44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 27, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/27/24 11:15:50 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, we are gathered—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
11 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/27/24 11:16:16 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, we are gathered here today to discuss a Conservative Party opposition motion. While we expected to have another of many motions on the carbon tax, which does not apply in Quebec and represents less than 0.15% of inflation, it was a wonderful surprise to see that we were going to talk about something else. Honestly, that feels good.
Today's motion is on the ArriveCAN application, a matter that has been before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates for study since October 22 and for which I have the pleasure of reading every document that we receive. In fact, I have prepared a table of contents, and, so far, these documents represent 27 pages of table of contents. That will give members an idea. What is more, I have not even finished it all yet. I also want to point out that my hon. colleague from Terrebonne, who is also examining the ArriveCAN app at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, is the next speaker. I will be sharing my time with her.
So far, we have met with 46 witnesses and received two briefs, as well as tens of thousands of pages of documents. Just to give members an idea, the table of contents so far is 27 pages long. Naturally, I have not read it all yet. Reading is one thing, analyzing is another. Connecting each piece of information to form a cohesive and coherent whole will take more than five minutes. It will take more than a 15-second sound bite on social media.
Why introduce this motion today if the subject is being studied in committee? Some of us may be wondering. This is one of the questions I will attempt to answer in my speech by giving an overview of the situation as we understand it so far. I will talk more about what ArriveCAN is and about what has happened since 2022, in other words, about what we have learned.
ArriveCAN is an app that travellers were obliged to use for declaring their vaccination status at customs. The first contracts for ArriveCAN date from 2017, long before the pandemic. The aim of these contracts was to create an app that would facilitate declarations at Canadian customs. The health aspect was added to the app in 2020. That is when everything appears to have started going off the rails.
How much was the app supposed to cost at first? So far, the answer appears to be $80,000. In 2022, it was to cost around $250,000, after a team of young programmers copied the app. The team told us in committee that copying an app is much easier than starting from scratch but that, even if they had created it from scratch, applying the security codes and updates, it would not have cost $54 million, the number that was being bandied about at the time. We are now at a cost of $59.5 million.
After that, we found out more about ArriveCAN and its cost. Our investigation revealed that consulting firms had been given hefty contracts. What did these consultants do? Essentially, they turned on their computer, accessed LinkedIn to find specialists and listed them along with their daily fees. Incidentally, the consultants invoiced between $1,000 and $1,500 a day for specialists.
However, we found out through the ombud that 76% of the people on the list of IT specialists submitted by GC Strategies never worked on the app. Other specialists, who were not on the original list, and with who knows what qualifications, did the work. I hope people are following me. That is essentially what the consulting firms did. At the end of the day, they invoiced 15% to 30% to submit names. In short, 15% to 30% of the daily fees invoiced were for specialists who did not end up working on the app.
That reminds me. Remember the two guys who set up a company and, within seven days, had a $237-million contract for 10,000 ventilators? They took that contract and gave it to Baylis Medical, a company owned by a Liberal MP who lost his seat in the 2019 election. If we apply that same percentage, 15%, which is the minimum, that means those two guys pocketed $40 million seven days after starting their business. That sounds a lot like GC Strategies, but in this case, things started well before the pandemic. Things started in 2015 for GC Strategies and in 2007 for Coredal Systems Consulting.
That is the Canadian dream, being a consultant and having an extraordinary ability to find people on LinkedIn. There are similarities there. People set up a business in their basement, take a quick look around and end up with millions of dollars in their pocket at the end of the day. This is all strangely reminiscent of a system that we need to study, analyze and investigate. GC Strategies is not the first of its kind. Its predecessors include companies such as Coredal Systems Consulting and FTI Professional Grade. This is a big deal. The Auditor General says she has never seen worse record-keeping than in the ArriveCAN books. That is a big deal.
Today's motion is about accountability. Yes, the opposition certainly has a role to play in drawing attention to information like that. However, it is not up to Julie Vignola alone, or the member for Terrebonne or a small research team to sift through tens of thousands of pages to find every item related to ArriveCAN. At some point, accountability is also the government's responsibility. It knows where it invested taxpayers' money.
Speaking of taxes, it would be nice if companies hired by the government did not use tax havens, which may be the case for one company that got millions through the ArriveCAN contract. I would encourage everyone to read today's La Presse.
We are being criticized for voting in favour of ArriveCAN. I will point out the estimates in question. ArriveCAN is mentioned in the supplementary estimates (B), 2021-22, on pages pages 2-2 and 2-82. ArriveCAN is also mentioned in the supplementary estimates (C), 2021-22, on page 1-19.
These budgets were voted on as a block. If we had voted against them, like the Conservative Party members did, we would have been voting against the construction and management of indigenous women's shelters, against financial support for festivals and tourism, against community revitalization, against financial support for mental health and against support for Afghan nationals, support that the member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles was screaming for in the House. We also would have been voting against the procurement of PPE.
There is a problem. We agree with the motion, but we also need to put the CBSA under third-party management, because whistle-blowers have been warning of serious problems for quite some time, particularly regarding passports, and members of both the Conservative Party and the Liberal Party have turned a blind eye to these problems. It is time to put this agency under administrative supervision. We will vote yes, but we need to go even further.
1202 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/27/24 11:27:50 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, first of all, I did not name the member, I simply named the company.
Second, I did not lie because FTI Professional Grade Inc. did indeed receive a contract seven days after the company was created. It then transferred that contract to Baylis Medical. Seven days after it was created, that company, FTI, received a $237-million contract for which we can assume there was a 15% to 30% commission.
So I did not make anything up. All one needs to do is follow the paper trail in the newspapers as well as the budgets and contracts allocated during the pandemic.
103 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/27/24 11:29:28 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, when the pandemic started, we might recall that, in terms of vaccine procurement, the federal government put all its eggs in one basket. It reached an agreement with the Chinese government, but the agreement fell through. We were left in the lurch, with no access to vaccines.
Then the Government of Canada decided to diversify its potential pool of vaccine producers, including Medicago, but not without some risk. Some producers, not just Medicago, failed to deliver vaccines for various reasons and, unfortunately, the Government of Canada lost its deposit payment. Following a decision by Mitsubishi Tanabe Pharma, Medicago no longer exists. A decision was made.
Yes, we lost money, but it could have easily turned out in our favour. There was a race to be the first to manufacture vaccines and get access to the market.
138 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/27/24 11:31:42 a.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, unless we keep our eyes on the big picture, spending can easily get out of control. That is true for individuals, and even truer for governments.
We are dealing with a situation where the government not only lost sight of the big picture, but also seems to have spent recklessly without making any checks at all. The problem also relates to problems the agency has been having for a number of years.
74 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/27/24 3:02:56 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, ArriveCAN is the result of the federal government's dependence on dubious consultants.
GC Strategies, a two-man company offering no real services, pocketed $20 million, but it was not the only one. Dalian, another two-person company offering no real services, got $8 million. Ninety-nine per cent of Dalian's contracts are with the federal government. It is hard to know what that company is doing with all that money because La Presse has revealed that it does business in two tax havens.
How many other companies like these is the federal government giving our money to, and what is it doing to make sure our share comes back to us?
117 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/27/24 4:08:37 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I like precision, transparency and education. It worries me when members spread misinformation by voluntarily leaving information out. At least, I hope it is voluntary.
In December 2021, less than three months after an election that all opposition parties and the media considered unnecessary, we passed Supplementary Estimates (C). We did not vote on each individual appropriation as we did last December. We voted on all of them, and they were fast-tracked. Yes, my colleague voted against ArriveCAN, but he also voted against indigenous women's shelters, support for festivals and tourism, community revitalization, mental health supports, support for Afghan nationals and the purchase of personal protective equipment. Eight times he voted against that.
Does he not see the plank in his own eye?
127 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/27/24 4:23:31 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I have the pleasure of working with my colleague at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates and since October 2022 we have been studying the issue of ArriveCAN, with its tens of thousands of pages to read. It is fascinating.
A notice of motion was introduced about Coredal Systems Consulting, which had the same owners as GC Strategies. I wonder how many other businesses we should be looking into.
Does my colleague think that the system that was exposed through ArriveCAN might be even bigger and more widespread than we might think?
96 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/27/24 4:55:40 p.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, working with my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, commonly called the mighty OGGO, is a pleasure.
We have ArriveCAN, where there seems to have been some slip-up. I understand that the situation required fast action, but at some point, the slip-ups keep happening. We have ArriveCAN. Before that it was passports. Before that it was the WE Charity. Before that, it keeps going, it was Phoenix. The reason is always the same: We have to move fast, we have to work, we have to get going.
At some point, do we not need to stop, look around, shift the focus to people's qualifications and put down the rubber stamp?
119 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
