SoVote

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

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Sep/17/24 12:15:24 p.m.
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Before I go to questions and comments, there was a lot of discussion being had in one corner or in the middle of the chamber by a variety of individuals. I know someone is pointing, but that individual was also part of the discussion. If members are not interested in hearing what is being said, I would just ask them to please be respectful. If they want to have conversations or are not interested in the debate, then they should step out, have those conversations there and then come in. There were other members who were making signs to indicate it was noisy in the House. I did not interrupt because nobody got up at that time. However, I want to remind members again to please step out if they want to have conversations. The hon. member for Guelph.

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Mr. Lloyd Longfield (Guelph, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 12:16:13 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working on copyright legislation with the hon. member for Windsor West in the 42nd Parliament, on the industry committee. He brought up the issue of Crown copyright. One example that Canada can look to is Crown copyright in the U.K., something that goes back to, I think, the Statute of Anne in 1710. I think the U.K. is currently under legislation from 1988. We could talk about copyright, but I am really interested in the member's comments about trade and how important it is for us to look at technical advances we can make to have goods and services move more freely across our border and how this was intending to do that.

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Mr. Brian Masse

Sep/17/24 12:17:03 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was interesting as we all toured throughout Canada for a full year on copyright. I appreciate the member's interventions. It is a highly complicated and tough issue that still resurfaces. He made a good point that there can be innovation on the border. To bring it back to what is really important, that is what the ArriveCAN application was to do: to make things flow better and so forth. ArriveCAN was a problematic application. I want to focus also on making sure we have boots on the ground with regard to the CBSA officers. We are short right now, because of COVID, by over 2,000 to 3,000 officers at the border. Even with an application like ArriveCAN, or a new one, and there has been some advancement on a number of different things, if we don't the right equipment and enough officers then it is a huge problem. A good example we hear about is auto theft. They actually moved the equipment from Windsor to Montreal because they could not, or would not, fix the equipment in Montreal. We have to fund the border properly. We still need boots on the ground, so to speak.

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Mr. Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay (Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, BQ)

Sep/17/24 12:18:27 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have just witnessed a rather amusing scene. Our Conservative colleagues were not listening at all and were speaking almost as loudly as our colleague who was making his speech. However, when he said “Canadian Alliance”, all of a sudden the Conservatives snapped to attention. I think it was almost erotic. They listened, said, “Hear, hear!” and went back to their conversations. Perhaps my colleague should use the words “Reform Party” and “Canadian Alliance” more often in his speeches to make sure he gets their attention. There are variations as well, but I will let him choose. I am sure that he will have the originality to come up with them. That said, multicultural Canada has often been described as an incoherent aggregate of communities. The same can be said of the Canadian government. There are a bunch of governments within the government, sub-governments and sub-sub-governments. Unlike the hydra, the many-headed creature of Greek mythology, here there is one that is centralized and sends money to everyone, feeding these little creatures that are getting out of control. Why is it that no one is ever accountable when it comes time to ask questions?

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Mr. Brian Masse

Sep/17/24 12:19:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I remember. I got here when there was the Canadian Alliance party and the Conservative Party. Actually, Joe Clark used to sit close to me. Later on, we saw the Canadian Conservative Reform Alliance party emerge, which had “CCRAP” as its acronym, as we know. That disappeared shortly thereafter, and there were other machinations that took place. I was here. I have a lot of respect for Joe Clark. He was screamed at by the Alliance party at that time. I remember those things very clearly. People can watch the video. He used to have his green folder and would ask the questions. I was really impressed by his stature. To quickly respond to my colleague's question, if we had in-house accountability with documents about Crown copyright reform, we would not even have to try to do motions like this and so forth because they would be available to the public and a part of the process. We would not need procedures here to do it.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Sep/17/24 12:20:51 p.m.
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I would just remind the member to be careful with the acronyms he uses. There are certain acronyms that are just not acceptable to say, no matter what they sound like. We know there are unions that do not like acronyms used for them either. The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

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

Sep/17/24 12:21:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to ask my colleague from the NDP a question. My colleagues and I are very curious to know whether the NDP is willing to assert the supposedly new-found independence that it is talking about and vote non-confidence in a corrupt government that has such disregard for tax dollars and for the public service. I know he mentioned this is something that should have been done in-house. ArriveCAN could have been done in-house, by our professional public servants, but instead there was the mismanagement, the corruption, the scandal that plagues the government. However, the New Democrats refuse to commit to voting non-confidence in that corruption. Can the member clarify today that they will vote non-confidence in the Prime Minister and the Liberal government, and show whether they are actually tearing up the so-called agreement?

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Mr. Brian Masse

Sep/17/24 12:22:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have no idea what that has to do with the motion the Conservatives put forth, but that is not surprising from the member and from the way the members opposite are behaving. I am glad to have the floor. If I had unanimous consent, I could go on longer, because I have, right here, the Harper government's record in scandals. I have the last 10 years of Stephen Harper scandals. I have the Conservative collection of Harper government scandals as well. I have lots here to go on. I want to go specifically to the motion. Here is the Auditor General's office, to cut 60 jobs, a reduced number of audits, thanks to the Conservative government, thanks to Stephen Harper, thanks to their agenda, which they never told the public when they went to the polls. They never told the public they were going to raise retirement from 65 to 67. They never told the public they were going to cut $100 million from border services. They never told my community they were going to close the veterans office and the recruiting office, which they did. They never said any of those things. I would love to have the floor to talk about those things more.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Sep/17/24 12:23:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think what the Canadian public is screaming about is the sense that there is never any accountability, that millions of dollars can be wasted and that we can have someone like Kristian Firth sit here and say he is not ashamed, that he just took millions of dollars from Canadians and he is walking away with it. I think the hon. member for Windsor West is absolutely right. We have to get back to where this started as a trend of taking work that should be done by our public civil service and farming it out to for-profit consultants. I would like to put a finger on the beginning of it, and maybe if we had accountability for that, we could get accountability now. I put my finger on the Phoenix pay system and the decision to hire IBM. We should have sued IBM when it was not delivering, instead of shovelling hundreds of millions of dollars more to it, and then to McKinsey, to help the Phoenix pay system work when it could never work.

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Mr. Brian Masse

Sep/17/24 12:24:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is exactly it, because if not, we are going to be back here again on a different motion and a different type of scandal and a different problem. That is fixable. That is what we want to do as New Democrats, to fix that systemic problem: Crown copyright reform and also not outsourcing sensitive information that includes our personal and private information and sharing that. That information even goes outside the country through an application done in somebody's basement by somebody known to them on that side, whoever occupies that side, versus in-house with lower cost and higher accountability.

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

Sep/17/24 12:25:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree with my colleague. I think it is ironic when the Conservatives try to talk about respect for the civil service when all they ever do is denigrate the civil service. They started this trend, as the member for Saanich—Gulf Islands just mentioned. Where is it going next? In the international trade committee, we are talking about the CBSA assessment and revenue management system, a new digital system, sort of like ArriveCAN on steroids, and it is being brought to us by Deloitte, not by the civil service. We are undercutting the CBSA again, and I am wondering if the member could spend some time talking about that trend.

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Mr. Brian Masse

Sep/17/24 12:25:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think my colleague knows the border better than anybody else I know in this chamber, having to deal with it from an economic and social perspective, and has shown that on a regular basis. Briefly, he is absolutely correct. What is not talked about enough is the exposure of our personal information that the Conservatives and the Liberals continue to do through this outsourcing that also goes global. We have little control over that. By doing it, they reward friends and there are higher prices, less accountability and more corruption.

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

Sep/17/24 12:26:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my friend and colleague, the hon. member for Brantford—Brant. I find it fascinating that the NDP member who just finished his speech claimed to not understand the context of a question that was very direct, which was whether the member and the NDP would support a motion of non-confidence, to put a line in the sand; the red line, I believe, is what they called it at the previous NDP convention, where NDP party members were not very happy with their leader and the direction they were going when it comes to propping up the Liberal government and the scandal, the corruption, the waste and the mismanagement that are happening. However, the member, when given a very clear opportunity to put on the record that he would vote non-confidence, refused to do so. The reason this fits so clearly in the debate, and I know my colleagues across the way certainly do not like how by-elections certainly do not seem to be their strength as of late, is that they seem to be terrified of hearing what Canadians have to say, of hearing that there is a desire for things like accountability. That is the crux of the issue we are discussing here today. The leader of the NDP, with great bravado, said he was tearing up the confidence and supply agreement, the coalition agreement that has defined the last two years of corruption that they have supported, yet when asked to put his money where his mouth is, he refused. The member likewise refused, just as weak and cowardly as his leader. We have before us GC Strategies—

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

Sep/17/24 12:28:51 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will not sit here and be told I am a coward. I think that is unparliamentary and I would ask the member to retract it. I am actually being called a coward in the chamber, when I have fought with my constituents to get representation for Windsor West and say what I feel and they believe in the chamber. I will not be bullied by the member. I will not take it here in the chamber and I will not take it behind closed doors. I am not a coward. I have been accountable. What he is raising is not even germane to the actual motion the Conservatives have put forward. I can tell the member that I am not a coward. If he wants to test that, that is fine here in the chamber, but it is unparliamentary to call any member here in the chamber a coward.

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Mr. Damien Kurek

Sep/17/24 12:29:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I said his actions, like those of his leader, are weak and cowardly. He can interpret that as he wishes.

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Sep/17/24 12:29:55 p.m.
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I would remind members to be very careful with the words they use. If it causes disorder in the House, they should not be using those words. I did not hear the whole sentence the hon. member said, aside from what he has just told me. We will review Hansard and come back to the House as necessary.

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

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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Mr. Mark Gerretsen (Kingston and the Islands, Lib.)

Sep/17/24 12:38:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member talked about Canadians' not trusting their government and having concern over being able to trust institutions. However, I am wondering how much of a role he believes that he plays in that. The member comes in here and talks about corruption, that the government is being corrupt and is just filling the pockets of Liberal insiders, and he talks about GC strategies. Meanwhile, GC strategies used to operate under a company named Coredal, and it operated under that company name when the Conservatives were in government, so for the member to suggest that these are some kind of Liberal insiders is just completely false. Anybody who says that is lying, because it is not true. I am wondering whether the member can tell the House what role he plays in bringing forward these ideas and this misinformation, and informing Canadians to purposely pit them against the institutions that he said a constituent raised a concern with him about.

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Mr. Damien Kurek

Sep/17/24 12:39:35 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I think it has become increasingly clear across this country that Canadians are sick and tired of the Liberals— An hon member: Oh, oh!

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