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Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

Feb/6/23 3:43:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to commend my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for his speech, which was just as spirited as ever. I really like the motion before us. I think that we need to shed some light on the relationship the government has maintained with McKinsey since 2011. I think that the Conservatives did a good job on this motion because it also covers the period when they were in power. The situation with McKinsey raises a lot of questions. We know that Dominic Barton was one of the co-founders of Century Initiative, which sought to triple Canada's population by 2100. Century Initiative is supported by former prime minister Brian Mulroney. Since Brian Mulroney supports Century Initiative, I am wondering whether he is the voice of the Conservative Party and whether he is sharing the party's vision.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis

Feb/6/23 3:44:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today we are discussing McKinsey. I spoke in my remarks about the issue of control. We can have debates in this House about how we approach immigration policy and various aspects of it. What we ought to agree on is that those decisions should be made by people's representatives and that they should be made in a transparent way. If there are conversations happening within the bureaucracy, those should be subject to the same kind of transparency and accountability mechanisms that we have come to expect from our government. However, we would not want to see decisions being made outside of the public service by consultants to direct the country on very fundamental issues of values, character, immigration policies and other such things. We would want to see them being made by the people's representatives.

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, CPC)

Feb/6/23 3:45:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan for sharing his time with me. Today we are debating concurrence in the fifth report of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates. The motion asks that the Auditor General be called upon to conduct, as soon as possible, a performance and value-for-money audit of the contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company since January 1, 2011, by any department, agency or Crown corporation. How did it come to this? Right now, millions of Canadians are struggling financially. The cost of living has gone up. Everything is expensive. People do not have enough money. Meanwhile, contracts are going to multinational corporations like McKinsey. Since 2016, McKinsey has been awarded over $120 million worth of contracts for studies and proposals on matters relating to immigration, national defence, the Canada Border Services Agency and public services. It has received millions of dollars to make recommendations. However, we cannot get any information about the real purpose of the studies that were commissioned. The Prime Minister is not saying a word. We are being told that two ministers, the President of the Treasury Board and the Minister of Public Services and Procurement, are going to get answers. The members opposite must think we are not very bright. We all know nobody wants to say it even though everybody knows it. That is the crux of the problem with the McKinsey file right now. There is deep secrecy around what the firm has done for Canada. Our motion asks for an audit dating back to 2011, when we were in power, because we know that we have nothing to hide. The contracts awarded back then were for consulting services on very specific topics. The value of the contracts was not exorbitant. In 2014 and 2015, no contracts were awarded. All of a sudden, in 2016, the contracts ballooned. It was as though, suddenly, no one in the departments knew what to do. Suddenly, no one knew what to do about national defence, immigration and border services, so contracts worth tens of millions of dollars had to be awarded to McKinsey to get the answers. I will repeat once again that we have not been able to determine what was proposed. This is the eighth year of a government that has been implicated in a number of conflicts of interest. We went through the SNC-Lavalin affair. On several separate occasions, the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner prepared reports on the Prime Minister. Today, we are again in a situation where it is abundantly clear that there is some type of conflict of interest. Dominic Barton was the global managing director at McKinsey when the Liberal government took power in 2015. He defended himself in committee by saying that he had not done anything, that he was not aware of anything and that he did not know anything. In one of the questions that I asked him before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, I told him that he was fascinating. In looking at him, I realized that he has a real talent for not answering questions and for pretending that this is not happening and that it is all made up. However, the facts speak for themselves. As soon as the government took power, it started following Mr. Barton's advice. He told the government to hire his firm so that it could give the government the tools it needed to know what to do, because the government did not know what to do. That is where we are at now. There is even an ethical issue here. That being said, our motion has one main objective. We want the Auditor General, an independent officer of Parliament, to conduct an audit and report to Parliament on what happened with the various contracts that have been awarded to McKinsey since 2011. Taxpayers are the ones footing the bill, so they have the right to know. As I said, over the past eight years, the government has completely lost control of public finances. Everyone knows that Canada's debt has doubled. We are going to have to pay interest on the debt, which will cost $40 billion a year. We are going to have to take money that was allocated for operating expenditures and use it to pay the interest to the banks because of the $15 billion in contracts awarded to subcontractors, including McKinsey. This raises questions, and that is why the Auditor General must investigate to tell us what we got for $120 million. Were the contracts awarded properly? Was the information necessary? Were public servants capable of answering these questions? There are so many unanswered questions. The Business Development Bank of Canada is another example. The government appointed a new president. The first thing she did was take $4.9 million and give it to McKinsey so they could tell her what the strategic direction of the Bank of Canada is. Internally, people saw a president come in who, instead of consulting them to develop the long-term strategic plan for the Bank of Canada, brought in McKinsey. Why? These are the kinds of questions that need to be answered. At some point, there is a reason that it is in the news and everyone is asking questions. We know there is something wrong. One of the problems with McKinsey is the company's history. McKinsey has been involved in a number of activities involving questionable countries, secret contracts, previous involvement with opioids, influencing pharmaceutical companies. On the one hand, McKinsey was telling pharmaceutical companies how to keep selling products and, on the other hand, advising governments to try and solve the problem. That makes no sense. This company certainly raises a lot of ethical issues. McKinsey is also known to have worked with Chinese state-owned enterprises, including one that builds militarized islands in the South China Sea. It hosted a corporate retreat on the road to a concentration camp in China's Uighur region. It has worked with companies affiliated with the Russian state, long after the 2014 Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is public, known information; however, eventually, a decision has to be made. Once the government has that information, what does it do with it? Will contracts continue to be awarded to conduct studies, provide information and tell our public service how to handle various strategic issues, such as defence or immigration? The influence of the McKinsey reports was clear, in relation to the Century Initiative, when the Minister of Immigration announced Canada's new immigration targets before Christmas, in November. The plan is to bring in 500,000 people per year starting in 2025, to increase Canada's population to 100 million by 2100. However, whenever we ask questions, the answers come from elsewhere, because the minister never even bothered to absorb the information himself. People come and give numbers, without considering the francophonie, for example, or our accommodation capacity. We are talking about 12 million people in greater Montreal; I will give the leader of the Bloc Québécois credit for talking about this. As a result, eventually, people start to wonder where this information is coming from and how we got to the point where our own government essentially has no idea what to do and turns to McKinsey for answers. It simply executes the plan only to realize later that it does not work. Our motion is simple. We hope the government will support it and understand that we need the Auditor General of Canada to get to the bottom of all this so we can find out what really happened, especially considering the tough economic times we are in. Canadian taxpayers want the government to manage their money properly. All we have been seeing for the past eight years is waste. Once again, we are seeing the government award contracts to its friends for advice about things that should cost a lot less; I could call them something other than contracts, but I will refrain. We need to know what the offer was, the bid, so we can see if it makes sense and move forward. That is the point of consultants. If they have good ideas, we use those ideas. However, when we do not know what the idea is and then the government comes out with some kind of vague policy, obviously there is something fishy going on.

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

Feb/6/23 3:55:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, can the member be very clear and indicate whether Dominic Barton has ever sat down with Stephen Harper?

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

Feb/6/23 3:55:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I am sure he did. The Conservative government at the time, with former finance minister Jim Flaherty, also worked with Dominic Barton. We have never tried to hide that. The Liberals can say whatever they want, but we were clear. We know contracts were awarded. We know Mr. Barton talked with Mr. Flaherty, but we also know that, in 2014, McKinsey got no more contracts while the Conservatives were in power. There were also no contracts during the 2015 transition. It started up again in 2016, and we want to know why.

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Ms. Andréanne Larouche (Shefford, BQ)

Feb/6/23 3:55:54 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Charlesbourg—Haute‑Saint‑Charles for his speech. He spoke about the ethical issue, and that is a huge problem with McKinsey. The government hired a private company, which was not a duly elected entity, and it made recommendations, in place of the public service, that catered to private interests. This is clearly a serious and blatant case of conflict of interest. My colleague spoke about the Century Initiative, which does not at all consider how these people could be welcomed with dignity or the resources required to receive them. Its recommendations are based only on the interests of a private firm. I would like to hear what my colleague has to say about the importance of the ethics behind the whole McKinsey situation.

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

Feb/6/23 3:56:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague from Shefford for her question. That is the crux of the matter. As long as there is secrecy surrounding all the studies commissioned and paid for by a firm that provides strategic plans and advice on how to direct Canada's destiny, I think we have a right to know what is going on. This is all shrouded in secrecy, but there is still a way to do it right. For example, when, on one hand, the Department of National Defence, a strategic department, receives strategic advice from McKinsey, and, on the other hand, McKinsey gives strategic advice to defence companies, such as Lockheed Martin or others, there is clearly a conflict of interest. When I asked Mr. Barton about that in committee, he said that McKinsey puts up a wall between the two. The fact is, we are the ones facing that wall. Right now, the department has information and private companies have information, but the only party that knows all of that information is McKinsey. We, as parliamentarians, are in the dark.

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Ms. Niki Ashton (Churchill—Keewatinook Aski, NDP)

Feb/6/23 3:57:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to make a comment. We know that Canadians are really struggling right now because of inflation and the cost of living. Day after day, life is becoming increasingly difficult. Meanwhile, they are once again seeing the Liberal government lining the pockets of its friends and contacts with taxpayers' money. What does my colleague think about this injustice when many Canadians are facing hard times?

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

Feb/6/23 3:58:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. That is exactly what I said at the beginning of my speech. These are hard times. People are working hard for their money, and many of them do not have enough to live on because inflation is making everything more expensive. We have here a government that is freely squandering taxpayers' money. These questions deserve answers. That is why, today, we are asking that the Auditor General of Canada investigate the contracts awarded to McKinsey.

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Mrs. Anna Roberts (King—Vaughan, CPC)

Feb/6/23 3:59:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I listened very intently to my colleague, and I have to say that as a taxpayer and as a shareholder of this country, I think it is our responsibility to explain to taxpayers why and when this money was spent, and how it was spent. After all, there is only one taxpayer in this country. We deserve to give taxpayers that answer. That is why we were sent to this House: to be honest and loyal. I would like a comment from my colleague on how we can encourage the Liberals to provide us with that information.

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

Feb/6/23 3:59:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question. That is the basis of our commitment. That is the reason why we were elected to the House. When a person runs for federal office, it is to work in the interest of Canadians. Each and every one of us represents about 100,000 people. These people trust us to represent them and to work in their best interests. However, what we have been seeing for the past eight years, particularly in the file we are talking about today, is a government that does not work in the best interests of citizens. That is why we, the opposition parties, are calling on the government to do its job and be accountable to Canadians.

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

Feb/6/23 4:00:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting process that we are going through today. I plan to speak on the issue, but we need to have a sense of why we are debating it today. I would say I am surprised, but I am not. It is more a sense of disappointment. One would think that the Conservative Party, at some point, would recognize that what Canadians are looking for is leadership. Today is an amplification of what the Conservative agenda is all about. It is not to talk about its own plans or policy ideas, with cryptocurrency being the exception. At the end of the day, Conservatives are more focused on character assassination. This is the reason I posed the questions earlier to the opposition, both members. The image they try to portray is one of corruption, yet in the answers they gave one would then have to try to make the connection to Stephen Harper. After all, Stephen Harper and his government were probably closer to the company and individual in question. I would say there is a very good chance, just based on the answers that were provided. The Conservatives are very good at stating something inside and even outside the chamber that is factually incorrect. I suspect what we are seeing today is another attempt by the Conservative Party to look under all the different rocks to try to find something with which they can attack individuals on the government side, to give a false impression that the government is corrupt. That is the type of thing we have witnessed for eight years from the Conservative Party. Today we are supposed to be talking about Bill C-34. Bill C-34 is about investing in Canada and protecting Canadians from a security point of view. Tomorrow is an opposition day. Why is that important? I believe that the Conservatives are once again discussing a motion that was passed in a committee. I would like to look at how the motion passed in committee. I was not even in the committee, so I will have to speculate. I had to look at the report. It is not a very complicated report. I would summarize it by saying a majority of individuals on the committee got together and passed the motion so that the Conservative Party could debate a concurrence motion in the House. Conservatives across the way heckled, “Hear, hear.” That is what took place, as confirmed by the Conservative opposition. In essence, they are hijacking another day of debate, when we are supposed to be talking about Bill C-34, so they can talk about this issue. They will say they should be able to talk about this issue. The rules do allow for that. We have opposition days. We have an opposition day tomorrow. One would think the Conservatives, if they were genuine in wanting to deal with this, would not need to coerce the Bloc, the New Democrats and I am not too sure about the Greens in bringing forward this detailed report. I say detailed report, but I could read it in a minute. That is how detailed the entire report is. I have sat on standing committees, not too many, and they do some fantastic work. However, at times they get a little too political. When one does not even have any sort of background, details or real explanation and when all one has is a statement, which is the report, I need to question what the actual motivation was. I believe the Conservatives have conned the other opposition parties. They have come up with a way that they can get a bonus opposition day. The ironic thing is they are going to be criticizing the government in the future for not calling Bill C-34. They are going to cry and say that they want more debate time on Bill C-34 or other government legislation and will ask why the government will not allow for it, yet they are wasting government time on this end. It is truly amazing how the Conservative Party is so focused on the issue of corruption and does not care about the average Canadian and what Canadians are going through. Let me read the report. This is the entire report: That the Auditor General be called upon to conduct, as soon as possible, a performance and value for money audit of the contracts awarded to McKinsey & Company since January 1, 2011, by any department, agency or Crown corporation. That is the entire report. I figure the 2011 was probably a compromise. The Bloc probably said that they needed to go beyond just the Liberal years to include some of the Conservative years. Maybe they had to compromise a little in order to get the agreement to ultimately get it to pass so the Conservative Party could have another bonus opposition day at the expense of debating government legislation. That is what I suspect. Mr. Randy Hoback: We are not nervous. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, the member across the way says they are not nervous. He did not hear the answers from his colleagues. We know the current Prime Minister does not have a relationship with Dominic Barton. Dominic Barton has said that. The previous Conservative member who just spoke gave me an answer that Dominic had a relationship with Jim Flaherty. Who was Jim Flaherty? He was the minister of finance under Stephen Harper. I thought this was all about Liberal friends. Mr. Flaherty was not a Liberal. Mr. Randy Hoback: Oh, that is true. Mr. Kevin Lamoureux: Mr. Speaker, that is true, and Dominic and Flaherty met, but that does not fit the agenda the Conservatives have. I asked if there were contracts under Stephen Harper, and the answer was yes. There were contracts with the company and the Stephen Harper government knew Dominic, yet they are saying it was a friendly, Liberal company and we gave it all these contracts. I would suggest it is a gross exaggeration to give the impression that this company received contracts from the government because of a friendship or a political affiliation. The Conservative Party knows that, but it does not matter. The fact is that the Conservatives want to focus their attention on character assassination. That is really what it is all about. At the end of the day, we need to recognize that at times there is a need for outside contracts. This is not the only government that has outside contracts. Whether it is provincial, municipal or indigenous governments, or whether it is the private sector or one of the many different corporations or non-profit groups, at times they all go outside in order to get contracts, as Stephen Harper did with the same company they are asking the public accounts to look at. They talk about how there has been growth. No kidding, there has been growth. Have they not been around for the last three years? Do they not realize that we have been going through a pandemic? Do they not understand that there has been a great deal of pressure on Canada's civil servants in our public sector? We developed programs virtually from ground zero. The CERB program is a good example. I do not know offhand what contracts were awarded to McKinsey & Company, but I can say that many of the programs we established did not exist prior to the pandemic. Of course, we are going to be doing some work outside of the civil service when we have those types of demands. I would hazard a guess that not only did Canada do that, but also the United States and European countries did likewise. I suspect people will find that over the last three years there has been an increase in contracting out for consulting and so forth. I would challenge the Conservative brain trust to clearly demonstrate that I am wrong with that assertion, but I do not believe they will be able to. I am not talking about the brain trust. I am talking about the examples. At the end of the day, I believe that governments around the world were put in a position over the last few years, because of the worldwide pandemic, to reach out. Different times dictate different actions. I am not too sure why the debate today on Bill C-34 had to be sidetracked. It seems that a majority of the House was in favour of it. I would like to have seen that bill considered for passage or have more time for debate. It will be interesting to get feedback from the official opposition, in particular, as to how many hours they feel that piece of legislation should be debated. The issue we are talking about now would have been a better discussion to have at the committee stage and have an actual report that provides more details. I can honestly say when I posed the questions earlier, like asking about Stephen Harper, I did not know what the answer was. I went to the table to ask if I could get a copy of the report, because I was told earlier that it is a very short report. I thought there might have been some thinking that went into the process of having the motion brought forward based on a discussion or some sort of explanation other than an instruction. There are a lot of relevant issues that could have been talked about, like the issue of the procurement process and what we have to go through in order to be able to procure and get the many types of contracts we acquire. How does that differ from previous years? If we do a comparison between 2008 and 2016 or 2021, I would anticipate that because of the pandemic there would have been an increase compared to the years prior. Everything depends on what is on the agenda and what is taking place, not only here in Ottawa but also around the country and around the world. Having some of that background information would be far more fruitful than a simple motion that appears in the report. As I indicated, I was not sitting at the committee. However, based on the fact that, I suspect, it was not a unanimous motion that was brought forward, and I am sure the members across the way will tell me if I am wrong on this, and that it was done in such a fashion that it did not allow for a proper study in the standing committee, I would question the rationale behind that. We have had very clear indication from the Prime Minister that the issue is being looked at by two ministers, the Minister of Procurement and the President of the Treasury Board. They will be looking into the matter and ultimately reporting back. There is a high level of accountability on contracts that are issued, and that will continue. However, to what degree did the standing committee actually ask the questions that needed to be asked and provide some background information for the report before it came to the committee, as opposed to making one demand and one demand only? I do not quite understand the rationale behind it. That is something I would have expected to hear about when the mover of the motion brought it forward. If members review concurrence motions, they will find that the mover of this motion is not new to this. He has likely moved more motions for concurrence than anyone else. He is a mischievous little guy, I would suggest. At the end of the day, I really do think it is a legitimate question to ask of the committee: Why was there not any opportunity to get some sort of background analysis in terms of justifying the position that the committee has taken? I would hope that members, in addressing this motion, will see it for what it is. This is not a genuine attempt for more transparency and accountability. That is what it is not. What it is is an ongoing attempt by the official opposition, in particular, to engage in personal attacks and character assassination. Anything that can be perceived as making the government look corrupt, the Conservatives will bring it up and they will hammer it because they do not want to talk about policy. If we were not debating this, we would be debating investments into Canada, the type of investments that create thousands and thousands of jobs. We would be talking about the many good things that are happening and providing constructive criticism, no doubt, in terms of where or how we can change public policy. However, I do not believe the Conservative Party is interested in public policy at all. I believe it is only interested in one thing, and I have made reference to that and I find it unfortunate. I would leave it at the point of saying to the opposition members that when time allocation happens to come in on some piece of legislation, I hope each and every one of them will reflect on the way they chose today, as opposed to debating government bills, to stay the course of character assassination and to usurp government business and take it as another opposition opportunity for debate, as opposed to debating government legislation. Bill C-34 is ultimately a good piece of legislation, and it would have been nice to continue that debate and have those additional three hours of debate. Through that, 15 or 20 MPs have lost the opportunity to contribute to that debate, but we will have to wait and see.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Feb/6/23 4:20:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the questions my friend across the way asked was why we insist on talking about Liberal corruption. Why do the Conservatives think that Liberal corruption is an important issue to debate in this House? I want to give two principal reasons. Number one, it speaks to the character of the government. The Prime Minister has, on multiple occasions, been found to have violated ethics laws. That matters in terms of our evaluation of who is running the country and the implications it has for whose side he is on. Also, let us talk about the waste associated with Liberal corruption. Canadians are struggling. Canadians are paying higher taxes. Canadians are struggling with inflation that is being driven by government spending, so when they see this ballooning of spending on McKinsey, but also on consultants in general, when they see that, on the one hand, the public service is growing, but on the other hand there is more work being taken out of the public service with compounding increases in spending, that is very frustrating to Canadians who are struggling, who wonder why they are paying so much in taxes when the government is essentially duplicating these functions by having a bigger public service and by contracting work out. The member asked why this motion is important. It is important because the adoption of this motion by the House asks the independent Auditor General to conduct this investigation. That is the issue. The member opposite clearly does not want the Auditor General doing this work. He does not want the Auditor General getting to the bottom of this, but I think the majority of this House wants to hear from the Auditor General about Liberal corruption. That is why we think this motion is important, to bring in the Auditor General to get to the bottom of this.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Feb/6/23 4:22:19 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this is not a time-sensitive motion. The member could have brought forward this motion tomorrow, in an opposition day, but the opposition members decided they do not want to talk about policy ideas. The only policy idea they have had was that stupid cryptocurrency thing, where the Conservative leader said cryptocurrency is the way to go to fight inflation. That is their only policy idea that I have detected. They do not want to talk about policy. They have nothing about the environment. Their focus has been strictly on character assassination since day one. The moment the leader of the Liberal Party became the leader of the Liberal Party, they were after him. We can just take a look at the S.0. 31 statements before 2015. That has been their priority. It is sad.

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Ms. Monique Pauzé (Repentigny, BQ)

Feb/6/23 4:23:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the parliamentary secretary always gets very worked up when he speaks. It is interesting, but we do not fully agree with him. He always says that we should talk about the relevant issues. There are several relevant issues that are being raised in the House. There are still some troubling things involving the McKinsey firm. At the time the contracts were awarded, the firm was already the subject of major ethical concerns around the world. The firm was associated with the opioid crisis and the immigration issue, as was discussed. It is relevant to bring this up in the House and discuss it. That is what democracy is all about.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Feb/6/23 4:24:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I do believe that, as the member said, these are important issues. That is the reason why, I would suggest, it does not need to be done in a concurrence motion. There are many different reports that we would have concurrence motions on. There would never ever be a day of government business for the rest of the year if we just did concurrence motions on reports. There is an opposition day tomorrow, when the opposition members could have had this same debate. Instead of using an opposition day, they want to double down. Doubling down means there is less time for government bills. We have seen that the Conservatives do not like to sit late into the evening either to have debate on government bills. We have seen that. We have asked for more debate. The Conservative Party cannot have it both ways. I agree that we can have a good, healthy debate on the types of issues and concerns that the member from the Bloc has raised, but there is a time and place. I would suggest that now is not necessarily the time and place, when there are alternatives.

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Mr. Greg McLean (Calgary Centre, CPC)

Feb/6/23 4:25:26 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I arrived here today ready to debate the matter at hand. The feedback I got from my constituents was about where the $100 million-plus went that the government has wasted on one consultancy over a handful of years. This is something Canadians are seeing right now. I hope the hon. member across the way will see that addressing the way the government is spending or wasting taxpayers' funds is part of our job in the opposition here. It has risen to the level where the public is very concerned about where the government is spending all the taxpayers' money. Will the member across the way address how high this number has to go before he thinks it should be of concern to Canadian taxpayers?

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Feb/6/23 4:26:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would not say a dollar figure. Let me give the member an example. Stephen Harper flies to India. He wants to have his own personal car. He spends a million Canadian tax dollars to fly a car from Canada to India, so that he would have a car to drive in. I would argue that this was an absolute, total waste of tax dollars. I raised the issue, but I did not think of going to committee and passing a report saying, let us investigate why he spent a million dollars to have a car flown from Canada to India. The point is that there is no doubt that when one spends billions of tax dollars, there are always going to be questionable dollars that are spent. There are many opportunities for us to look at ways in which we can investigate and make sure that the taxpayer's dollar is, as much as possible, not being wasted. However, I do not think this is necessarily what this issue is about. For the Conservatives, the issue is more about character assassination than it is about how much money has gone out. After all, they had given contracts to the very same company. The relationship with Jim Flaherty was a whole lot stronger than what it was with this government.

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Ms. Elizabeth May (Saanich—Gulf Islands, GP)

Feb/6/23 4:27:39 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I find myself in sympathy with the parliamentary secretary, up to a point. Although the hon. parliamentary secretary did say that, somehow, the Conservatives had conned the opposition parties into letting them do this, we did not have a choice. This is what happens when, on a concurrence debate, our debate for the day is hijacked. However, this is an important issue. This is what I want to raise. Again, we do not need to just pick on McKinsey & Company. As we dig into this, it appears to me that contracting out to numerous large, global multinationals like IBM and others is a big chunk of our taxpayers' dollars that should be getting done within the civil service. I point to a very useful comment from the Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, our high-level union within the Government of Canada, that contracting fees and outsourcing have doubled since 2011. I have been in this place that long and the doubling of outsourcing to large private corporations bothers me. It bothers me that, as Kevin Page, our former parliamentary budget officer, described it, it is basically a discussion we should have right here in Parliament on where taxpayers' dollars get spent, on consumption or investment. The government should not be out consuming a lot of private contractors at high levels. It creates waste. The Government of Canada, internally, should be able to do most of the work. Sometimes there will be an emergency or a workplace shortage, I understand that, but in general, when I last worked as a member of a minister's staff, which was back in the 1980s, we did not rely on McKinsey & Company, nor did we rely on IBM. We had top-notch civil servants who could do all the work that the Government of Canada needed done.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Feb/6/23 4:29:38 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I respect what the member is saying. The only thing I would add would be that, today, if we take a look at the IT industry, as an example, and the amount of expertise that is required in order to be able to advance IT, computer systems, data banks and all that kind of stuff, I cannot imagine any government in the world actually having it all insourced. There has to be outsourcing that goes in that, in terms of contracts. When I think in terms of the pandemic, the amount of outsourcing for contracts might have increased. That is why I will be much more interested in the percentage for 2015-16. I suspect that the amount of outsourcing might actually go down over the next year or two, possibly. I do not know. I do not have the background analysis because there was no background analysis done on this report. All it was was just a very simple statement.

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