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Nov/1/22 12:07:04 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, well, stupid is as stupid does, as they say. When they are covering for a Prime Minister who claims that he is seized with a climate emergency but burns more jet fuel in a single vacation on his taxpayer-funded jet than a Canadian family spends in an entire year in its carbon footprint, we know that this is a very unserious government that is out of ideas. While it is out of ideas, Canadians are out of money, and they need accountability from the government. That is why we are here. That is what we are going to get.

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Mr. René Villemure (Trois-Rivières, BQ)

Nov/1/22 12:07:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very insightful comments. What does he think of the secrecy surrounding the ArriveCAN app and the fact that we have to search for and find answers and that this all seems to have been done in secret?

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Mr. Michael Barrett

Nov/1/22 12:08:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we have asked for basic transparency from the government, and it wants to drag out document production for months. The information that it does provide is erroneous. While I would like to think that there is malice at play, it may very well just be incompetence, which is especially concerning when we are dealing with tens of millions of dollars. We are going to continue to ask for this level of transparency. Hopefully, with an independent audit, we will get the answers that the government is concealing from Canadians, which it is likely doing to protect the insiders who got rich.

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Mr. Charlie Angus (Timmins—James Bay, NDP)

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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Mr. Michael Barrett

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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Mr. John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, CPC)

Nov/1/22 12:11:18 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as the MP for New Brunswick Southwest, I know first-hand how harmful ArriveCAN was to the lives and livelihoods of Canadians. My riding in southwest New Brunswick borders the state of Maine, in the United States of America. We have five international crossings, and many of these border points do not really feel like we are dealing with a foreign, distant government. This is because these cross-border communities were actually in place long before Confederation. These communities, with Maine residents on one side and New Brunswick residents on the other, have long lived together and shared services, including emergency services and community activity. When the border was closed, it had a devastating impact, and ArriveCAN was a poor solution. There is a very good reason why the Auditor General should conduct a performance audit, including of the payments, contracts and subcontracts for all aspects of the ArriveCAN app, and good reason to prioritize that investigation. The ArriveCAN scam disrupted lives and family relations. It damaged the Canadian economy and infringed on mobility rights. We have discovered that it was a costly government boondoggle rolled out by the Liberal government, which seems incapable of governing any federal institution in the country. Whether it relates to passport offices, the CRA or social programs, this is a government that just cannot shoot straight. It cannot govern well and, as a result, costs are going up everywhere. This program, like many others, was a costly and unnecessary bureaucratic exercise. It was also heavy-handed and trampled over the guaranteed constitutional rights of Canadians. Millions were spent on a computer-based program and a mandate forcing all travellers, citizens and visitors alike, to register before entering Canada or, for citizens, coming home. Failing to do so could result in fines and/or a forced lock-up. Independent software developers tell us that this app could have been built for less than a quarter of a million dollars. That would have been $250,000. It could have been completed in a weekend, but not in Ottawa, and not under this government. Instead, the Liberals spent an eye-popping $54 million and paid out millions to Liberal consultants. Of course, the government will not tell us who received those payments or who got rich. My colleague from Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes spoke about the gross negligence that went toward the creation of the ArriveCAN scam. Regrettably, everything he said is true. The government said that one company was paid $1.2 million and then the company stood up and said that it had not received a dime. Where did that money go? The Auditor General needs to investigate this because the government is not coming clean with the Parliament. It is not coming clean with Canadians. This entire program is in desperate need of an audit, since Liberals will not tell the truth to Canadians. Canadians want to know what happened. Why was $54 million spent to control Canadians and strip away charter rights for a program that not only did not work but also was not necessary? The Liberals, of course, cannot get their stories straight. We need an investigation. We need an audit. Since the introduction of ArriveCAN and its subsequent mandatory use, I have been amazed by the lack of concern that the Liberal government has for the basic rights of Canadians. Anyone who is legally allowed to enter Canada, either as a Canadian citizen or permanent resident, under the Liberals, could now suddenly be denied re-entry into the country, through the threat of a fine of up to $5,000 and/or a 14-day quarantine because they did not register to come back into their own country. The government requiring citizens to register as a condition of coming home is not something that we see in democratic and free countries, yet the government thought nothing of this infringement. It was an infringement on charter rights, and there is no way around it or to explain away that citizens coming home could be fined for not following the government's rules. It was not just the invocation of the Emergencies Act that suspended civil liberties. ArriveCAN did the same to Canadians for a much longer time. Liberals believe theirs is the party of the charter, but this is difficult to square when we consider the actions they took while ArriveCAN was in place. It is difficult to measure the economic impact on the Canadian economy, especially on the tourism sector, but we know there was a cost, and one part of my riding is quite a revealing example. Many members have long heard me talk about Campobello Island, a unique island, which is in New Brunswick. The only way on or off that island, year round, is over a bridge to Lubec, Maine. This island has a population of only about 1,000 people, and it is especially popular with visitors from the United States because Campobello is home to the Roosevelt Campobello International Park. This was the summer home of Franklin Delano Roosevelt, the former American president, and his wife, Eleanor. It attracts tens of thousands of visitors from the United States every year in the summer, or at least it did before the Canada-U.S. border was closed, either because visitors were not allowed or because of the de facto closure with ArriveCAN. According to my discussions with CBSA officials, of the American motorists who crossed onto Campobello from the state of Maine, for every three cars that arrived, two were returned to the state of Maine because the U.S. visitors were either not aware of ArriveCAN or had not completed it. It is estimated that between 25% and 50% of those visitors who were sent back did not bother to complete the ArriveCAN, did not come into Canada and just returned to Maine to go elsewhere. I do not know if it was because of a lack of quality Internet in Lubec, because senior citizens are not familiar with apps and uploading medical documents or because these Americans just did not feel comfortable about uploading documents onto the database of a foreign country. However, if the Canadian government had been more reasonable from the start, it could have allowed CBSA officials to screen individuals at land crossings that enter our country and to do their jobs, but it did not. Instead, it was a bureaucratic mess. It caused hardship to Campobello. It caused hardship to tourist operators across New Brunswick, as well as across Canada, and as it is with everything else, the government failed its task to run the country in a way that does not penalize Canadians and working Canadians. Last week I was home in New Brunswick in Saint Andrews, after the Liberals had come back from a summer caucus meeting there, and I asked some of the operators how the season went. The answer was that it was great, once the Americans were allowed in at the end of the summer. It has an impact when we close the border and stopped allowing our American friends in. ArriveCAN was a costly and flawed program, and there are many questions for the Auditor General to look at. If ArriveCAN requires one to take a PCR test and schedules pickup by the government's testing supplier, why were so many rural homes in my riding completely ignored for pickup? Why did the government not contract this pickup service to Canada Post and the rural post office carriers, so rural homes could be serviced? How many PCR tests were left outside homes on doorsteps for pickup and never collected? Why were children, who were ineligible for COVID vaccines, forced into quarantine because of random selections? There are numerous questions the Auditor General should look at. If this motion passes, I intend to forward these questions to the Auditor General of Canada, and I hope the House votes to pass this, so we can get down and see what happened with the ArriveCAN scam.

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Mr. Ken Hardie (Fleetwood—Port Kells, Lib.)

Nov/1/22 12:21:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it would be nice if the Conservatives could square a few things and pick a lane, because early in the pandemic all we heard from the Conservatives was, “Close the border,” and, “Shut it down,” and then, once the vaccines became more readily available, they sided with the people who would be quite happy to have unvaccinated people spreading the virus back and forth across the American border. Where are they on this one? Do they not like ArriveCAN simply because it does what it does?

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Mr. John Williamson

Nov/1/22 12:22:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I have heard this line of questioning from Liberal members before. It is typical, and they have forgotten a few important facts. When the Liberals were busy locking down Canadians, they kept the airports in this country open, and flights were coming in from around the world. They had it backwards. We should have been securing the borders, but they did not do that. We had airports across the country where provincial officials were rushing to try to test people, to try to determine what had happened. This government closed its eyes to the problems abroad and focused on Canadians and locking them down, and that is why the problem became as serious as it did as fast as it did. It was because of this government's neglect and not because of what Canadians were doing in their homes and communities across this country. Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Carol Hughes)

Nov/1/22 12:23:03 p.m.
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Order. I have not called for questions and comments, and I would ask members to wait until I do that before they speak. Questions and comments, the hon. member for Jonquière.

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Mr. Mario Simard (Jonquière, BQ)

Nov/1/22 12:23:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, our Conservative friends are talking about how the cost of government is driving up the cost of living. They are saying that the government needs to use taxpayer dollars more wisely and eliminate waste. They are focusing on the $54 million that was spent on the ArriveCAN app. I agree with them that that was a stupid mistake. Last week, we pointed out an even stupider mistake: the monarchy. Eliminating that recurrent expense would save us $67 million a year. Then there is the stupid mistake to end all stupid mistakes, and that is the oil and gas industry, which gets $8.5 billion a year. Yes, I said billion, not million. Today, we see that ExxonMobil's profits rose from $4.7 billion a year to $17.9 billion. Our Conservative friends are saying that we need to support the oil and gas industry and that we should be criticizing the $54 million that was spent on the ArriveCAN app. Am I the only one who finds this completely outrageous?

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Mr. John Williamson

Nov/1/22 12:24:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are a number of areas where we think the Liberal government is wasting money. I do not completely agree with my colleague. In my opinion, we need to support our energy sector so that prices remain affordable for consumers. So far, we have the carbon tax and regulations that are constantly driving up the cost of energy. If we come up with solutions that will drive up prices, then prices are going to go up. Finally, with regard to our King, I do not think that is a priority for Canadians or Quebeckers. That is a debate for another day. I say “long live the King”.

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Mr. Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach, NDP)

Nov/1/22 12:25:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his interventions today. I want to really think about the work the public service has done to date. We know that the public service is a very valuable service and was especially so throughout the pandemic. We have seen Canadians rely on the services of the public service. We know as well that this Liberal government supports outsourcing. We hear that from public service workers across Canada, that outsourcing is hurting our workers. Would the member agree that we need to protect public service workers, ensure that there is quality for the taxpayer and make sure these programs actually work?

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Mr. John Williamson

Nov/1/22 12:25:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate that question from my colleague on the public accounts committee. I tend to agree with the member. The amount of outsourcing from this government is stratospheric, and it is costing taxpayers way too much money, but I also think there is a quid pro quo. If we are going to rely on public servants, public servants need to show up and do their job. In my riding and across this country, Service Canada closed for too long during the pandemic. If Service Canada is not there when Canadians need it most, I think a lot of Canadians will ask: “Why do we need Service Canada?” I agree with the member that we should rely on our public servants, but at the same time, let us ensure that they do the job they have been hired to do.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Nov/1/22 12:26:37 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with my colleague and friend, the member from Hochelaga. A good starting point on this debate is to take a look at what we have had to overcome over the last couple of years and what brings us to where we are today. It was not that long ago that the pandemic hit the world. There are some Conservatives who genuinely believe that maybe Canada was in a position to have completely avoided the pandemic. It took a little while, I would suggest, but I think Canadians from coast to coast to coast understood that the pandemic was going to have an impact here in Canada. It was a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic, and when it hit Canada it dictated that governments at all levels needed to take action. When it came to Canada, the national government here in Ottawa, under the leadership of the Prime Minister, insisted on working with all Canadians, no matter what political stripe, and the many different stakeholders, different levels of government, indigenous people and so many others in order to minimize the negative impact of the pandemic. We had a team Canada approach. It is truly amazing, what we were able to pull together in a relatively short time span. Need I remind others across the way that there were programs developed virtually from nothing in order to support Canadians in all regions of the country? Many of those programs, which included the expenditure of billions and billions of dollars, were voted on by every member of this chamber, and they voted unanimously to support that expenditure. Listening to some of the members of the Bloc or the Conservatives, one would think there was a lot of politicization of the tendering and procurement process. Here is a reality check. There are entrepreneurs throughout this country of all political stripes. Not only did some of the Liberal entrepreneurs receive contracts, but the same happened with Conservative entrepreneurs, New Democratic entrepreneurs and even Bloc entrepreneurs. An hon. member: Oh, oh! Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Madam Speaker, to the New Democrat who asked if they have some of those, yes, there are some NDP entrepreneurs out there. All were given contracts, because there is a process in place. The Conservatives name an organization, and then they put the word “scandal” behind it. That assumes it is an official scandal if all they have to do is to put the word “scandal” behind it. The most natural scandal is the word “Conservative” followed by the word “scandal”. Having said that, they cite the WE charity as if to say, wow, this is it. This is the gold mine of all scandals. However, WE has contracts with the Manitoba government, a Conservative government. It is hard to believe. WE has contracts with the Saskatchewan government, another Conservative government. The bottom line is that when we needed to be able to work with industries, entrepreneurs and Canadians in general, there was a need and a process. To identify a Liberal entrepreneur and say that it is corrupt because a Liberal entrepreneur won a contract does a disservice to all of us. That is really a sad aspect of this. At the end of the day, Canadians expected the government to work at delivering, and that is what we did. We worked with other levels of government and the many different stakeholders I made mention of, and it helped. Around nine million Canadians received CERB, even though we are now being criticized for providing that program for the many people who received those benefits. At the time, we were criticized when we were not moving fast enough, and we were told we should be more generous. Tens of thousands of jobs were saved because of the wage subsidy program. We can talk about the ArriveCAN app. It is being suggested that the Auditor General look into it. That seems to be supported by the New Democrats, the Bloc and the Conservatives today. It is being looked at in the standing committee. CBSA is also doing a full review of the issue. The government is not running or hiding from anything here, but the Conservatives want to attach the word “scandal” to it and attach numbers without giving any details. That is what they want to debate. They want to give the false impression that there is scandal after scandal. I was here when Stephen Harper was prime minister. If we want to talk about scandals, there was the riding of Muskoka and the minister, Mr. Clement, or we could look at the Senate issue. However, it is not about scandals. I would suggest it is about providing the supports that were absolutely necessary at the time to protect Canadians. That is what the ministers were charged to do. ArriveCAN was a part of that. I suspect that over the days, weeks and months ahead, we will continue to look at the manner in which public dollars were being spent. There needs to be a sense of accountability. We do not need to be reminded of that. After all, I remember when the Prime Minister first became the leader of the Liberal Party. One of the first actions we did was to call for proactive disclosure from MPs on how they were spending money. We requested unanimous leave in order to enact it, and the Conservatives said no to that. We are not trying to hide anything. We, like all members, would like to show that the tax dollar, which is very important to all of us, is being appropriately spent. We have systems in place to ensure there is a high level of accountability. The leader of the Conservative Party, in his speech, emphasized the issue of inflation. It is truly amazing how the Conservatives seem to be completely out of touch with what is happening around the world. They seem to think Canada needs to do more. I am concerned about the price of groceries and the price of widgets at our local stores. That concerns me, as it concerns all Liberal members of Parliament. That is why we are bringing forward things like Bill C-31, the dental plan and rental plan. It was to support Canadians. The Conservatives voted against that. They talk about inflation and doing things, but when it comes to standing up for Canadians, they stand up to say no. There are things we can do, and we should not settle, even though Canada's inflation rate is lower than that in the U.S., England or most of the European countries. We can still do more on the issue, and we will continue to look at ways to make things easier for Canadians.

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Mr. John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, CPC)

Nov/1/22 12:36:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, here is how standards have fallen under the Liberal government. Back when the Conservatives were in office, the chamber was seized with a glass of orange juice purchased in London that cost $16. Today, it is a hotel bill that cost $6,000, and the government will not even come clean about who stayed there. We know it was the Prime Minister, but that is how the government has lost its way. It will not even be honest with Canadians. My question for the member is straightforward. If the contractors identified by the government were never paid, and this $1.2 million is one example but I am sure there are others, what companies had access to this data through the contracts they received? If the Liberals do not want to make it about money, let us talk about privacy. Which companies have access to the private information of Canadians through these contracts that the government is not willing to reveal to Canadians?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/1/22 12:37:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I guess I have more faith in the procurement process and our public servants, which the Conservatives do not have. It is one of the things with which we should all be somewhat concerned. We saw that with respect to the independent offices. In regard to the shots that the Conservatives continue to use, and they cited the issue of London earlier today, I asked a very simple question of one of the member's Conservative colleagues about why Stephen Harper spent $1 million to fly a car from Canada to India so he had something to drive in. Why $1 million to fly a car to India? The member opposite would have been here and would have been very much aware of this issue.

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Mr. René Villemure (Trois-Rivières, BQ)

Nov/1/22 12:38:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Winnipeg North for his passionate speech. If the Bloc feels that the awarding process is flawed, it may be because things are not clear or because that is a habit with the Liberals. In this case, we should not confuse slander, which is an untrue accusation, and the truth. My question for the member for Winnipeg North is this: How can he defend the indefensible?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

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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Mr. Richard Cannings (South Okanagan—West Kootenay, NDP)

Nov/1/22 12:39:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I used to sit on the Forest Appeals Commission in British Columbia. At appeal hearings, we would hear forest companies blame their contractors for some misdemeanour and the contractors would blame their subcontractors, and the subcontractors would blame their sub-subcontractors. I wonder if the member could comment on the practice of hiring teams to assemble teams to assemble teams that not only balloons the cost of a project like the ArriveCAN app but shields it from any sort of transparency.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Nov/1/22 12:40:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, for me, it is all about how we best get the job done that needs to be done. When we think of the ArriveCAN application, we have to put it in the context of the pandemic, the concerns that Canadians coast to coast to coast had, and what was available at the time with respect to going through the process. Very sensitive data is being collected. I would imagine that if any of that data had been released, some howling would have taken place. We had to take the necessary precautionary measures and have faith in the system. That does not mean it is perfect. CBSA is doing a review. OGGO is looking into it. We will get to the bottom of what has taken place. I am confident of that.

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