44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/1/22 11:12:13 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I would like to start by taking the time to read the motion the Conservative Party moved today:
That, given that, (i) the cost of government is driving up the cost of living, (ii) the Parliamentary Budget Officer states that 40% of new spending is not related to COVID-19, (iii) Canadians are now paying higher prices and higher interest rates as a result, (iv) it is more important than ever for the government to respect taxpayer dollars and eliminate wasteful spending, the House call on the Auditor General of Canada to conduct a performance audit, including the payments, contracts and sub-contracts for all aspects of the ArriveCAN app, and to prioritize this investigation.
Is anyone else getting that déjà vu feeling today? It is actually “déjà vu” in both official languages. Yes, it is déjà vu, because, once again, here we have a member of the Bloc Québécois rising in the House to ask the Liberal government questions about contracts awarded to party friends, contracts so redolent of collusion that even amateur detectives can identify it in their sleep.
We have just lived through an unprecedented event in our time. The government tried, in good faith, to react to the unknown. Is it any surprise that, in this situation, the age-old reflexes of the Liberal Party of Canada resurfaced? It is illegal but, after all, “a friend is a friend”.
What did the government do? It did the same thing it always does when it does not know what to do: It threw money at the problem, hoping that it would go away. The federal government's management of the airports at the start of the pandemic was shamefully inept. Let us not forget that the City of Montreal had to send its own staff to tell people arriving in Canada that they needed to be careful about bringing in COVID-19. The government did not act quickly enough. It spent untold amounts of money on a shiny new app. It contacted two friends of the Liberal Party directly to take charge of the situation. After all, “a friend is a friend”.
GC Strategies patriotically answered the call. The company said that of course it would help make Canadians safer in these troubled times and that it would find subcontractors capable of coding the app for a modest middleman's fee of 15% to 30% of $9 million.
What were these people thinking? When I worked in the private sector, if I had suggested taking such a big cut simply for acting as an intermediary, I would not have kept my job for very long, but “a friend is a friend”.
I have had the opportunity to work in the private sector, providing institutions in developing countries with training on contracting integrity. I worked in Mexico, Central America, Brazil and Palau, where we helped the finance department improve their contracting process. In any self-respecting country, contracts are awarded only after a rigorous process that prevents cronyism. Obviously, that is not the case in Canada.
In the interest of justice and fairness, the Bloc Québécois believes it is important to ensure that no one profits off of the COVID crisis. As the people of Terrebonne are facing the rising cost of living, it goes without saying that the government's contract-awarding process must be transparent. However, there have been many indications that the process for awarding the ArriveCAN contract was problematic. First of all, GC Strategies was handed an untendered contract. It was actually the government that reached out to the firm, which has only two employees. They did not develop the app, but rather acted as intermediaries for which they made a profit of between $1.3 million and $2.7 million. That is a pretty hefty fee just to be an intermediary.
This is somewhat reminiscent of several other questionable contracts that have been awarded by this same government. Between 2017 and 2020, under the Trudeau government, WE Charity was paid $120,000 across at least five contracts—
707 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/1/22 11:17:01 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, thank you for reminding me.
Under the Liberal government, WE Charity was awarded at least five contracts worth $120,000, as well as $5.2 million in grants and contributions. WE Charity received a $19.5-million untendered contract to administer and distribute $9 billion in student grants. It was revealed that the Prime Minister’s mother and brother received $250,000 and $32,000, respectively, for speaking at events organized by WE Charity between 2016 and 2020. Moreover, the daughters of the former minister of finance also work, or at least they did at the time, for the charity, one paid under contract and the other in a volunteer position.
Let us bring up another relatively recent event, although some people like to say that they were in high school when it happened. Okay, I was in high school, but it is still “recent” in terms of Canadian history. Everything is relative, but it is important to keep a cool head when governing, which is not the case here.
History always sheds light on the present. Let us remind the Liberal government of one of its most typical episodes, the sponsorship scandal. Frightened by the tie in the 1995 referendum on sovereignty, the Canadian government responded with a massive visibility campaign aimed at making Quebeckers believe that they could not live without the federal government’s assistance, support and money. It spent a fortune to blanket Quebec in Canadian flags and, because, after all, a “friend is a friend”, contracts were awarded to major Liberal donors, who hastened to return a large portion of their profits to the Liberal Party’s election fund because “a friend is a friend”.
Let us look at what has been done in Quebec. Once again, the Liberal Party is the poster boy for incompetent crisis management. The list is long and includes the airport and border control sagas. At the height of the crisis, the Government of Quebec asked the federal government to implement airport controls to limit the spread of COVID‑19. As I said, the federal government did nothing. Instead of dealing effectively with the borders during the height of the crisis and following up on the isolation of travellers, the government developed its dysfunctional app too late.
The Government of Quebec also developed and launched a vaccine control app, which cost a lot less than the federal one because it used simpler, QR-code technology. For $9 million, the equivalent of what the intermediaries earned, not those who created the app, the Government of Quebec launched a simple and effective app that was used by every business in Quebec.
I propose that we take stock at this point.
First, a pandemic hit the whole world. As usual, the federal government did not know how to react, even though the Auditor General had already presented a report warning the government that it was not prepared for a pandemic. The Auditor General had done that work just after the H1N1 crisis. The government's disastrous lack of pandemic preparedness had already been noted, but nothing had been done.
Then, hoping to avoid an even worse public relations situation, the federal government called on GC Strategies to find people able to create an app for managing airport traffic.
Ultimately, not only did that app cost a fortune, but it also had intermediary fees, suggesting that the Liberals never forgot their good old modus operandi. To recap, in Quebec, our vaccine passport app, which involved literally every business and individual, cost $9 million. As we know, however, a friend is a friend.
The Bloc Québécois supports the motion before the House today for two reasons. First, the money that Canadians entrust to their governments must be spent wisely, and it seems very possible that that was not the case with ArriveCAN. More importantly, and I hope my Conservative colleagues are listening to me right now, the pandemic was and still is a formidable preparation for future crises, first and foremost the climate crisis.
While the Conservatives do everything they can to ensure that it comes even sooner and the Liberals do nothing, that climate crisis is getting closer every day. When it hits us, the federal government will not be able to justify its usual ineffectiveness by saying, teary-eyed in apologetic tones, that a friend is a friend.
743 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/1/22 11:22:27 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I wonder if we could generalize and use the term federalist because, in this case, some Conservatives were involved in the sponsorship scandal. However, it does seem to be more of a Liberal pattern in Canada.
38 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/1/22 11:23:51 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I was looking forward to answering that question.
I find it impressive that a member would dare state without evidence that people from the Bloc Québécois may have benefited from the crisis. I will simply provide two figures: a little over $50 million and $9 million. I think we can agree that such a large discrepancy should not happen within a large, unified country.
72 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/1/22 11:25:28 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for raising that issue.
It is mind-boggling: All public services are dysfunctional. On the immigration file, there was a major revolution and no one is answering the phone anymore, even when MPs try to call. Do we really need to revisit the passport issue? I think everyone is still in shock.
At the same time, it is true that, whenever there is something important, it is contracted out. Does that not show a real management and leadership problem in the Liberal Party?
89 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Nov/1/22 11:26:34 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I think the list is too long. I do not have enough time to list all the people who have benefited from contracts.
It is important to remember that we are here to talk about the awarding of a clearly questionable contract. We still agree on one thing, although we think the wording could have been a bit less populist.
We agree that it is important, for the credibility of all politicians, to remember that the government managed the crisis well, but particularly that none of its friends were able to benefit financially from those contracts.
98 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
