SoVote

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

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

Sep/17/24 11:39:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am interested in getting the member's perspective in terms of the scope. How far back does one actually go? For example, we know that before it was GC Strategies, some of the same individuals were involved in Coredal, and Coredal had also received government grants. In trying to get a fair perspective on how things evolved to the point they got to, how far back does the Bloc believe we need to go with respect to the individuals and the companies that were involved?

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Mrs. Julie Vignola

Sep/17/24 11:40:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, yes, the report does include Coredal without mentioning it. However, it should be noted that it was Coredal when these two individuals took ownership. Before Mr. Firth and Mr. Anthony took over, Coredal had its own owner with its own contracts. Therefore, we are going back to the point where these two people became the owners of Coredal.

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné (Terrebonne, BQ)

Sep/17/24 11:41:18 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to thank my honourable and extraordinary colleague from Beauport—Limoilou. It is always difficult to speak after her, given her vast knowledge of the subject. I would also like to congratulate Louis-Philippe Sauvé on his victory this morning. I send out 8,884 thank yous to the people who placed their trust in Louis-Philippe and the Bloc Québécois. They do not have to worry, we are there for them. A few months ago, the Office of the Auditor General submitted a report on the management of the ArriveCAN app. To quote the Auditor General, management of the app was the worst she had seen in her career. The ArriveCAN app, which was to have cost $80,000, ended up costing taxpayers $60 million. In the same report, we learned that one company composed of two people was paid $19.1 million for ArriveCAN. That company is GC Strategies. We also learned that the ArriveCAN affair is only the tip of the iceberg. After putting several questions to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, of which I am a member, the comptroller general revealed that GC Strategies and its former incarnation Coredal had obtained contracts worth almost $108 million since 2011. Manual searches show that there were probably other contracts as well. In other words, at least $108 million was paid in recent years to a two-person company that did not deliver any services. We also learned from the Auditor General's report on ArriveCAN, as well as from several witnesses, that there were whiskey tastings, dinners and golf tournaments, dozens of events attended by public servants. Kristian Firth stood here at the bar of the House of Commons. We called him in. I asked him how many gifts in cash or in kind he had offered public servants. In an arrogant tone, he replied that he had not offered any gifts to public servants. I challenged him. Do whiskey tastings not count? Do dinners not count? Do golf tournaments not count? Mr. Firth replied that yes, there had been certain events. That is what we got from Kristian Firth. We never got a clear answer from him. Worse yet, the government never admitted to any real problems with our procurement system. We are still waiting. That admission should have been made as soon as the report on ArriveCAN was published. A decision should have been made to reform the procurement system. To get back to Kristian Firth, he refused to answer several questions. I gave an example. He compromised the parliamentarians' work by not submitting the documents requested on time. He even lied in committee. In particular, he refused to submit the list of public servants with whom he had worked, a list we have since received but that is incomplete. Clearly, if it has come to this, there are huge problems with procurement. The government has been operating this way for at least 15 years. It is so difficult to do business with the government, to enter into contracts with the government, that some companies—we are talking about GC Strategies, but we know there are others—set up a kind of unit that signs the contract but then delegates the work. In some cases, it is not even the company, it is not even GC Strategies that finds the expertise, but the government itself. Take the case of KPMG, which was considered as a company that could provide services needed by the government. KPMG was called by a government official who told them that the government was not going to sign the contract directly with them, even though it could. The government was going to go through GC Strategies, which ended up pocketing a commission for doing absolutely nothing. What we have here is a company that profited from a broken system and pushed things to the extreme. GC Strategies received most of its contracts from the Canada Border Services Agency for the ArriveCAN app. It was awarded a number of these contracts untendered, while others were obtained via a rigged tendering process. We now have the evidence. A tendering process was rigged so that GC Strategies would be the only successful bidder. In the case of KPMG, GC Strategies received $84,000 while offering absolutely no service as part of the contract between the government and KPMG. Why did the public servant do this? Why does the system allow this? The motion presented for our consideration calls on the Auditor General to conduct a performance audit, on a priority basis, of all payments made to GC Strategies and Coredal, including all contracts with departments, agencies and Crown corporations. As we know, it can be difficult to see what is going on in these agencies and Crown corporations. They consider themselves independent, even though they receive taxpayer money. This makes it difficult to obtain information from them, but that is why they are included in this motion. They too must be accountable. In the case at hand, we would like to know how many other cases there were. The ArriveCAN app is just the tip of the iceberg. For example, we know that there was the KPMG contract I just spoke about, but how many other cases were there like that? How many other times did the government find a company that could provide a service, consultants or people who could truly provide the product the government needed, only to end up with GC Strategies? That is theft. When someone provides no service and receives money for doing absolutely nothing, that is called theft. It is theft of taxpayer money, something the Liberals seem to forget on occasion. Kristian Firth justified his hourly rate of $2,600 by the fact that he was not doing a nine-to-five job. He claimed to have issued over 1,500 invoices per month, maintaining that the amount suddenly increased in the case of ArriveCAN. The contract we are talking about went from $2.35 million to $13.9 million, and again, no service was provided. According to the witness, in the entire history of federal contracts with GC Strategies, the gross margin for all 65 contracts signed with the federal government is approximately 21%. I gave a few examples. GC Strategies was just a shell company that enabled the government to enter into contracts. We do not know why the government used GC Strategies, but the company was pocketing an average of 21% a contract. The two owners of GC Strategies, Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, met when they were both employees of Veritaaq Technology House, where they worked until 2010. The witness was therefore working for that company when its directors pleaded guilty to bid-rigging in 2009. At that time, the judge ordered that all employees, including Mr. Firth and Mr. Anthony, be given training on bid-rigging. However, we now know that they engaged in bid-rigging to win a multi-million dollar contract from the CBSA for the ArriveCAN app. From the motion and from everything I said, it is clear that we urgently need to know the extent of the damage caused by GC Strategies for the government. GC Strategies obtained at least $108 million. How much of that can we potentially get back? In the case of GC Strategies, there has obviously been a breach of trust and theft. That is a strong word that I am using. However, the following is clear. In the report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates that we are discussing today, we may be asking the Auditor General of Canada to study the issue and conduct a performance audit to get a clearer idea, but we are obviously not directing the Auditor General, far from it. We cannot make repeated requests like others do all the time and like a certain party enjoys doing by bombarding the Office of the Auditor General of Canada with requests for studies when it already has so much on its plate. I am therefore adding a bit of nuance because, as the Auditor General of Canada pointed out, she does not have additional funding for all the extra studies she is being asked to do. Nevertheless, and this is the most important point of my speech, the report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates was unanimously adopted because it embodies the feelings of our constituents, the taxpayers who felt cheated in this matter. It epitomizes the anger, it must be said, of the people who talk to us back home on the ground about the story of ArriveCAN and GC Strategies. No one understands how this could have happened. We were cheated by a procurement system that needs to be overhauled. It is the right thing to do. I would really like the government to truly take responsibility, as my colleague from Beauport-Limoilou said, and acknowledge the fact that GC Strategies is a perfect example of the fact that there is a real problem in the federal procurement system.

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

Sep/17/24 11:50:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to pick up on the member's last statements and go to the Auditor General's comments. From what I understand, there was a clear indication the Auditor General found that the government has appropriate contracting rules that are actually in place. The problem is that the rules were not properly followed. When that occurs, there is an obligation for the government to take action. When the government did discover this, there were actions. Internal reviews were done. The Auditor General was brought in. The RCMP is also now looking into the matter. I do not know exactly where it is at in regard to it, but there seems to be a great deal of attention being brought to the issue, and justifiably so. The government has not been shy in terms of recognizing the need for transparency and accountability on the issue. The government believes that there have to be and will be consequences for those who have broken the rules and taken advantage of taxpayers. I wonder whether the member could provide her thoughts in regard to the Auditor General's comments that we seem to have the right system.

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Sep/17/24 11:52:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I simply do not agree with my colleague opposite. I think that the government did not do enough, to be sure. Here is an example: At the Canada Border Services Agency, one of the people who partook in whiskey tastings with Kristian Firth was promoted. Is this what taking action means? No. There is a problem in the procurement system. Fiddling around the edges, which was more symbolic than anything else, has done nothing to repair a problematic procurement system. It is too complex, and thus requires a number of firms to go through companies like GC Strategies, which do absolutely nothing. Lastly, we pay far too much for what we get at the federal level.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

Sep/17/24 11:52:47 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, one of the problems we have is the constant outsourcing of communications, studies and consultant groups instead of having those done within the house of the public service. I would like the member's comments with regard to how much outsourcing has been done. It is a significant problem, and if we did those things in-house, we would have more control and, more importantly, accountability.

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Sep/17/24 11:53:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is indeed a problem, but it does not necessarily involve hiring consultants. It is normal to hire consultants. Experts are occasionally needed to assist the government on an ad hoc basis. The problem is that the size of the public service increased dramatically. A huge number of public servants were hired, and many more consultants were hired as well. Consulting expenses went through the roof. How is it that this expertise is lacking within the government? Have we not created a sort of federal dependency on consultants, who end up having their contracts renewed, while internal expertise falls by the wayside? This is what I mean when I talk about a procurement problem.

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

Sep/17/24 11:53:57 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I completely agree with the comments made by my colleague from Windsor West, and those from my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. I want to take this opportunity to congratulate my Bloc Québécois colleagues. It is clear that the public service had eroded. Work was contracted out to big companies, sometimes foreign ones. Billions of dollars were paid to companies such as Deloitte, KPMG or McKinsey, who are profit-driven, and this resulted in the erosion of our own services and our public service. Further to that point, Kristian Firth's testimony here in the House was dreadful. We need to call for a change in how things are done. A tremendous effort needs to be made to rebuild the public service so that it has the capacity to provide the services that Canadians need.

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Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Sep/17/24 11:55:16 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can only reiterate what I said earlier. The problem is that the size of the public service exploded, but so did the number of contracts awarded to consultants. Finally, we are potentially paying twice for the same services. We know that sometimes a department is equipped to provide a service and another department hires consultants to do it. This happens regularly within the federal government.

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Mr. Brian Masse (Windsor West, NDP)

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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