44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 17, 2024 10:00AM
- Sep/17/24 11:01:48 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am a bit worried because the member seems to be the only one who is able to respond to very serious questions. We are debating concurrence on a report that has to do with the basic level of accountability that a government should be able to provide for the dollars it spends.
The dollars spent are not the government's money. They are hard-earned dollars paid by Canadians in the form of taxes. What does the member do? He is the only member who seems to be given permission by the PMO to be able to speak on that side. He seems to be able to say, with many words, very little. He talks about character assassinations. To assassinate character, someone has to have some.
We are looking for the basic levels of accountability that Canadians expect the government to have when it comes to spending. Does the member not find it concerning that time and time again, the government is plagued by scandals to the point where Canadians from coast to coast to coast are simply saying the government cannot be trusted with the public purse?
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- Sep/17/24 11:03:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am very content knowing about all the internal reviews and external reviews regarding the ArriveCAN issue. We always have to put it into the perspective, as I attempted to do, of the many things that the government was responsible for during the pandemic. That is not to say there was not any misspent money. The government is, in fact, ensuring that there is a consequence where tax dollars were abused. That is an absolute.
We continue to ensure that there is a high sense of accountability and transparency with every tax dollar. The real challenge we have found is that the Conservative Party is reluctant to discuss its ideas. It is just constantly attacking personalities, which I classify as character assassination.
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- Sep/17/24 11:04:19 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is important to assume responsibility for being accountable with tax dollars. What we are asking for in our report from the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates is that accountability. Where do things stand? How was the money spent?
The Liberal, Conservative, NDP and Bloc members voted in favour of this report in committee. I get the impression that my esteemed colleague is against it. I would like to understand the disconnect between what happened in committee and what we are seeing today.
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- Sep/17/24 11:05:08 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am absolutely in favour of accountability and transparency, and ensuring that there is a consequence where there has been abuse of tax dollars. That is what I believe and will continue to advocate for, whether it is through the Auditor General of Canada, the standing committees or the RCMP.
I look at what is happening in that particular environment and expect, like my constituents, that there will be accountability. Those who were abusive with our tax dollars will be held to account in many different ways, everything from potential criminal charges to having to pay back tax.
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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- 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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- Sep/17/24 12:41:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I talk a lot about the need for good governance. We often see examples from the Liberals that are the antithesis of that. I know the member and his party are open to continuing this coalition-type arrangement that exists here. I would hope the member would stand strongly against supporting the corruption we see across the way.
However, at the very base of all of this is what has happened over the last 10 or so years. Consultants have been used in government for as long as government has existed, but the proliferation of that under the Liberals, the $20 billion that has been spent on consultants, is not resulting in good policy; it is not resulting in benefits or services being offered to Canadians. We need that basic level of accountability, but the Liberals simply refuse it.
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- Sep/17/24 12:43:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was certainly poignant when Kristian Firth was called to the bar in a historic moment and refused to acknowledge any shame for the abuse of tax dollars. To speak to the member's point, we have seen a breakdown of the processes that are supposed to ensure accountability when it comes to all aspects of how government is contracted. It seems as though the Liberals will move heaven and earth to benefit their friends, but they refuse to hold on to the basic level of accountability that Canadians expect.
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- Sep/17/24 12:44:49 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would like to start by saying what an honour and privilege it is to rise for the first time in our fall session and speak to a topic that I have had the privilege of participating in largely throughout the summer, as well as for the past year or so in numerous committees. This is a topic that has dominated the landscape of Canadian politics. I want to pick up where my colleague just left off in terms of the themes of my speech, which will largely be about trust and accountability.
There have been so many scandals at the heart of the corrupt Liberal government, but this scandal in particular strikes at the hearts of Canadians whom I have spoken to from across this country. It shows how poor our procurement system is and how much chaos has been created by individuals who should have taken responsibility and provided the proper oversight but clearly did not. Therefore, let us focus on GC Strategies.
I know the Liberal members will probably not like what I am about to say, because I was often interrupted in numerous committees, but from what Kristian Firth himself said, he specifically chose the name GC Strategies for a purpose. GC stands for “Government of Canada”, and it is important to highlight this here in the House and to share that with Canadians. It exemplifies the type of rotten, improper relationship that Kristian Firth has had with the Government of Canada.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Larry Brock: I do not need to hear chirping, Madam Speaker. Perhaps you want to address those individuals, who should know better. They are certainly not new to Parliament, but I sure am used to their interruptions. I will continue.
Kristian Firth was part of a two-person firm operating with no bricks and mortar and largely working out of a basement. He was essentially performing services that could have and should have been performed by Canada's professional public service. He was essentially a recruiter. He did not perform any IT work. He did not discharge any technical experience with the creation of the app. He merely connected the CBSA and other federal departments with professionals in the Ottawa and surrounding areas to create an app that had an original estimated cost to Canadians of $80,000. He literally opened up his rolodex, his contact sheet, and found the required individuals for the government to work with.
I put that particular question on numerous occasions to a number of professionals who testified at committee, particularly the union heads of several organizations that speak to Canada's professional public service. They confirmed to me not only that the recruitment could have been done in-house but also that the actual creation of this approximately $60-million boondoggle of an ineffective app could have been done in-house. Instead, the government claims that this was a pandemic and we had to move fast. Corners were cut, and no documentation was saved; no one is accepting responsibility. We have the Auditor General, who basically says that the pandemic is no excuse for throwing out basic accounting principles. I highlight her summary that the best she could glean with the scattered documentation she was able to receive allowed her to put out an estimate of $60 million.
This is precisely why this motion is not only appropriate in its timing but also relevant in its purpose.
We need to have an accurate picture as to how many more millions of dollars were funnelled to GC Strategies to pad the pockets of other insiders, other individuals who actually did no work. We know the procurement general has already estimated that 76% of all subcontractors who were hired, who were paid by to work on the app using taxpayer funds, did no work on the app.
This is precisely why the opposition parties all voted in favour of the government providing us with a detailed blueprint as to how it would recoup the millions of dollars that were wasted, with no oversight and no accountability. The committee work we did has clearly shown and demonstrated to Canadians that there is a significant trust issue with how the Government of Canada is operating and procuring with outside consultants.
We know that, in 2015, the Prime Minister promised he would reduce the amount of outside consultants working with the Government of Canada. However, that certainly has not been the case. My colleague who spoke previously was quite accurate in stating that over 20-billion taxpayer dollars has been sent to outside consultants. That is taxpayer money that should not have been spent. It was spent foolishly, without checks and balances.
It is precisely why I have pursued a line of questioning not only to examine the wasted billions of dollars but also to explore the criminality behind the operations of GC Strategies. I just want to pause for a moment on that issue because we also heard evidence at committees that, within a couple of years after Kristian Firth's work on the ArriveCAN app, he was working with a small software company in Montreal named Botler. His handling of Botler also raised national headlines and brought to light just how inappropriate, how loose and how free Mr. Firth was with our criminal laws.
Here is a case in point: Botler was working on an app that, I believe, the justice department was interested in at the time. Mr. Firth took the résumés of the two founders of Botler and determined that their experience was insufficient; however, he wanted to justify the government's working with Botler. He admitted under oath, on a few occasions at committee, that he deliberately and intentionally altered the details of their résumés to ensure they reached a certain threshold for qualification. As a former justice participant, I can say that this is outright fraud. It is not only fraud, but it is also forgery.
I have been pushing the RCMP to investigate Kristian Firth on that point alone, in addition to his ill-gotten gains with respect to the ArriveCAN app. We can let this point sink in: A person who performs no professional work, merely makes a connection between the Government of Canada and an IT professional from the comfort of his basement, perhaps on a nice taxpayer-funded leather couch and watching television on a nice 100-inch screen, received $20 million of taxpayer funds. As I have often said in the House and at committee, talk about hitting the taxpayer lottery.
It is no small wonder that when the RCMP commissioner testified at committee, he would not get into the particulars of what criminal charges the RCMP were investigating as they related to Kristian Firth and his partner on the ArriveCAN scam, but he did indicate that there was an open investigation. Moreover, he also confirmed to me that there were at least another half-dozen investigations into the ArriveCAN scam.
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- Sep/17/24 1:00:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise today to speak to this motion to make sure that we continue to look into this as much as we can. We have to ensure that Canadians get their eyes on it and that the government does not bury it under the floor one more time and say that while it is incompetent, it is not guilty of anything. Well, incompetence is guilt in itself.
It is $60 million that we have identified so far of money going off the table that belongs to Canadians. This money is going from one hand to the hands of people who are well connected with the Liberal Party of Canada. This cannot continue. It is not the only instance where this has happened. It happens again and again. This is one instance where the Liberals have tried to obfuscate in the House of Commons and at committee repeatedly in order to not have this looked at.
For my colleagues across the way to pretend at this point in time that they want to get to the bottom of this is completely false and is misleading the House in the greatest sense. I cannot believe he stands up and says this after leading his caucus in voting against all of the transparency that we have tried to bring to the table and against getting this matter before Parliament and before Canadians to make sure the government has some accountability and transparency in what it does for Canadians with Canadian taxpayer dollars.
My colleague talked earlier about what Canadians contribute in taxes to run the government. Right now, they see very clearly that the government is misusing those taxes again and again. It is spending on its friends. It is spending excessively through all kinds of measures in order to whittle away the hard-working tax dollars of Canadians.
We were almost $50 billion in deficit this past year, and getting back to balance is, of course, very important. I know that $60 million in a sea of $50 billion looks like a drop, but this drop is indicative of how bad and how insincere the government is as far as accountability goes. Our friends do not worry about it; it is a drop in the bucket, but it is not a drop in the bucket. It is a significant amount of money that Canadians no longer have. Canadians have contributed to running the government, and the respect the government is showing for their money and the taxes they pay is not there.
Any government has to allocate scarce resources. The number one thing, whenever we are allocating resources, is to allocate scarce resources as effectively as possible. That is not happening here whatsoever. Whenever Liberals can get money from some program or another into the hands of their friends, they will do it. That is a problem we are here to unearth. The number one role of His Majesty's loyal opposition is, of course, to make sure that we hold the government to account on what it is doing for Canadians with Canadian dollars.
At this point in time, we have seen repeated instances of misuse, this one being the most egregious we have shown so far in the House of Commons, one the Liberals have tried to hide several times. This is very important for Canadians to understand. We are doing our job. We are doing our job in holding the government to account on its misuse of Canadian taxpayer dollars, its nepotism in giving to insiders and friends and its non-delivery of real programs to Canadians.
Canadians need a government that responds to their needs. This one is not responding to their needs. It is responding to the needs of its friends, who are getting an excess return right now because they see a government that has no accountability whatsoever. While the government is here, it will just use the money printer and put a bunch of dollars in their jeans. Canadians expect much better from the House. Canadians expect much better from the people who run this country.
I have heard my colleague across the way blame this on bureaucrats. Somewhere the buck has to stop. This is the government that recently raised taxes on capital gains, so more Canadians are paying more money to the government so it can shovel more out unaccountably through the back door. When it goes out badly, that is just the bureaucrats' mistake. That is not their problem, because they do not provide leadership in this realm. What we need to do is ensure that we get some accountability, that this is exposed and that we make some procedures available so it does not happen again.
I have seen enough of people trying to shovel this under the rug. This is very important. We had a man brought to the bar in the House of Commons for the first time in almost a century. That was obviously an exception, so something exceptional happened here. One of the people who was very connected with this party deemed that he did not have to provide available information, which was required, at a parliamentary committee. The committee chair told him that he was in contempt, and he was brought here to Parliament to answer to the person who was in the chair at that point in time, acting as judge. He was compelled to give evidence, and in that giving of evidence, he showed absolutely no shame: “I took the money. I have the money. Tough luck.”
That was the money of a bad government that has no checks and balances to make sure that Canadians' dollars are spent wisely and effectively to deliver programs for the benefit of Canadians. That did not happen here. It did not happen here in an egregious sense. We have to stand up as the opposition and make sure we expose that for what it is. It is a gross oversight of the Liberals, and they are trying to avoid accountability for it. Our job here is to make sure they own it and put procedures in place so they cannot say that while they are incompetent, they are not guilty of anything that they should go to jail for, or anyone should go to jail for for that matter. They are completely incompetent, and we have already proven that over the last nine years.
The Liberals cannot balance a budget. They cannot deliver programs. It is a government all about narrative and no execution whatsoever and it has lost the faith of Canadians. It is time to move on and get to a government that is actually accountable, provides transparency for Canadians and shows respect for the dollars that Canadians contribute to the tax system in Canada.
That is not happening and it is a shame. We hope to bring that to a head. We have some mechanisms in this House of Commons, and we are going to continue to use those mechanisms to hold the government to account.
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- Sep/17/24 1:09:32 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for the name-calling and vitriol. I apologize if I have gotten under his skin one more time. It seems like it is a habit here.
We need a government that is accountable. That was the entire perspective of my speech. I hope he listened to some of the words I said, rather than just speak off his cheap little talking notes.
We need accountability in government and he should stand for accountability in government. I know he tries to avoid that at every step and tries to cover up the mistakes his government continues to make. As I have said, incompetence is as bad as being complicit in the crime that has been committed.
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- Sep/17/24 2:51:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, over the span of 19 days, seven indigenous people were killed by police. Communities are disturbed, but unfortunately these tragedies are known all too well by indigenous people. This is colonialism and systemic racism that continues to persist under consecutive governments.
First nations, Métis and Inuit have the solutions to end this violence: No more indigenous children getting a bullet instead of help.
Why will the Minister of Public Safety not act to ensure accountability and justice for these families?
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- Sep/17/24 7:33:26 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, let me start by saying that the government shares the member's concerns and his desire to hold those responsible to account. This is an issue that the government is not taking lightly.
The members of this House and all Canadians are justifiably concerned by what they have been hearing in the media and at committee. We are using many tools and following many avenues of inquiry to understand what went wrong in the case of ArriveCAN. These avenues include the rare and extraordinary measure of a public rebuke in the House, for which the government did vote in favour. This speaks to how seriously we take this issue. It is why we voted for Mr. Firth to present himself here in the House and why we will continue to support the various investigations and inquiries into this matter.
While we await the responses that Canadians need and deserve, I can tell everyone about the swift and decisive actions this government is taking to strengthen and protect the integrity of government procurement so that something like this can never ever happen again. When something goes awry, the government takes decisive action to restore trust in the system. That is exactly what our government is doing.
Budget 2024 clearly outlines the actions we are taking to enforce and uphold the highest standards of procurement to ensure sound stewardship of public funds. They include new steps to strengthen the government's procurement and conflict of interest regimes and updated procurement guidance for managers to reinforce the prudent use of public funds. This means examining human resources and staffing strategies before procuring professional services, strict evaluation criteria when a supplier is selected, clear due diligence protocols to ensure no conflict of interest and ensuring all contractual obligations are upheld by third party vendors. It also includes government-wide audits to ensure governance, decision-making and controls associated with professional service contracts uphold the highest ethical standards.
The results of these audits are expected by the end of this year. Changes are also under way to modernize the new master-level user agreements for a professional services supply arrangement to improve transparency regarding costing and subcontractors. We will launch a new risk and compliance process to ensure government-wide trends, risks and departmental performance meet the highest standards and take corrective actions whenever necessary as soon as possible. We are also bringing forward stronger accountability guidelines for managers when procuring professional services, which include robust validation that a potential contractor is the best fit for the requirements.
In closing, our government is committed to ensuring that Canadian tax dollars are used wisely and responsibly. We recognize the seriousness of the ArriveCAN issue, and I want to assure Canadians that we will be acting swiftly and decisively to ensure that it cannot happen again.
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