44th Parl. 1st Sess.
November 22, 2023 02:00PM
- Nov/22/23 3:27:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, just in response to the point of order from the member for Thunder Bay—Superior North, I do want to draw the attention of the House to the fact that on February 23, 2016, that member used the same word in quite the same context.
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- Nov/22/23 6:40:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his passion in standing with Ukraine in general.
I want to point out something, building on his comments about the importance of munitions. At the trade committee, Conservatives actually proposed a motion that would allow the committee to adopt amendments that would expand the scope of the bill and include specific measures that would increase the export of weapons from Canada to Ukraine and allow Canadian businesses to do more to support the development of weapons manufacturing in Ukraine. There are very important amendments that we are developing that would actually put into the deal the thing that should have been in it, which is more weapons.
It is shameful that Liberals at the trade committee voted against our proposed instruction motion that would have expanded the scope of the bill. We have Liberals saying, on the one hand, that we must be for the carbon tax or we are against Ukraine. On the other hand, they are voting against our motion that would actually put weapons exports into the trade agreement. The members opposite should know that the priority of the Ukrainian government is weapons. We fight a war with weapons, not with a carbon tax. That is why Conservatives are—
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- Nov/22/23 6:55:50 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just in response to that last intervention, I think it is fairly obvious that trade deals need to be evaluated based on the substance of what is in those deals. There is a long history of various parties in this House opposing certain trade deals, doing so because they had particular views on provisions in those deals. It was not because they did not care about the other countries with which the deals were negotiated. It is because they had issues with the content of the deals.
In particular, the Liberals have tried to sneak a carbon tax provision into this trade deal. Meanwhile, Conservatives have tried to amend the deal to support expanded weapons transfer. We can ask anyone connected with the Ukrainian government or the Ukrainian community; they may have a variety of opinions on the particulars of the deal in general but if someone were to ask them what their priority is, weapons or a carbon tax, I think they would all say the priority is weapons, not a carbon tax.
We need to keep the eye on the ball here, which is that Ukraine needs to win this war. That means having the weapons and munitions that will allow it to win this war. The Liberals voted against including weapons in this deal. They are the ones abandoning Ukraine. We are the ones standing with Ukraine.
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- Nov/22/23 7:11:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it was a great pleasure working with my colleague on the foreign affairs committee in the course of the development of this report.
We are in a new global cold war. The member correctly describes the way in which access to commodities is a crucial part of that struggle. Canada developing its capacity in areas around food and fuel and supplying our democratic allies around the world in order to make them less dependent on Russia and other hostile powers is a very important part of this struggle for freedom and democracy. That is why Conservatives have championed the role Canada can play in supporting global energy security.
Sadly, the Liberals do not understand this. Their anti-energy ideology is getting in the way of Canada playing its global role in defending global security. It is very telling that in an agreement that should have been about supporting Ukraine in meeting its food and fuel needs, supporting Europe with its energy security and a deal that could have included provisions around energy security, the government instead wanted to impose a carbon tax on Canadians as well as Ukrainians, which underlines how wrong it is. This is the big question right now.
In their hearts everybody would say they want to help Ukraine, but the concrete way to help Ukraine, yes, crucially, is to supply it with weapons, but to also undermine European dependence on fuel exports as part of the Russian war machine. This is what has been missing. This is what needs to change.
I would like my colleague's comments on how important it is to take into consideration the energy security dimension of this new cold war.
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- Nov/22/23 7:15:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. There is some confusion here, but the member said that he was splitting his time. He recalls saying that, so I believe the question and comments period should be over and we should be on to the next speech. Many members heard that said.
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- Nov/22/23 7:16:48 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we agree to unanimously hold that it had been said.
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- Nov/22/23 7:32:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague for his excellent work. Could he remind the House of what happened at the international trade committee yesterday? It was not just Liberals; it was also the NDP. They voted together to oppose Conservative efforts to expand the bill and get more weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine needs weapons and not a carbon tax. Liberals and New Democrats voted against expanding the trade deal to include weapons.
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- Nov/22/23 7:42:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am here to speak on the arrive scam.
However, in a brief coda to the previous debate, the NDP House leader was talking about the importance of supporting Ukraine, trying to wrap himself in blue and yellow. It is important to tell the House that the NDP has consistently opposed giving Ukraine the weapons it needs. In fact, I will quote from the member for Edmonton Strathcona, the NDP foreign affairs critic, who said, last February at committee:
Some people in this committee and some members of our Parliament have been calling on the government to provide lethal weapons to Ukraine. I have some concerns about that, obviously.
Do you believe there are risks—
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- Nov/22/23 7:43:09 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I was simply reading a quote, which I think is on the record, that showed the NDP speaking out against giving lethal weapons to Ukraine. Ukraine needs weapons.
I will speak now about the arrive scam app, which is a grotesque scandal that I think many Canadians are seized with. It is actually more like a family of scandals; it is a number of different scandals that are interrelated. The government spent $54 million developing an app, which is far in excess of what it had spent on apps before. It spent $54 million developing a glitchy app that did not work and that sent many Canadians into quarantine who should not have been in quarantine.
In the process, the government hired not a major company or a company with IT expertise. Rather, it hired GC Strategies, a company of two people working out of their basement and who did no IT work. They simply subcontracted all of the actual work. That would be like the Speaker's hiring me to paint her fence for $100, my then hiring the member for Winnipeg North to paint the fence for $20, and my pocketing $80. He did all the work, and the Speaker was sort of fine with that arrangement. That is what happened consistently. I think Canadians have a grave problem with why the two-person company that did nothing got all the work. The RCMP is now investigating the contractors. Meanwhile, there is an admission that fraudulent resumes were submitted to the Government of Canada by GC Strategies, and there are senior public servants accusing each other of lying about who is responsible for the choice to hire GC Strategies.
We need an answer from the government on this, because we have tried to ask senior public servants, and they have accused each other. They have said, “It wasn't me; he chose GC” and “No, someone else chose GC Strategies.” One can understand why nobody wants to take credit for the decision, given the fact that a company with no IT experience and that did no work was hired. The government needs to explain, because it was a decision made by the Government of Canada.
In the midst of these structural problems about contracting, fraudulent resumes and public servants accusing each other of lying, will the government finally tell us who is responsible for choosing GC Strategies for ArriveCAN?
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- Nov/22/23 7:47:43 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that great fog of a non-response obviously gets nowhere close to the question I asked. I will repeat it. We have the arrive scam scandal: $54 million that was spent on an app that should have cost much, much less. Money was spent through a company that did no IT work and subcontracted all of the actual work.
We need to know who is responsible. Who made the choice to hire GC Strategies? There are senior public servants, Cameron MacDonald and Minh Doan, accusing each other of lying about who is responsible. Somebody has to be responsible. The government made the decision to give the money to GC Strategies for the arrive scam app. It is a simple question: Who was responsible for the decision to hire GC Strategies for the ArriveCAN app?
Finally, to the parliamentary secretary, who was the person responsible for hiring GC Strategies?
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