem to find that whenever the government disagrees with the opinion of the opposition, it immediately slaps a label on it to try and intimidate and bully into silence anyone who dares to have a different opinion. It does not mean that it is misinformation or disinformation; perhaps it just means that they have a different opinion that needs to be heard, and I think most Canadians share the opinion of the official opposition in this House.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Sep/17/24 11:11:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me provide a quote that the member's leader said to him and his caucus colleagues. He stated: There would be mass hunger and malnutrition with a tax this high… Our seniors would have to turn the heat down to 14 or 13 C just to make it through the winter If we want to talk about misinformation and lies, I will leave it up to members—

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/17/24 11:12:05 a.m.
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I believe I have a point of order from the hon. member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes.

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Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Sep/17/24 11:12:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am rising on a question of privilege concerning the 12th report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics following the notice that I gave you earlier today after the report was tabled. Here we go again. Because the time of the House is valuable, I have prepared concise remarks. We find ourselves dealing again, though, with another witness showing blatant disregard for another committee. Earlier this year, we dealt with the woes of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates with Kristian Firth, the key contractor in the Liberals' arrive scam. Today, we have the ethics committee's challenges with the employment minister's sketchy business partner, Stephen Anderson. Recognizing there is significant overlap between the two cases and that you listened very carefully to my detailed submission on Mr. Firth less than six months ago, Madam Speaker, I am going to refer you to the authorities cited in my March 20 arguments on the failure of a witness to answer questions and adopt them for the present purpose. That said, there are some key points to emphasize and some differences between the two cases noted. While Mr. Firth dodged and weaved questions as a witness, Mr. Anderson also did that and defied document production orders. Since this has been a dizzying file, even for those of us who have followed it carefully, because there have been so many carefully scripted denials, which are then smashed to bits by yet more bombshell revelations, a brief chronology might be in order. I am sure that my hon. colleagues are going to be very interested in this chronology. This past spring, Global News broke an explosive story about questionable business dealings, ethics and lobbying centred around the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages and his recent business associates. Understandably, the ethics committee wanted to get to the bottom of the issue and, on May 7, agreed to invite the minister and the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner to appear as witnesses at that committee. On June 4, Global News reported on text messages that it had obtained, showing that Mr. Anderson had written, “Randy” told him to “be available in 15 for a partner call.” After the minister's appearance that day, when he denied being the Randy in question, the committee agreed on June 11 to extend the study by inviting the minister's business associates, including Mr. Anderson, as witnesses. The committee also adopted a document production order directed to the minister and Mr. Anderson for all “phone records, text messages, iMessages, and all instant messages and call logs from all applications from September 8, 2022”, to be produced within seven days. On June 18, the committee reinvited Mr. Anderson to appear during the week of July 15. On July 17, Mr. Anderson did appear as a witness and trifled with the committee in his answers. A central area of concern was the identity of the so-called “other Randy”. In the September 8 text messages and, as it would turn out, several others sent the same week, Mr. Anderson blamed autocorrect, which struck no less than nine times, and claimed that he could only provide the real name in camera, in secret. The committee disagreed. By the end of that meeting, the committee unanimously agreed to “order Stephen Anderson to produce all of the previously requested documents, in addition to the name referenced in today's testimony, and if those documents are not received by Friday, July 19 at 12:00 p.m., the Chair prepare a report to the House outlining the questions that Stephen Anderson refused to answer in writing and during testimony.” Mr. Anderson failed to provide that information, including the supposed identity of the infamous “other Randy”, though he did provide a bunch of other documents that were unresponsive to the ethics committee's orders, so here we are. While I think we have all lost track of the Ethics Commissioner's revolving door of an investigation into the minister, it is patently clear that Mr. Anderson failed to answer questions and failed to produce records required by the ethics committee. I will also add that there are concerns about the truthfulness of some of the testimony from Mr. Anderson, which may well be a matter for a future report from the committee. Indeed, he freely admitted to the committee that he had lied to Global News, so that much is certain. For today's purposes, we are, of course, concerned with Mr. Anderson's refusal to provide information. Your predecessor ruled on May 11, 2021, on page 7021 of the Debates, about the role of committees in questions of privilege concerning witnesses' evidence, and held that committees must first do the work of considering the issue and then inform the House of their conclusion. That part is now done. House of Commons Procedure and Practice, third edition, at page 82, borrowing from a list of established contempts laid out in the 1999 report from the Parliament of the United Kingdom's Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege, enumerates established areas of contempt, including “engaging in other misconduct in the presence of, the House or a committee”, “without reasonable excuse, refusing to answer a question or provide information or produce papers formally required by the House or a committee” and “without reasonable excuse, disobeying a lawful order of the House or a committee”. During his July 17 testimony, Mr. Anderson was asked but failed, or refused, to name the “other Randy”, or otherwise protested that he could only provide that information in camera, about 10 times. I asked him. The hon. member for Brantford—Brant asked him. The hon. member for Hamilton Centre did too. Even the hon. member for Ottawa Centre tried and got stonewalled. The hon. member for Steveston—Richmond East asked Mr. Anderson if he would provide the answer in writing, and Mr. Anderson agreed. Then he resiled from his agreement when the member for Ottawa Centre followed up with his own questions. The committee then deliberated on whether to yield to Mr. Anderson's demands and sit in camera. The committee decided not to, but instead adopted the order for him to furnish the written responses that he had once offered to provide. No answer from Mr. Anderson has been received to date, and certainly not before the committee's deadline of July 19. I will note that it is September 17. In fact, the Liberal employment minister's sketchy business partner did not provide responsive records concerning the balance of that document production order or the committee's original June 11 order. In adopting these orders, the committee was exercising its authority, which Bosc and Gagnon described at pages 983 and 984 as follows: The Standing Orders state that standing committees have the power to order the production of papers and records, another privilege that is rooted in the Constitution and which is delegated by the House. In carrying out their responsibility to conduct studies and inquiries, standing committees often have to rely on a wide array of papers to aid them in their work.... The Standing Orders do not delimit the power to order the production of papers and records. The result is a broad, absolute power that on the surface appears to be without restriction. There is no limit on the types of papers likely to be requested; the only prerequisite is that the papers exist in hard copy or electronic format, and that they are located in Canada. They can be papers originating from or in the possession of governments, or papers the authors or owners of which are from the private sector or civil society (individuals, associations, organizations, et cetera). Bosc and Gagnon, in the immediately following passage, get to the heart of the ethics committee's current predicament: In practice, standing committees may encounter situations where the authors of or officials responsible for papers refuse to provide them or are willing to provide them only after certain portions have been removed.... Companies may be reluctant to release papers which could jeopardize their industrial security or infringe upon their legal obligations, particularly with regard to the protection of personal information. These types of situations have absolutely no bearing on the power of committees to order the production of papers and records.... The House has never set a limit on its power to order the production of papers and records. However, it may not be appropriate to insist on the production of papers and records in all cases. In cases where the author of or the authority responsible for a record refuses to comply with an order issued by a committee to produce documents, the committee essentially has three options. The first is to accept the reasons and conditions put forward to justify the refusal; the committee members then concede that they will not have access to the record or accept the record with passages deleted. The second is to seek an acceptable compromise with the author or the authority responsible for access to the record. Normally, this entails putting measures in place to ensure that the record is kept confidential while it is being consulted. These include in camera review, limited and numbered copies, arrangements for disposing of or destroying the copies after the committee meeting, et cetera. The third option is to reject the reasons given for denying access to the record and uphold the order to produce the entire record. In Mr. Anderson's case, I believe it is fair to say that the ethics committee, in the end, attempted to reach a compromise, one that Mr. Anderson had, initially at least, agreed to, to get his answer about the identity of the “other Randy”. With respect to the balance of the documents, which had not been produced in response to the June 11 order, Mr. Anderson raised objections, which he vocalized during his July 17 appearance. In response, the committee renewed its order. As such, it is fair to say that the committee chose the third option, rejecting his reasons and insisting on full production, as is its right. That leaves us with the situation that Bosc and Gagnon describe at page 138: If a committee’s request that it be given certain documents is met with resistance or disregarded, the committee may adopt a motion ordering the production of the requested documents. If such an order is ignored, the committee has no means to enforce the order on its own. It may report the matter to the House and recommend that appropriate action be taken. The House is now fully up to speed on the matter, and appropriate action is being sought. That brings me, Madam Speaker, to the point where I say that if you agree there is a prima facie contempt, I am prepared to move an appropriate motion. I will not keep the House in suspense. As in the case of Mr. Firth, I intend to move a motion that would find Mr. Anderson in contempt and order his attendance at the bar for him to be admonished and to answer questions. This motion would also incorporate the unanimously negotiated and agreed upon procedures for questioning Mr. Firth. One addition would be to include a requirement for Mr. Anderson to deliver up the as yet unproduced records. As you said in your March 22, 2024, ruling at page 21,946 of the Debates: While it is perhaps true that the suggested remedy is not something we have seen for some time, I am of the view that it is procedurally in order. As with the case cited from June 2021, the motion provides for a call to the bar in order to be reprimanded, and a specific remedy to the offence. We must all recall that the House is possessed with truly awesome power and authority to vindicate its role as the grand inquest of the nation. Citations 123 to 125 of Beauchesne's Parliamentary Rules and Forms, sixth edition, elaborate: 123. Privilege grants considerable punitive powers to the House of Commons. The mildest form of punishment is a simple declaration that an act or an article is a breach of privilege. When an individual has been present at the Bar it has been customary to deliver this conclusion to the culprit in the presence of the House. On such occasions, censure of the individual is usually added to the conclusion that privilege has been offended. 124. Occasionally the individual at the Bar will be given an opportunity to purge the contempt and promise better conduct in the future.... 125. For more serious contempts the House may proceed further. In my March arguments, I quoted extensively from the 1993 to 2013 reports of the United Kingdom's Joint Committee on Parliamentary Privilege about the need for Parliament to find the institutional confidence necessary to vindicate its authority and impose sanctions in cases of breach, lest accountability to Parliament be reduced to a pious aspiration and institutional weakness cynically exposed. In the end, the House rose to the challenge and unanimously agreed to sanction Mr. Firth, despite some subsequent weak knees and queasy stomachs from some hon. members. I trust that the House will not start giving out free passes to those who think they can trifle at will with Parliament and parliamentary investigations. In conclusion, the 12th report of the ethics committee outlines, I respectfully submit, a contempt of Parliament committed by the Liberal employment minister's sketchy business partner, Stephen Anderson. Parliament deserves to know who the other Randy is. All Canadians, especially those in Edmonton Centre, deserve that answer. We must get that answer.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/17/24 11:27:29 a.m.
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I thank the hon. member for submitting the motion. We will take it under advisement. Resuming debate, the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

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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Ms. Laurel Collins

Sep/17/24 11:28:26 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, on a point of order, the NDP reserves the right to reply to the question of privilege.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès)

Sep/17/24 11:28:40 a.m.
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There will be time for that as soon as possible. The hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou.

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Mrs. Julie Vignola

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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