SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 286 - Feb/27/24

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

Feb/27/24 3:08:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, those who misuse taxpayers' money will face the consequences in the next election. While common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime, the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption after eight years. We heard ministers telling us today that RCMP criminal investigation into corruption in their government has become so commonplace, after eight years, it is not really news anymore. I am old enough to remember a time when it was a big deal that the RCMP investigated the government. It has been too many times, and it is time the government be held to account. Finally, will the minister tell us whether the government will co-operate with the RCMP investigation?

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Context: House Hansard - 286 - Feb/27/24

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

Feb/27/24 5:15:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this Prime Minister is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption. Today, we are talking about costly criminal corruption, a three-in-one, right at the heart of the government. That is the arrive scam scandal. We found out today that the RCMP is investigating this costly criminal corruption. People are familiar with the arrive scam scandal. I think we should be calling it “the arrive scam scandals”, plural. There are multiple different scandals, and every time, at the public accounts committee and the government operations committee, we turn over a new leaf or a new stone. There is more to uncover, and it speaks to the rot, the crime, the corruption and the capricious disregard for public money that is at the heart of the NDP-Liberal government. We heard today in committee from watchdogs, from the Auditor General's office, from the procurement ombudsman's office, that they are not at all surprised that the RCMP is investigating criminal behaviour in the context of the arrive scam scandal. We heard ministers in question period today, when they were asked about the RCMP investigation, say that it is no big deal and that of course the RCMP is looking into it. We have come to a point, in Canada, after eight years of the Prime Minister and the NDP-Liberal government, where ministers will say, unironically, that the RCMP investigating the behaviour of the government is not a big deal. It is true that there have been many different RCMP investigations involving conduct by and within the current government. However, we should never normalize or accept or tolerate, in Canada, the fact that there would be a government that has so debased our public institutions that it thinks it is normal for the RCMP to be investigating its bad behaviour. What happened in the arrive scam scandal? It is the “arrive scam scandals”. There are many different things at the heart of this problem. We had at least $60 million spent on an app that should have cost $80,000. Many of those who worked on this did not actually do any work. GC Strategies, the company that received this contract, got $20 million for nothing. It simply received the contract and subcontracted it. We do not just have the problem of the government contracting out work. We have the government contracting out to people who contract out. There are multiple layers and levels of subcontracting. It is essentially a two-person company that received this contract, did no work, had no IT expertise and subcontracted. It went on LinkedIn and found people who could do the work for them. It received $20 million for searching on LinkedIn. I think a lot of Canadians would say, “I could get $20 million for just going on social media and looking for people who could do something”. That is the way this government operates. One gets $20 million for looking around on LinkedIn, if one is a well-connected insider. We have no work done and millions of dollars going to GC Strategies for this process of getting contracts and subcontracting. Not only that, we know now, from the Auditor General's report, that the process was rigged. GC Strategies sat down with government officials to determine what the terms of the contract would be, which it would then bid on. The procurement ombudsman revealed that the terms of the contract were designed to drive up costs. They built a system that would incentivize driving up costs and would incentivize contractors to ask the government for more money instead of less. Normal people look for opportunities to spend less when they buy things. This government built a system in which it was in the interests of contractors to charge more instead of less. It built a system that was structurally designed to protect insiders. It was built so that if one was not an insider, one could not get the contract. We have money for nothing, a rigged process, protection for insiders, a process designed to drive up costs. As part of studying this issue at the government operations committee, we found out about faked résumés. GC Strategies, as part of trying to get work, submitted faked résumés. It said that it changed numbers around in résumés and just sent in the wrong version. However, it admitted under questioning that this insider company, as part of its process, changes numbers on résumés in order to make it compliant with the requirements. If the government said that it needed someone with five years' experience and the person had five months of experience, GC Strategies' processes would be to change the number to five years to make it compliant, and then they would go back to the original subcontractor or resource and ask if it was okay that they changed the numbers. In one case, they did not even do that. They just sent in the false résumé. Further, we have instances of tens of thousands of emails being deleted, with the Auditor General saying in so many cases that there is a complete absence of records. The Auditor General cannot confirm if records were destroyed or never existed, although we now have allegations of emails being deleted. We have senior public servants accusing each other of lying to the committee, accusing each other of faking health episodes in order to avoid accountability. We also have reprisals against senior public servants, public servants suspended without pay in the middle of an investigation after they give critical testimony. That is money for no work; a rigged process and protection for insiders driving up costs; fake résumés; senior officials accusing each other of lying and reprisals among senior public servants. The result of all that was an app that went through 177 versions and sent over 10,000 people into quarantine as a result of a tech glitch, because they could not bother to test it. What a disaster. What a complete and utter disaster this arrive scam fiasco has been. After eight years, the government would say that the RCMP is investigating this whole family of scandals. That is just the way things work. On this side of the House, we say no. We say that Canadians deserve clean, efficient, effective government and a government, by the way, in which elected leaders take responsibility. Liberals would have us believe that they had nothing to do with this. “Oh, my goodness, can you believe the things that happen to us when we're ministers? All these public servants are doing things that we know nothing about.” Our system is built on the principle of ministerial accountability, which is that ministers are responsible for what happens in their departments and ministers are responsible for the systems they create within their departments. After eight years, the Prime Minister and his ministers have presided over the complete debasement of efficiency and integrity within the government. They have presided over a dramatic decline in the Government of Canada's ability to do anything efficiently or effectively. We have seen this across many different areas, that the ability of the Canadian state to deliver on basic services, to purchase an app, for example, has dramatically declined. However, the government would have us believe that this dramatic decline over the last years has nothing to do with it. We have an increase in crime. We have struggles in the cost of living. We have an escalation in corruption. There is the cost, the crime and the corruption, but the government wants us to believe that the people in charge have nothing to do with the outcomes. Who are we going to blame for all these challenges our country is facing? It will not be the people in charge, surely. We need to go back to a time when we have a government that is willing to take responsibility for what happens under its watch. We have seen this escalation in cost, crime and corruption, and it is the responsibility of the Prime Minister and his government, for what they did and what they fail to do to ensure integrity, effectiveness and fair processes within government. This is why Conservatives have put forward a motion today that calls on the government to show the numbers, to account for the cost. It also calls for the money to be paid back. In cases where money was spent for no work, money should be paid back to the taxpayers. Canadians are struggling as a result of decisions made by the government. Canadians deserve to know the cost. They deserve to see the records of deleted emails. They deserve to see the information, and they deserve to have their money back. Common-sense Conservatives will restore accountability and responsibility in government. When Conservatives are in office, we will no longer have ministers presiding over corruption, crime and chaos while claiming that they had nothing to do with it. We will have a government that axes the tax, builds the homes, fixes the budget, stops the crime, ends the corruption and treats taxpayers' dollars with respect.

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Context: House Hansard - 286 - Feb/27/24

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Feb/27/24 5:25:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is sad to see the desperation of the parliamentary secretary across the way. Here are the facts: GC Strategies was incorporated immediately after the Prime Minister took office. The Prime Minister came into office eight years ago, promising sunny ways. Do members remember that? It sure was sunny for GC Strategies. GC Strategies was incorporated as soon as the Prime Minister took office, and it did a quarter of a billion dollars' worth of business with the Liberal government. Even in the eyes of the Liberal government, it is actually real money we are talking about. A quarter of a billion dollars went to this two-person company. All it did was receive contracts, go on LinkedIn to find someone else to do the job, and—

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Context: House Hansard - 286 - Feb/27/24

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

Feb/27/24 6:26:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, Canada's common-sense Conservatives will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. This is in contrast to the Liberal record. The Liberals have axed the homes, built the crime, hiked the tax and stopped the budgeting. We are here to discuss the arrive scam scandal and, in particular, the procurement ombudsman's excellent report. Today, the procurement ombudsman was before the public accounts committee, and he confirmed that he is not at all surprised that the RCMP is now investigating the corruption at the heart of the government. In the arrive scam scandal, we see multiple layers of costly criminal corruption in the government's procurement system. The procurement ombudsman found that the government built a system for procurement designed to encourage companies to charge the government more. This is really incredible. If they charged too little, their bids or points might be removed, so the incentive was built right into the system for companies to charge more. The procurement ombudsman found a chronic problem of so-called bait and switch. This is where the bidding company says it is going to have one person do the work, then it switches and has someone else do the work, someone who is potentially substantially less qualified. This builds on what we already know: GC Strategies, the company that got the ArriveCAN contract, was changing and falsifying resumés they submitted to the government, and the government rigged the process. Members of the government sat down with the GC Strategies team to set the terms of the contract, such that GC Strategies would get the deal. This is a two-person company that subcontracts all the actual work, and yet the government sat down with this company and rigged the process so it would get the contracts. It built a system that would favour insiders to ensure GC Strategies got the deal. On top of that, it designed a process that would encourage GC Strategies and others to charge the government more, not less. It is no wonder that spending is out of control and that Canadians are struggling under the pressure of higher taxes and the impact of higher deficits. When the government designs contracting-out processes, it designs systems to try to charge more. The levels of cost, crime and corruption we see in this arrive scam scandal are really incredible. The RCMP is investigating. I asked the Prime Minister today whether the government will co-operate with the RCMP investigation. There was no answer. We had the procurement ombudsman's investigation report and the Auditor General's report, which reveal what happened. However, we now need to identify who the responsible individuals are and why they did it. Why was the process rigged in order to give this deal to this two-person company working out of a basement? Why was it rigged to GC Strategies' advantage? Why did the government create a system designed to charge taxpayers more, not less? These are the key questions that need to be answered by the government, but I will distill it into one simple point. The RCMP is now investigating criminal behaviour as part of the arrive scam scandal. The parliamentary secretary was formerly with the Ontario government and has a great deal of experience dealing with issues of corruption. Could he tell the House, yes or no, whether the government will co-operate with the RCMP's investigation?

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Context: House Hansard - 286 - Feb/27/24

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Feb/27/24 6:35:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is truly incredible listening to that member talk. This government has been in power for eight years. It has broken the procurement system in this country, and the Liberals speak about problems that happened as if they have no responsibility for what happens under their watch. This government is supposed to be in charge and it refuses to take responsibility for the costs, the corruption and the criminality that we now see as part of the ArriveCAN system. The Liberals want us to believe that, well, it was an emergency and the ArriveCAN app was necessary. This app went through 177 different versions, it sent over 10,000 people into quarantine by accident and the versions were not properly tested. They hired two people with no IT experience. There are no excuses, and this government should take responsibility. Again, will the government co-operate with the RCMP investigation into criminality, yes or no?

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