44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 1, 2023 02:00PM
- Nov/1/23 3:09:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, 250,000 businesses are at risk of bankruptcy if the federal government does not push back the deadline for repaying the Canada emergency business account loans without loss of subsidy. If the government thinks it is expensive to help businesses, it has not calculated how much it costs to abandon them. How many companies will be unable to repay the loans in full? How many collections will it have to undertake to get its money back? How many workers will end up on employment insurance?
When will the minister finally realize that causing 250,000 bankruptcies is going to cost her dearly?
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- Nov/1/23 3:11:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, presenting information in this fashion is called disinformation. It is unbelievable that we have to explain to the government that forcing 250,000 businesses to go bankrupt is not economically viable, but we will keep trying. The government thinks that taking a hard line with our SMEs helps curb inflation. On the contrary, all these bankruptcies will increase the scarcity of goods and services, which could impact the prices people have to pay. This could in turn drive up the cost of living while hurting local economies.
Why take such a risk when the government could simply show some flexibility with our SMEs?
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- Nov/1/23 6:56:07 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am continuing a speech I was able to start a few days ago. I would like to start from the beginning, but quickly, and present a chronology of the whole ArriveCAN affair.
On April 29, 2020, the government launched the ArriveCAN app nationwide. It then took several months for it to make the app mandatory, which happened on November 21, 2020. This meant that anyone re-entering Canada from that point on had to register and use the ArriveCAN application. Everyone who left the country and returned to Canada realized that the ArriveCAN app was not very sophisticated.
On October 24, 2022, the Canada Border Services Agency announced the costs of the application on its website. We are talking $55 million over three years. Costs totalled more than $55 million over the three-year period from 2020 to 2023, including $80,000 for the first mobile version of the app and $8.6 million for more than 70 updates to the app and the related website. It is worth nothing that 70 updates is a lot, especially for an app that, on the whole, is pretty straightforward. Another $7.9 million was spent on data management and $6.4 million on data storage and cloud services. That is a lot of money. That is the first observation.
Second, on October 31, 2022, pursuant to a motion adopted by the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, the Canada Border Services Agency provided an updated table of non-salary expenditures related to ArriveCAN, along with the names of the companies contracted to develop the app.
On November 2, 2022, one year ago tomorrow, the House voted in this very chamber to adopt the motion calling on the Auditor General to investigate and audit the ArriveCAN app. I point out that this motion was adopted by a majority in the House of Commons, but not unanimously.
On January 23, so about two months later, when the Prime Minister was asked about it, he replied that the contracting process for ArriveCAN had been illogical and inefficient.
On October 4, 2023, so just under a month ago, two articles in The Globe and Mail reported allegations of misconduct in the Canada Border Services Agency's IT contracting process.
On Thursday, October 12, the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, on which I have the pleasure of sitting, convened an emergency meeting to ensure that the information gathered by The Globe and Mail would be taken into consideration by the Auditor General, who, I would remind the House, is to conduct an audit on the matter. The chair of our committee explained that he convened that meeting following the announcement of an RCMP investigation into allegations of misconduct in the contracting process.
Madam Speaker, there is a lot of background noise. I would like to be able to deliver my speech in a more conducive environment.
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- Nov/1/23 6:59:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the look I gave was enough.
As I was saying, the audit report of the Auditor General of Canada was expected to be presented this month. However, because of new allegations made in the newspapers, the Auditor General of Canada told us during the special committee meeting that she would be extending the deadline for her audit into the winter.
I will briefly summarize the main points of the article, which is very interesting. I have to point out that a healthy democracy needs this kind of real investigative journalism. Two IT experts from the Botler company say they witnessed dubious or at least questionable practices in the procedure used to allocate public funds for software development contracts. Specifically, they received money from a contract that they had not even signed and that had been signed without their knowledge. That is serious.
There were also ties to CBSA staff, and the GC Strategies firm is being particularly hard hit by the potential scandal.
GC Strategies, the consulting firm, has been singled out. It has not yet been charged, but is potentially being charged with transferring data to third-party, unknown companies that are potentially dubious once again. We are talking about personal data. People who travel and put personal information on a government platform expect their data to be respected. We know that potentially dangerous data transfers have occurred.
This controversy is in addition to the $54-million price tag for the ArriveCAN app last year. As I said, the first thing is that there was a very high price tag for a rather simple app. On top of that, the contracts that were awarded to companies for developing this app are especially dubious. We are very much looking forward to seeing the report of the Auditor General of Canada.
I would like to mention one last thing about the special meeting that we had. The Globe and Mail reported that the Canada Border Services Agency received warnings about the questionable ties between the IT consultants and some federal public servants, so people at the CBSA had the information. What happened is that they decided to launch an investigation themselves on their end. We know that the RCMP and the CBSA launched investigations at the same time as the Auditor General of Canada's audit.
What comes next is very important. During the special meeting that was held about the ArriveCAN app, during which we spoke to the Auditor General of Canada, I asked her the question and she answered that she was not even aware that those investigations were taking place. The Auditor General herself was not informed of the fact that government agencies and departments were conducting an investigation on their end, when that is her job and she had been mandated by the House to conduct an audit. There was no communication there.
It is rather typical of the government not to consult interested parties, but it is rather inappropriate that it did not inform the Auditor General of Canada that it was conducting its own investigation into a potential scandal.
From day one, ArriveCAN has been a clear example of government incompetence. Before even knowing that the RCMP was investigating allegations of criminal misconduct in the awarding of contracts, we already knew that the app cost a lot of money.
Nearly a year later, we find out other things from the article in The Globe and Mail. The Auditor General of Canada confirmed that she is not aware of an investigation being conducted by the Canada Border Services Agency and by the RCMP. When the articles came out, we were able to hold a special meeting. However, the report of the Auditor General of Canada still not having been published, we wonder why the focus on wanting to talk about this app.
It goes without saying, but we think that the Auditor General should carry out her work with the collaboration of all the departments. Given that she is mandated by Parliament, we expect the Auditor General of Canada to present her report so that we can get to the bottom of things and find out what happened with ArriveCAN. We know that there were some questionable actions, but we do not know exactly what happened. A professional person and third party needs to conduct the investigation and settle the matter.
We are dealing with a government that voted against the motion calling on the Auditor General to conduct an audit. On the face of it, that does not look good for our current democracy. Meanwhile, motion after motion is moved, and we are currently debating a third-party committee report about an app when the Auditor General is already investigating the matter.
We cannot help but wonder what the Conservatives are up to. Are they trying to block the work of Parliament? That is what I am wondering, and that is what the folks in my party are wondering. We would like to move on to serious matters and get to work.
The Conservatives' actions today are not worthy of a party that wants to be in power. At the end of the day, we are the only ones acting responsibly in this Parliament.
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- Nov/1/23 7:06:39 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we know, and it is our party's position, that there may have been problems with the tourism industry and that it potentially paid the price for the application.
However, we are supposed to be debating a number of other topics. At the moment, we are debating committee reports when we should be moving bills forward.
Why is it that every day in committee a constant stream of motions prevent us from really doing our job?
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