SoVote

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

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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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Sep/17/24 12:39:53 p.m.
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I want to remind the hon. member who is yelling out her comments that if she wishes to participate in the debate, she should wait until questions and comments. The hon. member for Battle River—Crowfoot.

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Mr. Damien Kurek

Sep/17/24 12:40:10 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, for the member to somehow suggest that calling for accountability is anything other than the very basic job a parliamentarian or a Parliament should do exposes to all Canadians the problem that exists within that party. Canada deserves better than the corruption that the member supports.

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Mr. Yves Perron (Berthier—Maskinongé, BQ)

Sep/17/24 12:40:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in his speech, my colleague raised a number of very important points about accountability and how the government seems to think this is no big deal and not its responsibility. That is what happens when government responsibilities are delegated to the private sector. That is essentially what happened with GC Strategies. For some time now, I have noticed everything going down a slippery slope. Take the regulation of gene editing, for example. The government decided to let the industry itself create a registry to track all that stuff, even though it is the government's responsibility. Does the member think these kinds of bad choices can lead to even worse things in the future? Does he think the government needs to take back control and take responsibility for ensuring public safety?

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