44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/1/22 10:20:40 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, we did introduce the Federal Accountability Act, which cracked down on corruption after 10 years of sponsorship scandals, billion-dollar boondoggles and other Liberal corruption.
That was dirty, illegal Liberal money.
The NDP was actually forced to support our Federal Accountability Act measures.
We will always work to make the law more strict. That is why we caught the Liberals with SNC-Lavalin, the WE Charity scandal and the Aga Khan island, on which the Prime Minister illegally vacationed. All of those scandals were exposed as a result of the Federal Accountability Act, which I was proud to shepherd through this House.
The real question is why the NDP continues to support Liberal scandal and Liberal waste today. Why does the member not start working for the people of Hamilton instead of working for the Prime Minister? We on this side work for our constituents. We work for the common people.
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- Nov/1/22 11:35:58 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, there is no doubt that over the last couple of years there has been a lot of new money and government expenses as a direct result of the pandemic. I think a vast majority of Canadians would look at the need for the government to step up during the pandemic as absolutely critical. In fact, the federal government spent somewhere around 80% of all the new money going toward fighting the pandemic compared to provincial expenditures. There does need to be a sense of accountability, but over the next coming days, weeks and months we will see more accountability in how some of that money is being spent.
I understand that OGGO, one of our standing committees, is already looking into the matter at hand. Could I get the member's thoughts in regard to the importance of standing committees and the roles they can play in ensuring more accountability?
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- Nov/1/22 11:36:55 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, to the member's earlier point, I do not think any scenario really justifies shovelling money off the back of the government truck willy-nilly without the accountability that Canadians expect. We have seen in the past very worrisome and concerning instances where that has occurred, such as the WE Charity scandal and the Phoenix pay system, where we are hiring consultants who are hiring other consultants and the whole thing becomes a total debacle.
As to the role of committees, absolutely committees can help us get to the bottom of this. I think the work that OGGO is doing is very much complementary to what this opposition day motion calls for, and I look forward to the outcome from both.
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- Nov/1/22 11:40:00 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I know the hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley has a long history in civic leadership, including in procurement.
I am wondering what reflections the member might offer on the importance of restoring public accountability and trust with the government through having a procurement process that brings to light all the different steps along the way, including when a project such as this goes from $80,000 to $54 million. At what point should there be off-ramps and at what point should the red flags have been raised for the government as this project went out of control?
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- Nov/1/22 11:51:15 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am glad to see that New Democrats are calling for greater accountability with the arrive scam debacle, however, I am still troubled by the fact that they continue to prop up the Liberal government.
Does the member know if the words “transparency”, “accountability” or “ethics” are in the confidence and supply agreement?
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- Nov/1/22 11:55:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member is doing a fantastic job on government operations, looking for accountability and holding the government accountable.
What reflections does the member have on the importance of having a whistle-blower regime? With that, when public sector employees find waste or any kind of malfeasance, they would have the ability to step forward and be protected so that they would not have reprisals in their workplace.
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- Nov/1/22 12:06:06 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader asking how much I think it should be. I know it should not be $6,000 a night. The fact that these apologists are not demanding accountability speaks volumes, and that is why they are going to vote against this motion.
I look forward to when the parliamentary secretary stands up in about 30 seconds and says he will call for accountability because he believes in transparency, but that is not what he is going to say. We know that because that is the pattern. They spend Canadians into the poorhouse. Canadians are lined up at food banks in record numbers, and what do these Liberals say? They say, “Let them eat cake.”
We want accountability. That is exactly what we are going to get.
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- Nov/1/22 12:08:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, accountability is fundamental for all parliamentarians. However, and I do not want to challenge the member, I remember that he said that $500 million was shovelled out the door to the Kielburger organization. It was upward of $912 million without checks and balances. We simply asked what their capability of handling this program was and how it came about. That brought down the finance minister because we learned of this outrageous backroom connection between the Kielburger group and the minister.
I want to ask my colleague this because he was on the committee. We never ended up finding out who owned all their companies, how many companies they had and how the money moved through their complex organizations. This was supposed to be a children's charity, yet the Parliament of Canada could not get to the bottom of this. Does my hon. colleague feel there are still unanswered questions about that attempted deal between the Liberals and the Kielburger brothers?
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- Nov/1/22 12:09:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is a big question for not a lot of time. As opposition parties, we worked very hard to try to get answers for Canadians, and there is still a need. If folks at CRA are watching, an audit or two is well overdue for those folks at WE Charity because, my goodness, there was a spider web of shell companies in an attempt to hide from transparency. We know that they hid witnesses and would not reveal documents.
While it cost a finance minister his job, and we saw even more corruption, we still do not know all of the details. The government tried to give $912 million, nearly a billion dollars, to buddies of the Prime Minister. It is incredibly concerning. We do not have all of the information. We want to know what happened with those property sales in this company, which they said they were folding up. It is another great example of the accountability that Canadians deserve when the Liberal government is being cavalier with their tax dollars.
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- Nov/1/22 12:39:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I can easily explain that we have in place a procedure through Procurement Canada and that things are put in place to protect the public interest when it comes to spending public dollars. I have faith in that. It does not mean it is an absolute total blind faith. I do believe there is a need for accountability. That is one of the reasons why I am a strong advocate for our standing committees. I think standing committees have a very important role. In fact, the very issue we are debating today is before the OGGO standing committee.
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- Nov/1/22 1:08:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we need to put this into perspective. During COVID, there was a crisis and we had to get projects approved. We had to get them out the door, but that still required oversight.
For example, the government suddenly announced upward of $912 million to the WE Charity, the Kielburger brothers, and it was the duty of the staff to say that there were a whole series of holes in the plan. What we saw was that former finance minister Bill Morneau, and we can see this in the Ethics Commissioner's report, had a very unhealthy relationship with the people from the WE group. He had them in his office and he was basically working for them, so the oversight that should have been in place was not there.
I want to ask my hon. colleague about the importance, and we sometimes need to get projects off the ground, of having oversight and accountability to ensure we do not end up with these kinds of dumb boondoggles.
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- Nov/1/22 3:10:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians have been shocked by allegations of political interference into an RCMP investigation. They want to know that the organizations that are protecting them are not serving a political agenda, but the archaic language of the RCMP Act is a recipe for disaster. It needs to be fixed. Today, I called for new measures to clarify what directions the Minister of Public Safety can issue to the RCMP and for them to be issued in writing. We need to see more accountability.
Will the Liberals support my proposal to help restore public trust in our institutions?
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- Nov/1/22 3:11:02 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I welcome the opportunity to work with my hon. colleague on the private member's bill he put forward this morning.
In the meantime, I want to update the chamber and say that my mandate calls for strengthened standards when it comes to the use of force, strengthening the role of the management advisory board, and finally Bill C-20, which will ensure there is an opportunity for Canadians who have concerns regarding the quality of service they are getting from the RCMP and the CBSA, for the first time. This is legislation that I hope we will pass with great haste so that we can raise the bar on transparency and accountability and ensure the confidence of Canadians in their law enforcement institutions.
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- Nov/1/22 3:18:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
Here we are today talking about accountability. I wonder if my hon. colleague could comment on the lack of accountability we have seen when it comes to a hotel room that cost somewhere between $6,000 and $7,200.
We are having a discussion on the $54 million that was spent, and that is a big sum of money. We have smaller sums. Could the member comment on the lack of accountability when the Prime Minister will not even tell us who was in that room?
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- Nov/1/22 3:19:27 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what I will say in the very short time that I have is this. The Conservatives will not back down from demanding answers and accountability for Canadians. We will always seek to get the truth for Canadians when it comes to the overspending and mismanagement of the government.
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- Nov/1/22 3:48:11 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, look, having transparency and accountability in how every level of government is spending money is imperative for taxpayers, including the taxpayers in my riding of Vaughan—Woodbridge.
I know that all of the processes and procedures were followed by the Government of Canada in the procurement process for the app. If members would like to go to the CBSA website, there is a breakdown of how the monies were spent with regard to the ArriveCAN app, and, for that matter, with regard to all of the measures that were put in place during COVID-19, which was an extraordinary period of time in our country and the world's history.
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- Nov/1/22 4:43:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Merriam-Webster dictionary defines “accountability” as “the quality or state of being accountable”, and further says, “especially: an obligation or willingness to accept responsibility or to account for one's actions”.
Does the member not think the Canadian public is expecting us to be accountable for the money that was spent on the ArriveCAN app? Who is better than the Auditor General to look into that?
I would also like her thoughts on how the present Liberal government has been lacking in accountability over the past seven years.
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- Nov/1/22 4:55:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that, throughout the debate, whether one is a New Democrat, a Bloc member or a Conservative, members seem to think that those of us in the Liberal Party do not believe in accountability. In fact, the very subject matter is going to one of our standing committees. It is being discussed and debated, and questions will follow. The CBSA is doing an internal review, and a report will ultimately come out of it.
Does the member believe that it was necessary for the government to have an ArriveCAN app in the first place, or is he like the Conservative members who said that we did not really need it and that a piece of paper would have sufficed when travelling through the international border?
We are talking about the safety and health of Canadians in all regions of our country. Would the member not agree, at the very least in principle, that there was a need for a program, and if not this one then one of a similar nature, or does he concur with the Conservatives that a piece of paper would have sufficed?
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- Nov/1/22 4:56:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I realize that our hon. colleague often uses the strategy of opening up a bunch of topics of discussion and then asking an unrelated question, making it hard for us to respond to all the arguments he was putting forward.
I will respond to the first point. When it comes to transparency, my colleague from Winnipeg North said that opposition members claim that the Liberals do not seem to believe in accountability. Forgive me, but if it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it is a duck. We know the Liberals hate being scrutinized. They voted against a motion that would have directed the committee on which I sit to study the ArriveCAN app. That answers the first question.
Next, the member asked if the app was necessary. There were other models. Why was this not discussed in a transparent way? The objective at this point is more about determining why this app cost much more than it should have. That is the question.
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