44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/1/22 11:41:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to discuss the motion regarding the ballooning costs of the ArriveCAN app.
In a time when too many Canadians are struggling just to make ends meet, it is critical that the government ensure we have sound stewardship of tax dollars. I share the concerns of Canadians and frontline CBSA officers that the ArriveCAN app has cost way too much and delivered too little.
Last week at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, we heard from the national president of the Customs and Immigration Union that frontline service workers were never consulted on the development of the app or any of the more than 70 updates that were required.
While the government continued to pour money into ArriveCAN, frontline workers were forced to deal with the fallout of a glitchy app on top of a severe staffing shortage. This has had a huge demoralizing impact on the mental health and the moral of CBSA officers.
At committee, I supported a study to provide more transparency to Canadians, which they deserve, about the costs associated with the ArriveCAN app. I also pushed the committee to go further. I believe the ArriveCAN debacle is part of a larger systemic issue of the government increasingly hiring expensive consultants, who hire expensive consultants, with no regard for delivering the best value for Canadians.
That is why I tabled a motion, which was supported unanimously at OGGO, to request that the Auditor General conduct a performance audit on outsourcing policies and practices more broadly.
Earlier this year, the Globe and Mail reported that since the 2015-16 fiscal year, government spending on outsourced contracts had increased by 41.8% under the federal Liberals, reaching $11.8 billion in the 2020-21 fiscal year alone. This trend started under the previous Conservative government and continues to cost Canadians today.
All too often, outsourced contracts seem to balloon and cost more than if public service workers were tasked with the same work. The Treasury Board has provided guidance on preparing estimates to help departments with “make-or-buy” decisions, as well as policies on the planning and management of investments that require departments’ decisions that demonstrate best value and sound stewardship. However, it is not clear how these policies are applied in practice or what oversight is involved.
A broader performance audit by the Auditor General, as I proposed and as was supported at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, could provide important insights to Parliamentarians on questions. How often are departments' cost estimates exceeded for outsourced work? What happens when a department gets an estimate wrong? How are lessons learned and shared across departments?
I want to highlight the concerning transparency and accountability issues that arise in relation to outsourced contracts.
The Public Service Alliance of Canada recently told the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates that “The procurement process to contract out work favours corporate secrecy over the rights of Canadians to know how funds are spent and how services are managed.”
Our access to information regime is broken and it is extremely difficult for Canadians to get a full picture of how funds directed to the private sector are being spent. This is a perfect example of what we are talking about today.
It is also extremely difficult for public service workers who become aware of mismanagement related to outsourced contracts to raise the alarm without fear of reprisal. Canada’s whistle-blower protection regime has been called among one of the worst in the world and cases like the Phoenix pay disaster and the ArriveCAN app show how there are real costs to the Canadian public when public service workers cannot speak up.
The blame for Canada’s ineffective whistle-blower protection regime lies with both the Conservative and Liberals parties.
David Hutton, a whistle-blower protection expert and senior fellow at the Centre for Free Expression at Toronto Metropolitan University, recently wrote in the Hill Times that when the member for Carleton, then-minister under the Harper government, introduced federal accountability legislation in 2006, “he claimed repeatedly that it would offer 'ironclad' protection, and indeed it does—but for the wrongdoers, not for whistleblowers or the public.”
Since the Liberals came into power, they have failed to remedy this situation. Instead, they have sat on a unanimous report from the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates for over five years. That report recommended sweeping legislative reforms to Canada’s whistle-blower protection law. As the Liberal government bounces from scandal to scandal, it seems to have no interest in improving protections for whistle-blowers who could shine a light on government wrongdoing or mismanagement of public funds. This is critical to the transparency for which we are calling so Canadians can trust their government.
In addition to the transparency and accountability issues that I am talking about, the government’s increasing reliance on outsourcing raises concerning equity issues that warrant discussion.
In 2018, the UN special rapporteur on poverty and human rights discussed privatization as a cause of poverty while still costing governments more.
In 2019, the Standing Committee on Human Resources tabled a report on precarious work, recommending the government, “[review] human resources policies and budgeting practices to ensure that they incentivize hiring employees on indeterminate contracts.” It is critical that the government stop the precarious work and incentivize hiring people full time.
Further, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada has written about the interplay between outsourcing and gender equity, stating:
In IT, lucrative contracts are doled out to a male-dominant industry that has notoriously struggled with gender equity. While at the same time, lower paid and precarious temporary service contracts are disproportionately filled by women. The majority of temporary workers become trapped in a cycle of persistent temporary work, defined by low pay, few if any fringe benefits, and high risk of unemployment and labour force exit.
While the government will say it is forced to rely on the private sector to deliver IT services because of skill shortages within the public service, it is ignoring in-house talent and failing to invest in building further institutional capacity in a way that promotes gender equity, and I will also say failing to work with public institutions to tap into that expertise and knowledge that lies in our public institutions, including higher-learning institutions.
The Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada has filed more than 2,500 grievances where work was outsourced rather than assigned to existing expertise in the public service. In the last fiscal year, the government spent $2.3 billion on information technology service contracts compared to $1.85 billion on its own IT workforce. If the government is truly committed to building a strong and inclusive public service, it is essential that it maintain and build in-house IT capacity.
The government’s increasing reliance on outsourcing is not only undermining efforts to promote equity, but it is also costing Canadians more. Although it is difficult to get information on outsourced contracts, the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada shared with me the following alarming examples: “one IT Technical Architect at National Defence cost Canadian taxpayers over $359,000 per year in a contract that was renewed for over 8 years. The equivalent public servant (including their pension) would have cost $147,876 – saving over $1.5M”; and “Another example: Shared Services Canada has spent over $14M over the past five years on 3 resources and posted a contract tender extension for another four years. Three public servants (including their pension) over the same five years would have cost $1,855,476 – saving over $12M.”
It is not just in IT that we are seeing these increased costs because of reliance on outsourcing, but also in other areas like cleaning, grounds maintenance, health care and access to information.
While I agree that Canadians deserve transparency on the ArriveCAN app, they deserve much more. They deserve transparency on the true costs and risks of outsourcing public services. I hope all members will agree that a broader examination of outsourcing by the Auditor General is warranted and is in the best interest of Canadians.
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- Nov/1/22 11:51:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we are here every day, calling on the government to do the right thing and provide support to Canadians.
What we have are gatekeepers from the Conservatives and the Liberals protecting big corporations that are having record profits. Every day we are standing up for Canadians. Today, we are calling for transparency when it comes to outsourcing. Both the Conservatives and the Liberals are the champions of outsourcing. It is their friends. They are highly paid consultants hiring highly paid consultants. This is their history. It needs to stop, and it needs to stop now.
We are here to fight for the people.
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- Nov/1/22 11:52:37 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will just start with the government financing oil and gas. It makes these huge investments in industries that had $147 billion in profit last year, and here the government is subsidizing building the Trans Mountain pipeline, which is skyrocketing out of control.
Outsourcing is built into this whole regime. It is a waste of taxpayers' dollars. It could all be going to help improve the lives of Canadians, so they could get access to medicine, housing and things they actually need to live.
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- Nov/1/22 11:54:20 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that fits the whole story, the whole regime of the Conservatives and the Liberals. It is about them bailing out their friends, whether it be big oil, big grocery or the big banks. This is what they do.
They do not want to go after them and make them pay their fair share. Instead, they leave Canadians hung out to dry. This outsourcing that we are talking about today is again part of their history and story. It is about their friends, these expensive consultants who hire expensive consultants.
The Conservatives started the Phoenix pay system. It was supposed to save over $80 million a year. It has cost $2.4 billion. The Liberals are not innocent, but they carried it on. They kept going with it. It needs to end.
We are going to be here to stop it and to fight for the Auditor General to come in and look at this. It needs to change. We are going to stand up for Canadians and make sure that Canadians get the support they deserve.
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- Nov/1/22 11:55:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, this needs a deep dive, and it needs support from all parties.
We need to work collectively on this. Right now, there have been 18 complaints out of 500 that have come through and made it to the commissioner to look at. Not one has made it to the tribunal. This is not okay. It is actually impossible to imagine that not one whistle-blower complaint would have gone through to the tribunal and been supported—
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- Nov/1/22 2:47:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, people in Canada are struggling with their mental health and accessing help is almost impossible. Yesterday, a report found that almost all Canadian workers have experienced mental distress, and for many it is only getting worse.
Years ago, the government said it would amend the Canada Labour Code to protect workers, but the Liberals have failed to follow through, just like they have not delivered on promised new funding for mental health supports. When will the government finally do what is right by delivering on its promises to protect the mental health of workers?
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- Nov/1/22 3:13:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There have been consultations and I hope that if you seek it, you will find consent for the following motion: That given that: one, that the mental health of Canadians has been negatively impacted by the pandemic; two, that economic conditions are exacerbating financial barriers to mental health supports; and, three, that our public health care system is under immense strain, the House call upon the government to put into place a Canada mental health transfer without delay.
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