Senator Forest: Thank you for the question.

I am very honoured to get a question from the sponsor of the bill. It is true that we have seen many countries do the same thing the United States is doing with sugar, for example. It has a supply management policy. It even implemented a subsidy for turning surplus stock into ethanol. Every country has the right to protect certain tariff lines, and many countries use that practice.

Senator Dagenais: Delays and bureaucracy are two factors that sometimes slow down the procurement of equipment for our Armed Forces. Those delays have cost Canadian taxpayers a fortune since this government came to power. Why doesn’t Canada have a procurement department exclusively for Department of Defence requirements, like Britain does, with experts who know what they’re doing, instead of sometimes granting contracts to consultants?

Senator Cardozo: I still have 45 seconds. I want to suggest a few other ideas to liven up the National Capital Region: create a state-of-the-art science and tech museum downtown; put a portrait gallery in a decommissioned office building; build an arts district and an art studio in the ByWard Market, centred around the National Gallery; and a new graffiti museum.

On 24 Sussex, can you just take that and throw it in with the renovation of Parliament Hill and have the joint all-party committee take care of that, take the politics out of it and make that all happen? Your comments, please.

I am looking forward to hearing more from you on that short list of things we can do with our social, physical and historical environment in which we have the fortune of working in almost every day.

(Pursuant to the order adopted by the Senate on December 7, 2021, to receive a Minister of the Crown, the Honourable Jean‑Yves Duclos, P.C., M.P., Minister of Public Services and Procurement, appeared before honourable senators during Question Period.)

Senator Plett: Eight years of Justin Trudeau — not worth the cost. “How much?” was my question, minister. Last week, just as the Auditor General was beginning her testimony before a House of Commons committee regarding ArriveCAN, Liberal and NDP coalition MPs voted to shut it down. Minister, who gave the order to shut down the meeting? Was it you? Were you or your office involved in this direction? What is your government so desperate to hide, minister? What are you hiding?

The economic cost would have been billions of dollars, with hundreds of thousands of additional jobs lost because of inaction. It’s true — as you’re suggesting — that, had we been governed at that time by a Conservative government, things would have been very different. Hundreds of thousands more people would have died, as I just said, with billions more in economic costs, but that was not the situation. We invested in Canadians, supported them and had full confidence in their ability to be vaccinated and follow public health advice.

Senator Poirier: Could you also then inquire as to whether there are other contracts like this waiting to be discovered? You can provide assurance to Canadian taxpayers that there are no other contracts also being withheld by your government?

Senator Quinn: Thank you, minister. As someone who has been involved in many contracts in government, I’ll come back to examples in other jurisdictions where the lowest bidder and highest bidder are put aside, they look at the average, and anybody that is qualified can be awarded the contract at the average or below.

Can the government not look at other jurisdictions to see how they reduced the risk of underbidding in order to win the contract and then catching up with extras and work arisings? It’s a very specific question.

[Translation]

Senator Plett: Minister, the mandate letter wasn’t given to your immediate predecessor. It was actually given to the Public Services and Procurement Minister before her, two ministers ago. No progress was made on any of these issues in two years.

What do you think you can deliver in the next two or possibly even one year before we have a common-sense Conservative government led by Pierre Poilievre?

[Translation]

Senator Boisvenu: What is the budget for purchasing this polar icebreaker?

[English]

Senator Housakos: Based on the polling of Canadians, they seem to think that your government has been a monumental failure.

Minister Duclos, as my colleague Senator Plett mentioned, there is now an RCMP investigation into “ArriveScam” involving very serious allegations of forgery of documents, such as CVs and invoices. Minister, at a time when we’ve seen an unprecedented increase of more than 30% in government outsourcing of contracts, what assurances do Canadians have that the minimum due diligence is being exercised? Who is responsible for something as simple as verifying CVs and conducting proper reference checks? If we can’t have confidence that’s being done, minister, how can we have confidence that contracts are being awarded properly?

[Translation]

Senator Mégie: Thank you very much.

Hon. Senators: Hear, hear!

[Translation]

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Maxime Langlois. He is the guest of the Honourable Senator Boisvenu.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

Senator Housakos: Minister, we all know there have been huge overrun costs when it comes to managing this project. That’s number one. We do know, as parliamentarians, that in itself raises red flags.

We also know that when the RCMP opens an investigation, at bare minimum, there is a suspicion of wrongdoing.

Again, what steps have you taken, as a minister who has just gotten into the ministry, to make sure you get to the bottom of this before we wait for an RCMP report or an Auditor General’s report? What pre-emptive steps have you taken to look into this case and give us assurances that this will never reoccur?

Senator Loffreda: Thank you for that. Do you see any difficulty in converting some of that office space into homes for those who need housing? Office space can be very costly. Has any analysis been undertaken to study that issue and the problems that might arise?

[Translation]

Senator Omidvar: Thank you, minister. Am I hearing you say that you are actively considering community benefits in the awarding of government procurement programs?

[Translation]

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of participants of the #LeadLikeAGirl program by Developing Young Leaders of Tomorrow, Today. They are the guests of the Honourable Senator Jaffer.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

Some Hon. Senators: Hear, hear.

[English]

The Hon. the Speaker: Honourable senators, I wish to draw your attention to the presence in the gallery of Larry Cerqua, Chair of the Canadian Real Estate Association. He is the guest of the Honourable Senator Oh.

On behalf of all honourable senators, I welcome you to the Senate of Canada.

Hon. René Cormier: Colleagues, Acadia and Canada have lost one of their greatest artists — a pioneer of modern art and a visionary in contemporary art — the architect, poet and painter Roméo Savoie. For over 60 years, this remarkable artist drew inspiration from these three professions to create a masterful body of work.

Born in Moncton, Roméo Savoie worked as an architect from 1959 to 1970, designing and building 50 or so landmark buildings in New Brunswick.

He left that profession in 1976 to devote himself to his artistic and literary endeavours. He would go on to produce more than 4,000 paintings and present roughly 100 exhibitions over more than half a century, in addition to publishing five collections of poetry that undeniably paved the way for generations of artists.

Looking at his work, both visual and literary, we appreciate its universal appeal, while recognizing that Roméo Savoie remained deeply attached to his Acadian culture. His predilection for abstract painting forces the viewer to confront his works head-on, to dialogue with them, and to celebrate them for the mysteries they contain.

For this creator, art is a process by which the artist transforms himself and transfers the knowledge he gains from that experience to his work. His existential quest is reflected not only in his painting but also in his writing. It is easy to see that his relationship with his art is a life lesson for everyone who knew him.

Reflecting on his artistic process, he once said:

Stop and look at a particular thing and try to understand the meaning of beauty, the meaning of a flower, a twig, a cloud, you see. Spend time doing that, and you will understand the meaning of life a little better.

Roméo Savoie received numerous accolades, including the Order of Canada. Today, his work can be found in the art banks of the Canada Council for the Arts and the New Brunswick Arts Board, the Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, the Musée national des beaux-arts du Québec, the Canadian Cultural Centre in Paris, and the collections of many universities and banks.

Thanks to the Canada Council Art Bank, I have the great pleasure to have in my Senate office in East Block his painting Venezia, a work as enigmatic, luminous and profound as Venice, the city that inspired it.

Speaking about his occupation, Roméo Savoie once said:

Being in the world of creation, creating something for others, what we call beauty, is a gift that I received from somewhere.

It is our turn, dear Roméo, to recognize one of the magnificent gifts that life gave us, and that is you, your talent, your work, your unwavering commitment to art, and your immeasurable love for Acadia. Today, Canada is richer thanks to your time on this earth.

Rest in peace, dear friend.