SoVote

Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 337

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
September 17, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 337 - Sep/17/24
Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)
  • Sep/17/24 10:11:16 a.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, I move that the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, presented on Friday, February 16, be concurred in. I will be sharing my time with my good friend, the hon. member for Mégantic—L'Érable. I want to quickly jog the House's memory about the 13th report from the Standing Committee on Government Operations and what I believe is so important that we discuss today. However, before I give the details of that report, I want to provide a bit of context about what the situation is in Canada today. This summer, Statistics Canada released just devastating numbers about what we can expect this fall for food bank usage. One in four Canadians is going to be relying on food banks to feed themselves and their families. That is 25%. What is so interesting and truly heartbreaking about this is that we do not have a 25% unemployment rate. The unemployment rate is about 6% in this region; we know that it is high among new Canadians and students, at about 12%. The reason I bring this up is that, with 25% of people using food banks, it means that we have people who are working one and two jobs but are still not able to feed themselves and their families. In my community, the Brockville and Area Food Bank, the South Grenville Food Bank and the Gananoque and Area Food Bank have seen their use double, and this is the trend across the country. Canadians are struggling. We have food banks extending their hours to be able to serve people when they get off their shift, before they go into their next job. With this as the backdrop, let us take a look at what the government prioritized. We uncovered, through the work of common-sense Conservatives, the grift and corruption that has festered after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government. We saw a very public case of that with the arrive scam and GC Strategies. Here, these two grifters working out of a basement were taking 30% of multi-million dollar contracts and adding no value for Canadians. Now, this report was done on the request to the AG to conduct a performance audit, and this came out of the GC Strategies scandal, the NDP-Liberal government's arrive scam. It is devastating for Canadians to see that. The government makes all kinds of claims about being compassionate or wanting to help Canadians. The Canadians they are helping are Liberal insiders. They are the elite, making millions of dollars. What I think is shocking to Main Street Canadians is that, when this was uncovered, the Liberal government did not say, “Oh my goodness, we are so surprised. We agree, and we want to get to the bottom of this so that we can ensure it never happens again.” The member for Carleton, the leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition, put forward a motion almost two years ago to have the Auditor General investigate. However, what did the Prime Minister do? He voted against. What did his cabinet do? It voted against. What did all the Liberal members do? They voted against having the Auditor General get to the bottom of this $60-million arrive scam. The Liberals like to talk about this app. We have famously heard that it saved lives. However, it also put 10,000 people under house arrest because of a glitch. If the Liberals had spent some money credibly developing a product that Canadians knew they needed and knew worked well, which did not send 10,000 people into house arrest, they might have had a little goodwill, but the app was broken. Canada Border Services Agency frontline officers said that the government took resources away from them and that they were not consulted on it. The experts, the boots in the boxes at our border, told us they did not want it as it impeded them from doing their job of keeping Canadians safe. However, the government knew better. Why did it insist on the $60-million boondoggle if frontline border service officers said they did not need it? It was because its buddies were getting paid. Liberal insiders were lining their pockets. Remember the Canadians lining up at food banks. This is an incredibly important issue. It is emblematic of nine years of the NDP-Liberal government. This is what happens when you have a Prime Minister twice found guilty of breaking the law. It has never happened in this country before. That is the standard from the top down that we have seen under the Prime Minister, so it is no surprise that Canadians are calling for action. Canadians are speaking out. Canadians are expressing their disapproval of the government. Conservatives, in response to those calls, have said that we want to have a carbon tax election. We want to give Canadians the choice between an out-of-touch government that rewards its friends and raises taxes on Canadians when they can least afford it, or the common-sense Conservatives who will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. It was a pleasure yesterday to welcome in our new colleague, the member for Toronto—St. Paul's. There is a message in that for the Prime Minister as well. We need to have that carbon tax election. That is going to be up to the Conservatives. We have said we are going to put forth a motion of non-confidence in the government at the first available opportunity. It is going to be up to the NDP and the Bloc to make a decision on whether they stand with a government that rewards insiders or stand up for Canadians who are working hard taking care of their neighbours, just desperately trying to provide for their families and have a better life. That was the promise in this country, that if we worked hard, we would be able to have a good life and afford a home. We always thought that as Canadians we would be able to welcome people into our country, that we would be able to work together, that we would be able to afford homes and we would be able to do better than the generation before us. Nine years of the NDP-Liberal government has broken the immigration system. The government is bringing people here under false pretenses, telling them there is going to be a home and a doctor for them. There is neither of those things, nor are there jobs. This is why we need to keep doing the important work of exposing the economic vandalism, the vandalism to trust in our democratic institutions that has happened after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government and the Prime Minister. We will keep doing that every single day until we have the election, because that is what Canadians are counting on. That is what I heard from the thousands of Canadians I talked to this summer, and I know that is what my colleagues heard. It is important that we have this conversation, this debate, about this important subject today. I look very forward to the comments from my hon. colleague, the member for Mégantic—L'Érable, because his community, the residents of his province, are suffering terribly. He knows that. He was connecting with them this summer. I look forward to his perspective as well, because Canadians deserve better than a corrupt NDP-Liberal government, and common-sense Conservatives are going to bring home real change.
1278 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border
Context: House Hansard - 337 - Sep/17/24
Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)
  • Sep/17/24 11:27:46 a.m.
  • Watch
Madam Speaker, today we are here to talk about the 13th report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The report is on the GC Strategies contracts. It requests that the Auditor General conduct a full audit of those contracts. In other words, we want to know what we got for our money. The auditor has already produced a report based on samples of the contracts, but she did not—
73 words
  • Hear!
  • Rabble!
  • star_border