44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/1/22 4:15:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have been trying to clarify something with respect to this motion, because I have been getting different and conflicting answers from Conservatives and the NDP today. The very first clause in this motion, the first “whereas” clause, says “the cost of government is driving up the cost of living”.
What we heard the Leader of the Opposition say today is that he was referring to the fact there are more public servants now, more public sector jobs, than there were before the pandemic. He was essentially criticizing those public sector jobs. The NDP seems to claim it has to do with subsidizing oil, which is what the member for Courtenay—Alberni said. I am wondering if this member can clarify for me item (i) of this motion, where it says, “the cost of government is driving up the cost of living”. Is that indeed talking about the fact that there are more public sector jobs now than there were prior to the pandemic?
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- Nov/1/22 4:16:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, what we need to focus on is that when we look at food bank users in that statistic that I referred to in my speech, which was 1.5 million in one month, the highest ever recorded, it was also in conjunction with the highest employment rate. People are working, and they still cannot afford food.
The government continues to waste money over and over again on programs that do not work and that do not get to the people who need them, who are constantly met with red tape. Unless we do these audits and hold the Liberals to account, why let them just waste taxpayers' money?
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- Nov/1/22 4:16:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I heard my colleague say in her speech that we have lost so much money because of this app, or $54 million. I completely agree with her. That $54 million is a lot of money for an app used for two or three years. That is too much money that could have been spent on other things.
Last week, the Bloc Québécois moved a motion to get rid of an expense that costs us $70 million every year. We were criticized for not getting our priorities straight. I do not really have any questions. My colleague may want to comment on that.
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- Nov/1/22 4:17:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to my colleague's point, $54 million may seem small when talking about a trillion-dollar debt. The comprehension level of the money that is owed in this country is not really conceivable to the average Canadian. It did not even work, and we cannot even calculate the amount of money that was lost because of its ineffectiveness.
We should be challenging the government if it is not stepping up. It should be offering to do this audit. We should not have to call on it to do this audit. That is the right thing to do. If the government is mismanaging Canadian taxpayers' money, it ought to be ready to take a stand on that.
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- Nov/1/22 4:18:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the things that has been on my mind is whether any other countries around the world have something like the ArriveCAN app. I checked. At least among our peers in the G20, not a single one has an app like this, not Germany, South Korea, India, the U.K., South Africa or Japan. I will not name them all, but there are 20 of them.
The exception is Canada. We have this app that cost $54 million, an app that Canadians did not need and cannot afford. Could my hon. colleague comment on the fact that we spent $54 million on something that was apparently not necessary in the eyes of our G20 peers?
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- Nov/1/22 4:19:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is the question we need to ask. Why? Why does the Liberal government continue to say it is going to do something and make things better? Every time, repeatedly, since the Prime Minister has taken office, things have gotten worse. That is a great question.
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- Nov/1/22 4:19:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of rising today to speak to the motion moved by the hon. member for Carleton and leader of the official opposition on the important issue of the Liberal government's wasteful spending. Rather than helping to combat the inflation crisis Canadians are experiencing, this government is fuelling inflation and making everyone's life more difficult. I would like to share some aspects of this motion with my colleagues.
First, the member for Carleton believes that the cost of government is driving up the cost of living. That is a fact. The cost of groceries has gone up by 11.4% in a year. That is the largest increase in 40 years. That means that some items at the grocery store will cost up to 40% more. That also means that mothers and fathers will have difficult choices to make at the cash register. They may have to decide not to buy certain items that week even though the kids want them. They will have to tell their children that they can only afford to buy those things once a month because they have difficult choices to make. That is today's reality. The cost of living is sky-high.
After having dropped, the price of gas is on the rise again. It is now almost $2 a litre in Quebec. For workers in regions like mine, who have to commute and travel close to 60 kilometres every day to get to work, this money is coming directly from their pockets. They can no longer use it to feed their families. That is another really problematic situation. Now we learn that this government has decided to add new taxes. It wants to triple the carbon tax, which will have an even more damaging effect on consumers across Canada.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer told us that this government has torn through $500 billion in inflationary spending. That is half a trillion dollars. I never thought I would use that term in the House. Canada's debt is now $1 trillion. The government has spent half a trillion in the last two years. It claimed that this money was used to help people deal with COVID‑19, to send cheques to citizens, families and businesses.
Yes, Conservatives supported those measures. However, we did not support spending 40% of that $500 billion, or $200 billion, on things that had absolutely nothing to do with COVID‑19. The government created new programs and new spending that ended up boosting inflation in Canada. As a result, the family I was talking about earlier will have a harder time putting food on the table at the end of the month. That is the reality.
Members will recall the Prime Minister saying that interest rates would stay low for decades, that it was fine to borrow money, that the government would absorb those expenses on Canadians' behalf. Now Canadians are the ones who have to pay back their loans at interest rates that are higher than they have been in years.
What do the Liberals have to say to those Canadians? Will they pay their bills? No, they will not, contrary to what the Prime Minister said during his inaugural speech in 2015. That is the reality.
The third part of the motion says, “Canadians are now paying higher prices and higher interest rates as a result”.
Yes, Canadians are paying higher interest rates. The government is going to pay higher interest rates. That means that a larger portion of the money that Canadians send to the government will be used to make interest payments because this government spent an incredible amount of money, money that it should not have spent, spending that could be described as wasteful, as in the case of the ArriveCAN app. Paying off this debt is going to cost more for everyone. That is the reality.
The motion also says, “it is more important than ever for the government to respect taxpayer dollars and eliminate wasteful spending”.
Who can be against that? If there is one person here who is against that sentiment let him or her rise immediately and explain how they can be against using taxpayer money better and eliminating wasteful spending. One of the best ways to do that is to investigate the government's wastefulness.
If my colleagues support the motion, it would mean calling on the Auditor General of Canada to conduct a performance audit, including the payments, contracts and subcontracts for all aspects of the ArriveCAN app, and to prioritize this investigation.
This app cost $54 million, when it could have cost $250,000. Certain invoices led us to believe that some companies had been hired. We heard about a $1-million contract awarded to a firm that candidly admitted to the newspapers that it never worked on the app. That is to say nothing of how useless the ArriveCAN app is.
I will conclude my speech by saying that I urge all of my colleagues to support this motion.
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- Nov/1/22 4:25:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is very difficult to follow the Conservative Party's thinking on the ArriveCAN app. At one point, depending on who we talked to and who happened to hold the leadership of that party, the Conservatives were saying to shut the borders. Then they were saying to open the borders and then they were back on the theme to shut the border.
I would think they would recognize it was important to have the ArriveCAN app or something of a similar nature. Does the Conservative Party really believe that it could have implemented something that would have addressed issues of security, cyber-threats and these valuable data banks for $250,000? Are the Conservatives really that naive?
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- Nov/1/22 4:26:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since I got vaccinated, I had a piece of paper that I could have shown customs officers. That would have cost the price of a sheet of paper, and it would have allowed me to cross the border.
Instead, everyone had to enter their information in the ArriveCAN app, otherwise they could not enter Canada. I had an app provided by the Quebec government that allowed me to show my proof of vaccination. Instead, the federal government wanted its own app, because it just had to get involved, or rather it wanted to reward good Liberal friends by handing out more valuable and juicy contracts.
That is why the Auditor General needs to get to the bottom of everything pertaining to the ArriveCAN app.
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- Nov/1/22 4:27:17 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable for his speech. My goodness, I never thought I would have the opportunity to ask him a question in the House, but today I do.
My colleague spoke a lot about the importance and the cost of ArriveCAN, the app that was created during the pandemic and represents a one-time expenditure. The Bloc Québécois does agree that this expenditure should be looked at, but it is a one-time expense.
I believe that we have already raised this issue with the Conservatives, but what I find fascinating is that, just last week, the Conservatives voted against our motion, which would have saved the government money every year. That $70 million is not a one-time expenditure, it is an annual recurring one.
Is there a double standard? Could my colleague comment on that?
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- Nov/1/22 4:28:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question, which I am honoured to answer.
I hope that one day, I or one of my colleagues will be lucky enough to answer the Bloc Québécois's questions every day. What we basically want is to put a stop to waste and spending associated with unnecessary programs and to replace the Liberal government, so that there will finally be responsible people on the other side to answer all of the Bloc's questions.
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- Nov/1/22 4:28:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the hon. member spoke a lot about debt and the debt that the country has incurred. This motion has to do with spending and how the government uses its money and what it is spending it on.
The Canadian Taxpayers Federation has a debt clock, which circulates through how much debt we are incurring. We are incurring about $6 million a day, adding to our debt.
I wonder if the member could speak a little more to our incurring such debt at the pace that we are and how that is affecting our economy and the capacity of the government to be able to operate.
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- Nov/1/22 4:29:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I could give many examples to show how, when the government keeps racking up debt, it loses some the flexibility it has to offer real services to citizens. More importantly, it affects the ability of future generations to access government services because the price of that debt is going to keep growing. Our children and the children of all Canadians are the ones who are going to have to pay that debt. That is the big problem.
I just want to say one thing. According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we are adding $6 million a day to the debt. That does not include the Prime Minister's $7,000-a-night hotel bill. It cost at least $14,000 for those two days.
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- Nov/1/22 4:30:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, if we could rise above partisanship with regard to the motion before us, my colleague from Mégantic—L'Érable would not be surprised to learn that I believe that, when it comes to public health measures, the onus is on the government imposing them. It is up to the government to justify whether those measures were effective from a epidemiological and public health perspective.
Can my colleague admit that the ArriveCAN app did have its benefits in terms of public health and the fight against COVID-19? I heard in the debate that we are the only G20 country that had this type of app. I did not verify that myself, but can the member acknowledge that there might have been some benefits to the ArriveCAN app?
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- Nov/1/22 4:31:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to see the benefits of ArriveCAN when there were already tools that had been put in place by the provinces. People could have presented vaccination status documents at the border. Everything was already in place. There was no need to create another app, another expense and another layer of administration to basically achieve the same objectives.
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- Nov/1/22 4:31:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to note that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed and valued colleague from Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot
One of the roles of government is to protect the public, particularly through border controls. In the case of a pandemic such as the one we have experienced, this is a matter of protecting the public from the spread of the virus within our borders.
Increased spread of a virus can put additional pressure on the country's health care systems, which have been compromised by inadequate federal transfers to Quebec and the provinces for the past 30 years, despite the constitutional agreements. Therefore, it was necessary to avoid putting more pressure on health care systems by protecting our people from anything that could be transmitted by travellers from here and abroad. That was part of the purpose of the ArriveCAN app: to ensure that travellers were not only vaccinated, but also tested negative before arriving in Canada.
Today, we are debating a strangely worded motion. I will read it:
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.
The motion's preamble lays out problems that people are experiencing because of inflation, but it also relates the Parliamentary Budget Officer's finding that $200 billion in ostensibly pandemic-related spending was not necessarily related to COVID‑19. Current inflation is not due solely to government spending. Other factors contributed to the inflation we are experiencing now.
Some aspects of the preamble simplify a complex inflationary reality into a single element. These aspects are followed by the motion itself, some of which is bewilderingly vague. In fact, upon rereading all the points of the preamble and the motion, one might first get the impression that the Conservative Party wants the Auditor General to analyze all aspects of pandemic management, which would be a monumental task if it were not done by subject. Fortunately, this is later clarified. The motion says at the end that the performance audit relates to all aspects surrounding the ArriveCAN app. It is a pretty flawed motion.
Despite this, my Bloc Québécois colleagues and I are inclined to vote in favour of the motion. We are inclined to do so because it is important to know whether public funds were used excessively to create this tool, ArriveCAN. That said, I have serious questions about the Conservative Party's priorities. Yes, $54 million is a lot of money, but it should be, in theory, a “one-hit wonder”. Year after year, $67 million is paid for symbolic monarchist functions, and the Conservatives voted against abolishing the control these monarchist functions have over the decisions of the people's representatives in the House and in all democratic chambers in Canada.
Basically, that is what ArriveCAN should have been. It should have been a screening and security tool at the border that border officers could use to quickly identify travellers that needed to quarantine, travellers who did not need to quarantine, and travellers that had to be turned away because they did not meet the criteria for entering Canada. If we take it one step further, ArriveCAN was also a way for Canada to save money. If members recall, before the app was created, travellers were required to quarantine in hotels reserved for that purpose. Of course, travellers had to pay for the room and their meals, and that did not come cheap, but the government had to find, train and pay additional staff to make sure that people were abiding by the quarantine requirements, whether at a hotel or at home.
Note that at the time, there were benefits for people who had to quarantine. For a brief moment, those benefits were provided to Canadian travellers returning from a trip who had to quarantine. It did not last long, thank heavens.
ArriveCAN should have been a screening and security tool, but also a way to save money by automating tracking and screening at the border to some degree. Some might gasp to hear me say that ArriveCAN was a means for screening at the border to ensure that travellers entering the country were vaccinated. The vaccination requirement raised eyebrows. Anyone who travelled before the pandemic knows that some vaccines, such as the yellow fever vaccine, and some drugs, such as antiparasitics or antimalarial drugs, are either mandatory or highly recommended for travelling to certain countries. The proof of vaccination requirement is not new in modern history. ArriveCAN would mean no longer needing to carry a vaccine record. People are less likely to forget their cellphone than a piece of paper.
The intention of ArriveCAN was to make life easier for travellers and border officers. Then again, as the saying goes, the road to hell is paved with good intentions.
I was reminded of this saying because I believe that the idea of creating ArriveCAN was really based on the need for border control that would not make life difficult for anyone. However, the testimonies I received by email and in person from travellers and border officers, and those received by many members of the House, tend to show that the application had significant flaws. The first is that border officers were never consulted on the creation and implementation of the app, and yet, along with the travellers themselves, border officers were the first to experience the repercussions of ArriveCAN.
Then there were the programming problems. Vaccinated people with a negative test received a message ordering them to quarantine despite the verifications by border officers. There were also the incredible delays that paralyzed airports. Those are just a few examples of the difficulties experienced. The app required 70 whole updates. In short, ArriveCAN is an imperfect app that is difficult and even impossible for some people to use, including those who do not own a cell phone. To top it all off, it was also a very expensive app.
Newspaper articles recently disclosed that, to date, the app has cost $54 million. The committee received 2,000 documents related to ArriveCAN just last night. That does not include documents from the Canada Border Services Agency, which we are anxiously awaiting.
Once we have the documents, we hope to get to the bottom of this issue, because it is important. The problem is that the app cost $54 million when it was originally supposed to cost only a few hundred thousand dollars.
Where did those extra millions of dollars go? Does the $54 million include the development and acquisition of the app as well as the information documents handed out to travellers in airports here and abroad? Does it include advertising? Was there complacency in the management of public funds and peoples' taxes? These are just some of the questions I am asking, and I hope many others are asking them as well.
Of course, the issue is being studied by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. However, we do not have the same means as the Office of the Auditor General, which will certainly be able to do a more thorough analysis to complement that of the committee. We must shed light on a good intention that turned into a nightmare for border officers and many travellers. There have been extraordinary cost overruns, and we believe it would be useful for the Office of the Auditor General to conduct an in-depth analysis.
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- Nov/1/22 4:41:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I was somewhat surprised after posing a question to a member of the Conservative Party regarding the necessity of having the ArriveCAN app. When I posed the question, the member answered, in essence, that a piece of paper would have sufficed, that people could provide a piece of paper at the border and that is all that was necessary.
I am wondering if the member can provide a response to the same question I asked a Conservative member previously. Does she believe it was necessary to have something like an ArriveCAN application at the border? Does she support the need for that app?
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- Nov/1/22 4:42:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as I said in my speech, before the pandemic, travellers sometimes needed proof of vaccination against diseases such as yellow fever to enter certain countries. That is still the case today. There was no little cellphone app at the time.
Was the ArriveCAN app strictly necessary?
The answer is no. The government could have used other tools that have been available for a long time.
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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 4:44:00 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us never forget that everyone in the House, everyone working here, is paid with taxpayer dollars.
That is why, as with any family budget, it is important to be accountable to the people who place their trust in us and whose taxes pay our salary, pay for this place and pay for all the services they then get back.
Demanding transparency and oversight is therefore perfectly legitimate, and the Auditor General of Canada is perfectly positioned to do that.
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