44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 27, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/27/24 11:43:43 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague from the Bloc Québécois. In her speech, our Liberal colleague talked about the contract awarded to GC Strategies, a company formed in 2015. We have heard that this company had a number of contracts with the Government of Canada before that. However, the company did not exist before 2015. What does that mean?
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- Feb/27/24 11:44:28 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for throwing me such a softball, so to speak, since it is really quite simple.
The two people who founded GC Strategies had already founded a company called Coredal Systems Consulting. That company has had contracts with the Canadian government since 2007, so under the Conservatives. In 2015, they dissolved Coredal and transitioned that company into GC Strategies. That information is very easy to find on the open government website. It was a typical name change that just happened to coincide with a change in government.
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- Feb/27/24 11:57:09 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, for me there are a couple of issues, and I will very quickly break it down. There is the procurement process, but there is also, from my perspective and what I think my constituents would be saying to me, the question of how one company gets into a position in which it could do what GC Strategies actually was able to do.
Part of it is that we have to look at the origins of the company, which had actually been around for many years; it was under a new name, of course, as it had been under Coredal. I wonder whether the member could provide his thoughts on that aspect. To what degree should we be looking at how a company could surface and get into a situation like we find ourselves in today?
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- Feb/27/24 12:28:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, there are two issues. There is the issue of the procurement process, and I will get into that. Quite frankly, my constituents would be very much concerned about how a company would be able to get these types of contracts and they would ultimately question the real value of those contracts.
One way we can find out is to look at where this company comes from. This company was not just created in the last few years; it has been around for a number of years. It was created under Stephen Harper. This is a company where the board received contracts, many contracts, under the Stephen Harper government. Would the member not agree that we should get a better sense in terms of—
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- Feb/27/24 12:29:47 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I do not know how to say this loud enough. The member is misleading the House. This company was created in 2015. Its incorporation date is 2015, shortly after the Liberal government was elected.
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- Feb/27/24 12:30:14 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, to try to relieve some tension on the other side, the member should look up Coredal Systems Consulting, which is virtually the same company, the same two individuals. That is what we are—
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- Feb/27/24 12:31:19 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, on the same point of order, the member just admitted that it was a company that is similar to but not the same.
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- Feb/27/24 12:31:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the point is that the member is misleading the House. If the company did not exist before—
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- Feb/27/24 12:46:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I want to go back to the question I asked the member's colleague. Many of my constituents want a better understanding of how the two same people were able to get themselves into a position where they could ultimately do what they did, with very questionable behaviour. It goes all the way back to when they were directors for Coredal; they actually received numerous contracts under the Conservatives.
Would the member agree that, for this particular company, we should actually be looking at its origins and how it ultimately developed? To support that, would he agree that we should be tabling the document that clearly demonstrates the grants received by the company at that time?
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- Feb/27/24 1:47:53 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am really curious how this could happen. The Conservatives awarded millions of dollars of contracts to the very same company that the member just called “infamous GC Strategies”, and said that it “does not even do any work”. Would their opposition day motion be more complete and get to the bottom of this issue if it included the millions of dollars that the Conservative Party awarded to this very company, which apparently did not do any IT work? By the way, they were sole-sourced contracts for IT, and the Leader of the Opposition was the parliamentary secretary to the minister of transport when a majority of these contracts were issued to Transport Canada. How did this happen?
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- Feb/27/24 1:48:54 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, this would be impossible. What year was GC Strategies incorporated? It was incorporated in 2015.
Canadians need only to look at the $23.6-billion deficit. Contracting is up 60% with this government in the last eight or nine years.
I refuse to accept the Liberals' attempt to, once again, cover up their use of such a company. Again, the facts speak for themselves. This company was not even incorporated until 2015, when—
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- Feb/27/24 3:02:56 p.m.
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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?
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- Feb/27/24 3:35:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, in debating this, I have tried to break this into two components. One is on the procurement process. The member provided a lot of positive thoughts with respect to that issue. The other one is related to how a company such as GC Strategies has been able to get to the point where it can get those sorts of contracts. I made the suggestion that we look at the origins of the company, which goes back a number of years. It is the same company but it just changed its name.
Is there merit in looking at how an individual company was able to come virtually from nowhere a decade ago to the point where it is today?
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- Feb/27/24 3:36:46 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that is the essence. The essence was that there were practices in procurement that fostered a two-man company, dating back decades, to find ways to become a preferred client of the Government of Canada and through that preferential treatment being able to source resources, individuals, to serve whether it is this government, the government before or the department during the time that is needed.
It goes back to what we should be doing, and I hope we will do it, which is re-evaluating our procurement processes so it is not such a lengthy time, and also accounts for other individuals who actually do the work to speed up the process of engaging with the government.
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- Feb/27/24 4:06:42 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, they have to recognize the irony. The member just finished calling into question the integrity of GC Strategies; I do not blame him, quite frankly, for doing that. What the member does not necessarily realize is that it is the very same company, just with a name change. The two people he has just criticized are the same people who ran Coredal Systems Consulting. By the way, his leader actually gave millions of dollars in contracts to them. Can he not see a bit of irony there?
Does the member not agree that maybe we should be looking at how one company was able to evolve to the point where we have the problem that we have today? There is no doubt that the member's leader played some role in it.
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- Feb/27/24 5:26:44 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The rules are very specific. A member cannot intentionally mislead the House. The member is intentionally misleading the House, because it is the same company. They are the same two people.
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