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

Mrs. Julie Vignola (Beauport—Limoilou, BQ)

Sep/17/24 11:27:46 a.m.
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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—

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

Mrs. Julie Vignola

Sep/17/24 11:28:44 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, before I start, I would like to point out that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed and extraordinary colleague on the team investigating ArriveCAN and GC Strategies, my colleague from Terrebonne. The Auditor General's report noted omissions in the processes for awarding and monitoring contracts with GC Strategies. We are requesting an additional step: verifying whether taxpayers got their money's worth. I will remind you of a few elements concerning GC Strategies, which also concern everything surrounding ArriveCAN. This reminder is important because it will help us better understand why we are talking about the report, as well as the request it contains. In recent years, the Government of Canada has been awarding more and more contracts to consultants. The number of contracts awarded for consulting services, coordination or outsourcing and the total amounts associated with these contracts have significantly increased, not to say skyrocketed. ArriveCAN was one of these contracts. ArriveCAN got under way between 2015 and 2017. When the pandemic hit, the machinery of government went on overdrive to help Canada Border Services Agency officers manage our borders and travellers once the borders reopened. The problem was that, instead of looking to government employees to see if there was anyone specialized in programming, the work was outsourced. Perhaps we did not have the necessary internal resources. I would be surprised, because a lot of money has been spent in recent years on cybersecurity services, updating the cloud and building telecommunications and Web infrastructures. Still, let us say that no one was available and that we had to outsource. Apparently, not only did we not have any employees specializing in web applications programming, whether Android, iOS or website platforms, but we also had no employees who were capable of searching LinkedIn or other networks to find such specialists. Therein lies the problem. Beyond the fact that millions of dollars were given to a company, it is the shortcomings we must bring to light. It is the process for hiring and monitoring employees. It is about making sure to have the right person in the right place, and ensuring that their competencies are recognized, even if the person is not necessarily where they should be based on their skills. For example, an officer working for employment insurance may well have programming skills, but they were not hired for that. It is quite possible that another officer working for employment insurance has archives-related skills but they were not hired for that. If we do not consider these people's skills from the outset, then, when they are needed, we will be out of luck. We will then hire a consultant who ends up doing a search on LinkedIn and receive 10% to 30% of the total contract amount just for finding people who are sitting around. Are we truly getting our money's worth when this happens? With ArriveCAN, there were problems. Perhaps my colleagues will say that, for the number of downloads and uses, the number of problems was minimal, and in percentage terms that is true, to be sure. Then again, try talking to the 10,000 people who were stuck in a hotel or at home for two weeks and who lost wages because the thingamajig made a mistake and the human being in charge of the thingamajig failed to check whether there was a problem with the machine or whether the person made a false declaration. We should keep in mind that every app is prone to errors. I know that artificial intelligence is all the rage right now, but let us not forget that although AI can learn by itself, it was programmed by a human being, and human beings are fallible. The same was true of ArriveCAN. There is also the fact that this app was imposed on Canada Border Services employees who had not been properly trained, and that this was over and above their other duties. This caused problems at the border, which comes under federal jurisdiction. Earlier, my colleague mentioned the official opposition, which is against anything having to do with social programs, such as pharmacare or dental insurance. We may oppose the way these programs were rolled out, for instance, the fact that they do not respect the jurisdictions of Quebec and the provinces, and still agree with the principle of insurance. However, if we wasted less money consulting people and recognizing their competencies, the provinces that accept these intrusions into their areas of jurisdiction might have more money. Consultation, particularly when it comes to ArriveCAN and other contracts, like GC Strategies, causes other problems and raises other questions. I mentioned these briefly earlier in my question. The issue is responsibility. Who is responsible? Do we put enough money into training public servants and managers? At some point, a manager needs to manage. If they do not manage, is that one of the reasons why we end up with situations where money seems to fly out the window, as if we thought it grew on trees? Money does not grow on trees; it comes directly out of the pockets of taxpayers who earned it by the sweat of their brow. Let us get back to requesting the Auditor General to do a complete analysis of the situation. She is responsible. She seeks transparency. She seeks accountability. She does not try to point fingers at a guilty party. She works to make sure that processes are applied properly and that taxpayer money is managed responsibly. Responsibility does not mean that someone will lose their job because they made a mistake. Responsibility means that an individual is able to recognize they made a mistake and to present a solution to improve the situation and become more responsible. That is what the 13th report requests.

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

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

Mr. Larry Brock (Brantford—Brant, CPC)

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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