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

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

Sep/17/24 12:42:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this is a really critical issue. I will support the motion. I want to make it very clear, though, that I do not think there is evidence for one of the comments, which was about Kristian Firth. I think Kristian Firth should be ashamed, but I did not hear any evidence that he was wining and dining Liberal insiders. He was wining and dining whatever person was within the bureaucratic chain of command, but I did not hear anything about party affiliations. Has the member heard that?

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

Mr. Damien Kurek

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

Mr. Terry Duguid (Parliamentary Secretary to the Prime Minister and Special Advisor for Water, Lib.)

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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