44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2022 10:00AM
- Nov/1/22 10:58:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was saying that the worst obligation for a prince is always having to cover things up.
Unlike the Conservatives, who were not pleased to speak to our motion last week, I am pleased to speak to the Conservative motion this morning. I am pleased to talk about it.
A lot of attention has been given to inflation. However, I will look at this from another angle, specifically, from an ethical perspective. Ethics is about doing the right thing. Currently I am concerned. I am concerned because the articles we read in the media leave us with a lot of questions. They leave us hanging. They pique our interest and then fail to report on what really happened with ArriveCAN. I am concerned and this is why.
For several years now, the government has made a habit of outsourcing its services. Many services have been outsourced to the private sector. Here we are talking about GC Strategies. Again and again, private firms are benefiting from the government's decision to let go of the expertise it should have internally. By outsourcing its services, the government is draining departments of their expertise, thereby becoming vulnerable to the whims of its outsourcers. I recently read a book about the McKinsey firm entitled When McKinsey Comes to Town. Companies like McKinsey advise governments and, on some level, influence public policy despite the fact that they are not elected. I am therefore concerned. I am concerned that the government is outsourcing this procedure and the related expertise.
GC Strategies knows all this. The company is a two-person intermediary that finds resources elsewhere. Without this intermediary, however, the government of Canada could not act. I am a little concerned about that as well. I wonder what that company had that the departments in question did not. Outsourcing worries me. I am concerned that companies are influencing public policy and making choices that governments should be making.
On several occasions, the government has shown a culture of secrecy and cover-ups. Secrecy means preventing others from seeing and knowing, and to cover up is to make believe. The government's culture is often to make us believe something other than the truth. We are kept in the dark. Essentially, there are some files, of which ArriveCAN is a prime example, that show us how secretive the government's intentions are. It does not want us to understand. I am concerned about this culture of cover-ups.
As they say, people who know they are serious tend to be clear, while those who want to look serious tend to be secretive. I think this applies here.
Basically, when I look at ArriveCAN from an ethics standpoint, what strikes me is the fact that they talk about trust. Trust is the foundation of life in society. Without trust, we are constantly asking questions, which, incidentally, is what we are doing now. Trust means not having to provide proof. When there is no trust, we need a facsimile or substitute: transparency.
When trust is not possible, we must content ourselves with transparency. However, trust is more important. Transparency enables us to see behind a policy, but trust enables us to live together. Montaigne talked about loving without hate and hating without love. That is what trust is, the ability to work hand in hand without always having to provide proof.
The thing I dislike about ArriveCAN is the constant need for proof, the constant need for one party or another to introduce a motion or go to committee to demand an explanation about what was done because we do not understand. It is never particularly clear.
When trust is not possible, we must content ourselves with transparency. When the government engages in dissimulation, it prevents us from seeing its intent. It is on the verge of lying. I am not saying that it is lying. What is lying? It is making someone do something they would not have done had they known the truth.
I travelled to Rwanda this summer, and I had a hard time entering my information in ArriveCAN. When I returned to Canada, no one even asked to see it. That is how useful it is. I was a little taken aback.
Once again, lying is what hinders communication between two entities. The government is not quite lying, but almost. That is when we need to act ethically. When we are lost in a fog of uncertainty, a grey area, we need to act ethically, which means that, in a discussion such as this one, I am going to focus a little less on myself and a little more on others. I will think about others. In a situation like this, I know that I am going to have to be open-minded to understand what is at issue.
Above all, acting ethically means doing the right thing even when no one is watching. I have a story about this from classical philosophy. There was once an emir who had a ring adorned with a small diamond. By twisting the ring on his finger, he could become invisible. Well, he lost the ring, of course. It was found by one of his slaves, who put it on, twisted it around and went off to the harem. The rest can be imagined, but in all the excitement, the ring twisted back around and he became visible again. Let us say he had a rough day after that.
This is what I mean: Acting ethically means doing the right thing even when no one is watching. We, the opposition members, including the Conservatives who moved this motion, are watching. All we see is secrecy. We are not okay with that.
I would like someone to explain why the government used such a strategy, specifically an outside business that subcontracted its services. I do not know much about IT services, but I do not see how something would start at $80,000 or $250,000 and end up costing $54 million, even though I understand that there are many things included in the cost breakdown. It seems to me that an organization as large as the Government of Canada should be able to do such work itself without resorting to this type of middleman.
I am curious and I would really like some help understanding this situation, shedding some light on it and getting rid of the secrecy. That is what I want, but I am not sure we will be able to do it.
I will quickly conclude by saying that, beyond the fact that the ArriveCAN app appears unnecessary, as I did not use it when returning to Canada, I find it outrageous that money is being spent frivolously and that we often accept it and just let it go.
Paul Valéry, an author that I really like, said that it is not the wicked who do the most harm in this world. It is the maladroit, the negligent and the credulous. The wicked would be powerless without a certain quota of the good.
It is time for the good people to stand up and say that enough is enough. I would like to get to the bottom of this.
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- Nov/1/22 11:06:59 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member talked a lot about trust and specifically about the arrive scam. However, there has also been a number of other indiscretions, including the WE Charity, the Aga Khan trip and others. The member talked about the impact of those. Many authors have written about trust and how that slows down the operation of business.
Are the people of Quebec starting to feel as though they do not trust the Liberal government?
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- Nov/1/22 11:07:36 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his very relevant question. Quebeckers' trust in the Liberal government is waning.
Given my past experience, I noticed that the culture of secrecy and cover-ups seems to be part of the Liberal Party's DNA, and that is a problem. Whether we are talking about the sponsorship scandal or things that happened before that, all of these cover-ups and this secrecy are not conducive to building trust, and yet trust is exactly what is needed today.
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- Nov/1/22 11:08:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I love when we talk about the sponsorship scandal. I was in high school at the time, so forgive me if I do not remember the details of that.
On the topic of the last question asked, about trusting the Liberals, I wonder if the member from the Bloc could tell us how Quebeckers feel about trusting Conservatives. They must trust Conservatives more than they trust Liberals. Is that correct?
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- Nov/1/22 11:08:39 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member for Kingston and the Islands for his question.
In Quebec, people trust the Bloc Québécois.
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- Nov/1/22 11:08:51 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the hon. member for Trois-Rivières, as he always provides a really high level of nuance in these very important discussions.
The hon. member referenced the need for transparency and trust. Having worked alongside him at the ethics committee, I know he will likely have a comprehensive answer to this.
At the heart of this, we have staffers, people within the public sector, who sometimes witness malfeasance or things that might be in conflict with the law. What suggestions does the hon. member have for enhancing whistle-blowing to allow public sector workers who see government malfeasance to step forward with adequate protections and supports to ensure that Canadians have access to information on what is happening in the back rooms of government?
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- Nov/1/22 11:09:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank the member from Hamilton-Centre for his question. I work with him on the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, and his perspective is always refreshing.
First, Canada has the worst whistle-blower protection regime. Under the current regime, there is no way of knowing whether one person made 40 complaints or whether 40 people made one complaint. It is really anonymous and confidential. Second, the more specific the complaint, the easier it is to determine who the whistle-blower in question is. That is what we want to focus on right now. Under the current regime, the whistle-blower is done for in every case.
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- Nov/1/22 11:10:25 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his speech. It is always very interesting to listen to him.
As he mentioned, the issue of transparency seems to be in the Liberal Party's DNA. I can certainly recall some of the scandals, such as the sponsorship scandal. More recently, public confidence in the institution and in the Liberal Party was shaken again because of the WE scandal. That $900-million contract was awarded to members of the Prime Minister's family who were very close to him. In addition, an untendered contract for respirators worth nearly $240 million was awarded to a former Liberal Party MP.
Today we are talking about the untendered contracts for the ArriveCAN app. The situation is understandable, but it is always the opposition parties' responsibility to raise the public's concerns about this transparency.
My colleague from Trois‑Rivières spoke about the culture of avoidance and cover-ups. I would like him to explain how the government could be proactive in improving public confidence in institutions and, hopefully, in the Liberal Party.
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- Nov/1/22 11:11:42 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his hard work.
There have been numerous scandals over the years. Contrary to what the member for Kingston and the Islands said, I was not born at the time of World War II, but I remember it. I was not born at the time of the Peloponnesian War either, but I remember it too.
The only way to restore confidence is to expose what happened and enable people to understand, to fully comprehend what is at stake.
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- Nov/1/22 11:12:13 a.m.
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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—
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- Nov/1/22 11:16:54 a.m.
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I would remind the hon. member that we do not mention other members by name in the House.
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- Nov/1/22 11:17:01 a.m.
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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.
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- Nov/1/22 11:22:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member would agree with the following statement: A friend is a friend indeed; however, only when it serves Liberal greed.
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- Nov/1/22 11:22:27 a.m.
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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.
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- Nov/1/22 11:22:43 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, on many points I would disagree with the member opposite. I would suggest that Canada did exceptionally well when going through the pandemic. We had a team Canada approach and it made a difference in a very real way. If I was allowed another hour, I would be more than happy to amplify every one of those points.
With regard to the whole issue of awarding contracts, hundreds of millions of dollars went out. There is no doubt about that. Members try to give the false impression that Liberal businesses were the only beneficiaries, when we had literally thousands of contracts going out. I can assure the member that they were not only for Liberal entrepreneurs, Conservative entrepreneurs and New Democrat entrepreneurs. I would suggest that even some Bloc entrepreneurs might have received some of these grants. To paint with a broad brush puts a negative image on all politics, no matter what political party one belongs to.
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- Nov/1/22 11:23:51 a.m.
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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.
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- Nov/1/22 11:24:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, I enjoyed the speech by the member for Terrebonne.
Naturally, she focused on the ethical dimension, including when she referred to the sponsorship scandal. I think she could have also referred to the WE Charity scandal, in which a billion-dollar contract was awarded to friends of the Prime Minister. There is also the famous respirator contract granted at the time to well-known Liberals without a call for tenders.
With ArriveCAN, we do not know who the contract was awarded to or how it was done. However, we know that the government will create a new program through Bill C‑31, which has just been passed. That program will give $600 cheques to people who receive dental care. However, it would seem that the government again needs private companies. Once again, they will need to contract out.
The government systematically contracts out to the private sector, but every time, it seems to benefit friends of the Liberal Party in particular. What does my colleague think about that?
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- Nov/1/22 11:25:28 a.m.
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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?
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- Nov/1/22 11:26:10 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, in my riding of Port Moody—Coquitlam, the call to help out during the pandemic was heard strongly.
I am wondering if the member would comment on some of the businesses in her province that did not get even a sniff of Canadian procurement during the pandemic.
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- Nov/1/22 11:26:34 a.m.
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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.
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