44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 15, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/15/24 2:26:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are still trying to find excuses when they should be trying to find who is responsible.
All these contracts need to be investigated, but the CBSA also needs a major cleanup. It boggles the mind that an $80,000 app could turn into a $60-million scandal without anyone raising any flags.
It boggles the mind that public servants went to dinners and whisky tastings with contractors without their supervisors blinking an eye. This looks like a systemic issue.
Will the government put the CBSA under administrative supervision? It is long overdue.
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- Feb/15/24 2:27:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, our colleague is completely right. An investigation was and is necessary. That is exactly what the Auditor General has worked on over the last few months. She had access—and rightfully so—to all the necessary information to do her work.
We are grateful to her for her report. Obviously, we are appalled by what the report says. That is all the more reason to continue to implement her important recommendations.
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- Feb/15/24 2:27:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for four months, innocent Palestinians have pleaded for help. Close to 30,000 people, including children, have been killed. In Rafah it is even worse.
All we hear from the Prime Minister are empty words. He is concerned, but he will not stop arms sales to Israel. He will not help Canadians fleeing Gaza, and he will not reinstate funding to UNRWA. Maybe the minister's parliamentary secretary should say publicly what he has clearly been saying privately, that UNRWA is the only organization that can help people in Gaza.
When will the Liberals finally act to save Palestinian lives?
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- Feb/15/24 2:28:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, only the NDP would consider that being the first western government to move on humanitarian aid is not enough. Only the NDP would think that adding an additional $40 million to get even more aid to the Palestinians is not enough. Only the NDP would think that our bringing like-minded countries to call for an immediate ceasefire is not enough. We have called for no military action in Rafah, in order to protect 1.8 million civilians. We will take no lessons from the NDP on this.
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- Feb/15/24 2:28:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, being a parent is hard work. It can be exhausting, and people should not be punished for having a family. However, new parents who are laid off through no fault of their own before, during or after parental leave are denied access to the regular employment insurance benefits they paid for.
Women still do most of the unpaid caregiving work for Canadian families, so this disproportionately affects them. It is a clear case of gender discrimination. New moms should not have to cannibalize their EI benefits to get maternity leave, and the government should not have to wait for a court order to do the right thing.
When are the Liberals going to get the job done and end this discrimination against women?
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- Feb/15/24 2:29:24 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's advocacy on this important issue. We have spoken about the ongoing work of modernizing our EI system, and the government continues to make progress on this. As my colleague is aware, this particular issue is before the courts, but make no mistake: We are supporting families, parents and women. Let us look at the child benefit, at $10-a-day child care and at all of the improvements we have made to the EI system, making sure that parents have more access to the system.
We are going to deliver for families and for women. That is what we are here to do and it is exactly what we are going to do.
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- Feb/15/24 2:30:01 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Housing, who was warned that his policies would cause a massive housing shortage, finds himself in hot water once again.
At the Standing Committee on Finance, he admitted that his $4-billion program, the so-called housing accelerator, is not working. No houses have been built and no apartments have been completed. He says the program will not even lead to future construction.
Will he follow my common-sense plan that will encourage municipalities to allow more housing?
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- Feb/15/24 2:30:45 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I think the housing crisis calls for a co-operative approach. What is the Leader of the Opposition's approach? He insults the mayors of Quebec City, Montreal and throughout Canada.
That is not how to engage in a serious housing policy. The accelerator fund that he points to is incenting change at the zoning level municipally. That is critical if we are going to see more supply. It is absolutely vital that we see more supply because that is what underpins the housing crisis in front of us. He is not serious.
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- Feb/15/24 2:31:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, they are working together with municipal politicians to block housing. In fact, the housing minister, when he was immigration minister, was warned his policies would lead to a massive shortage, yet he went ahead with them anyway. He made some incredible admissions yesterday at finance committee. He said, first, that his $4-billion accelerator fund has not completed any homes, and second, “It doesn't actually lead to the construction of specific homes.”
Why does he not instead follow my common-sense plan to link municipal funding to housing construction so we can build homes and not bureaucracy?
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- Feb/15/24 2:32:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is shame; he should follow the proceedings of the finance committee more closely because just a few months ago, officials there testified that his private member's bill, supposedly meant to build more housing, would do exactly the opposite.
He wants to tax home builders. He wants to cut infrastructure that communities require for housing purposes. His best idea, it would seem, to build more homes is to create some sort of 1-800 number where neighbours can rat on each other if they have concerns around NIMBY. It is not a serious approach. He has never been serious about housing. He is playing games.
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- Feb/15/24 2:32:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost or the corruption, and his arrive scam app is just like the Liberal government: costly and corrupt.
Look at the facts: two buddies, a basement office and an IT company that does no IT work yet got a $20-million contract for IT. Now the Auditor General tells us that she cannot track all the costs, saying, “We didn't find records to accurately show how much was spent on what, who did the work, or how and why...decisions were made.”
Will the Prime Minister order his officials to turn over all the documents, stop blocking this investigation and call for a full RCMP investigation?
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- Feb/15/24 2:33:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it may surprise my hon. friend, but the government does not actually direct the national police in terms of investigations. We have confidence that the RCMP will take the important responsibility it has seriously and do all of the work that is required. We have complete faith in the RCMP's independence and in its ability to look into all these matters.
More importantly, the government is also always available to work with parliamentary committees and the Auditor General's Office to ensure that every document is available so this important matter can be resolved.
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- Feb/15/24 2:34:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberals voted against calling in the Auditor General in the first place and blocked multiple attempts at committees to get to the truth. While the rest of the country viewed the pandemic as a difficult time full of hardship, the Liberals saw it as an opportunity to enrich their friends. They got caught funnelling a billion dollars to the WE organization. A former Liberal MP got a sole-source contract worth millions from the pandemic. Now we find out that the Liberals' app cost 750 times what it should have, did not work and was not needed.
The Auditor General says the RCMP is going to have to get a court order to get the documents. Why should it take a warrant for Canadians to find out what the Liberals did with their money?
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- Feb/15/24 2:34:44 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it does not take a warrant for Canadians to see that the government has been transparent, both with the Auditor General and with parliamentary committees.
The facts may bother my friend, but he knows very well that the Auditor General is empowered to do all of this important work. We have accepted the report of the Auditor General. We acted on a number of recommendations before receiving the report because we asked the procurement ombudsperson to look into this matter. We value the importance of respecting taxpayers' money and will always do that.
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- Feb/15/24 2:35:23 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, where was the minister on November 1, 2022? Here in the House, there was a vote on a request by the official opposition and the member for Carleton, the Conservative leader, for the Auditor General to analyze the arrive scam situation. What did the Liberals do? What did the minister do? They voted against that request.
Today, we are asking for access to all the documents. Will the minister once again hide under a rug and vote against this, or will he, for once, step up with the dignity we expect from this government and allow the whole truth about the arrive scam scandal to come out?
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- Feb/15/24 2:36:06 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, my colleague stressed the importance of the Auditor General's work, and rightly so.
The good news is that she tabled a report on Monday with some troubling findings and solid recommendations that we are now implementing or continuing to implement.
The member says she is hiding under a rug. That is not true. The Auditor General is in contact with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and all the other organizations, including internal ones, that will need the information she was able to gather.
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- Feb/15/24 2:36:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the good news is that the Auditor General did her job.
The bad news is that the government did not want her to do her job. Let us imagine what would have happened otherwise. People would just shrug off the fact that ArriveCAN turned out to be a washout, but it would be no big deal. In fact, ArriveCAN is the biggest scandal in Canadian history. That is the reality.
The original $80,000 contract ultimately ballooned to at least $60 million. Today, the Liberals are feigning outrage and saying we need to launch an investigation. Where were the Liberals on November 1, 2022, when it should have been investigated?
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- Feb/15/24 2:37:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, not only did the Auditor General do her job, she did a very good job. We appreciate the work she did and will draw from it. It will help us continue implementing the measures we need, even in times of crisis when situations are extremely complicated for everyone, including Canadians, and when quick action is essential.
In these times of crisis, like all other times of crisis, the basic rules of sound management of the public service still hold.
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- Feb/15/24 2:37:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Quebec's French language commissioner released a report that may shock the immigration minister, but does not surprise anyone in Quebec.
Temporary immigration is setting French back in Quebec. According to the commissioner, it would cost between $10.5 billion and $13 billion to teach French to all newcomers. Needless to say, that is unsustainable.
One of the commissioner's recommendations targets the federal government directly. Will the minister finally ensure that every province welcomes asylum seekers instead of contributing to the decline of French?
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- Feb/15/24 2:38:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, first of all, I would like to point out that we are already transferring $5.2 billion to the Quebec government, partly for French-language instruction.
I hope the member opposite is not saying that he wants to deport people who do not speak French in Canada. That would be an illegal, immoral and inhumane thing to do.
We are well aware that more work needs to be done to share the burden that is falling on Quebec. We will continue to do so with the province of Quebec.
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