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House Hansard - 286

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 27, 2024 10:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 286 - Feb/27/24
Mrs. Kelly Block (Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, CPC)
  • Feb/27/24 12:18:57 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for New Brunswick Southwest. The arrive scam boondoggle has rightly put the government’s mismanagement of taxpayer dollars in the spotlight. At one point everyone in the government wanted to be associated with the ArriveCAN app, touting it as one of the greatest things a government had ever accomplished. Now, with the Auditor General's report, nobody wants to take accountability for this mess, and it is no wonder. As we have discovered, we have an application that started out with a price tag of $80,000 that ballooned to $60 million and counting. It now appears, according to the Auditor General, that we will never know the true cost of this application, given the lack of information available for her to do a proper audit. We can add to this the procurement ombud's report that found that 76% of all resources proposed by the contractors to do the work in fact did not. Finally, a two-person company that did no actual IT work was paid almost $20 million. Liberal politicians who once championed the app are now backing away from it, pointing the finger at the public service, while senior public servants are all pointing their fingers at each other. When the Conservatives introduced the study of ArriveCAN in committee, we knew that there was more to the story than what the government was telling. That is why we introduced a motion in this place calling for the Auditor General to conduct a performance audit, including of the payments, contracts and subcontracts for all aspects of the ArriveCAN app. The audit confirmed our suspicions and went even further. Just last week, we heard testimony in committee from two former CBSA employees, who have been suspended without pay even though they now work in different departments. These two former employees were highly critical of the actions of senior bureaucrats at CBSA, including the president, who they allege was attempting to mislead the committee and withhold information. When parliamentarians are confronted with evidence of reprisals and allegations of misconduct and an active cover-up, we cannot trust the Prime Minister’s department to investigate itself. We know how these investigations end: Liberal insiders get off easy while others take the fall. We saw this clearly in the SNC-Lavalin case. SNC-Lavalin got off with a slap on the wrist, but Jody Wilson-Raybould was removed from cabinet and caucus, all for standing up for the rule of law on behalf of Canadians. The Prime Minister is not interested in upholding the rule of law; he is interested in removing blame from himself and his buddies, pinning the blame on others and punishing them harshly. Our study on ArriveCAN has uncovered large-scale misconduct across multiple government departments. The procurement ombud found widespread disregard for the rules of procurement by the Canada Border Services Agency, Public Services and Procurement Canada and the Public Health Agency of Canada. The Auditor General referred to the glaring lack of documentation as the worst she had ever seen. In her report and in testimony before committee, she stated several times that the pandemic was not an excuse for the lack of documentation and glaring mismanagement across the ArriveCAN contracts. This glaring mismanagement is completely unacceptable, especially when taxpayers are on the hook for tens of millions of dollars. This boondoggle has led to Canadians overpaying for an app that sent thousands of Canadians unjustly into quarantine. The Auditor General also confirmed at committee that the lack of documentation pointed to two possibilities: the first being that the documents never existed in the first place and that the government just was not doing its job in keeping track of taxpayer dollars; and the second being that the documents had been destroyed. While this second possibility may seem far-fetched, it has been reported in the media that an IT employee at the CBSA has claimed that the former vice president and chief information officer of the CBSA deleted four years' worth of emails. This is extremely troubling and is outrageous, as one of my colleagues said. One of the Prime Minister's top bureaucrats has been accused of deleting four years' worth of emails from his time at the CBSA, particularly during the time of the ArriveCAN procurement. Now this bureaucrat, who has since been promoted to chief technology officer of Canada, is refusing to provide answers. It is alarming to the Conservatives that senior members of the government's bureaucracy are being accused of lying to and misleading parliamentarians in committees and refusing to answer our questions. In addition to this, we have had to deal with constant Liberal filibustering at committee. The persistence of the Liberals to stall our study of the arrive scam makes us wonder what they have to hide. The mismanagement of ArriveCAN is indicative of the way the NDP-Liberal government has been running the country over the last eight years. It has wasted taxpayer dollars, increasing its deficits to new heights each year. It has created a cost-of-living crisis, making it difficult for Canadians to put food on the table and a roof over their heads. It has failed to deliver for Canadians on every level, yet the Liberals refuse to take any responsibility for their failed policies and eight years of failed governance. However, Canadians know who is responsible. While the cost of living continues to go up and the quality of life continues to go down for Canadians, the Liberals are afraid to face Canadians with what they have done to our country, and the New Democrats have simply lost their way. The NDP, once called the workers' party, has bargained away its responsibility as an opposition party and is now more focused on blindly supporting the Liberals than on stopping the damage it is inflicting on working-class Canadians. While it supports the disastrous overspending of the government, allowing it to do whatever it wants, the NDP's only demand is that the Liberals spend more. With the emerging scandal around the arrive scam, the New Democrats have been feigning outrage at the Liberal government, but, as has been noted by the Leader of the Opposition, they voted in favour of the arrive scam eight times. The New Democrats had their chance to stand against it, but did not. Now they are pretending to be shocked by all the money spent on the app. The NDP presents itself as an opposition party, but this act is falling apart. Despite the New Democrats' best efforts to put on a show of holding the government to account, their actions are clear to all Canadians. By continuing to prop up the Liberals year after year, they have intertwined themselves with the Liberals so tightly that it is difficult to tell them apart. Canadians are not fooled by their faux outrage at their coalition partners. If they truly believe in their record, they will stop propping up the Liberal government and its failed policies, and allow Canadians to decide who they want to lead them forward. It is important to remember that in the midst of the pandemic, the Prime Minister called an election in a thinly disguised last-ditch effort to recapture a majority government. Failing that, he was then able to fall back on his good friend, the leader of the NDP, to give him the majority he so desperately needed. Canadians do not support the coalition government; they want change. Canadians want answers for the arrive scam. Canadians want to end this cover-up coalition. In the face of the corrupt NDP-Liberal coalition, the Conservatives will continue to fight for accountability and against a waste of taxpayer dollars. After all, that is why we are also calling on the government to collect and recover all monies paid to ArriveCAN contractors and subcontractors who did not work on the ArriveCAN app, within 100 days of the adoption of this motion. We are also calling on the Prime Minister to table a report in the House showing that public funds have been reimbursed. This is the ultimate accountability that the government can demonstrate.
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Context: House Hansard - 286 - Feb/27/24
Mr. John Williamson (New Brunswick Southwest, CPC)
  • Feb/27/24 12:36:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as chairman of the public accounts committee, I have the responsibility for coordinating the oversight of how federal programs and departments are managed by the Liberal government. Every day brings more evidence that the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is just not up to the job. Since my appointment as chair two years ago, I have to admit that not a month has gone by without the committee examining evidence from Canada's Auditor General that demonstrates ongoing mismanagement of taxpayer dollars and the abdication of any responsibility by Liberal ministers to improve performance or outcomes. I can report that even the Auditor General is becoming exasperated with a government that promises to do better, while little changes in report after report. It is outrageous that taxpayers are being forced to bankroll the Liberal government's incompetence. The waste we discover is not an accident. It is the best the Liberals can do. On this side of the House, we believe that Canadians deserve better. Never has a federal government spent so much to achieve so little. After eight years, Canadians know that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption, and he needs to be replaced. In contrast, Conservatives would axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budgets and stop the crime. Liberals call this a meaningless slogan, but it is our mission statement for a principled and accountable common-sense Conservative government. Each point speaks to a promise that would reverse the decline the Liberal government has brought to Canada, which has left millions of Canadians worried and worse off, sometimes desperately so. Today, the House of Commons is considering three important points, raised by the member for Carleton, concerning government spending and oversight. The leader of the official opposition, along with other Conservative members on this side of the House, wants to know how much the Liberal government spent on the ArriveCAN boondoggle, whether the responsible ministers will be held accountable for the budget failures, and whether the millions of wasted and unearned tax dollars will be returned to the Treasury. The Auditor General reported that ArriveCAN was originally projected to cost $80,000, but it ballooned to at least $60 million. That is 750 times the original price. The key words from the Auditor here are “at least” because, as our Auditor General, Ms. Hogan, said in her value for money audit, it is “impossible to determine the actual cost of the application.” For every MP and taxpayer to understand the severity of the mismanagement and waste, the Auditor General added, “This is probably some of the worst financial record-keeping that I’ve seen”. She also said, “Overall, this audit shows a glaring disregard for basic management and contracting practices throughout ArriveCAN’s development and implementation.” It was lacking basic management and proper record-keeping, and there was no ministerial or departmental oversight. In other words, it is a bloody financial train wreck. That is the result of investigation number one from the federal government's own Auditor General. The second investigation, done by the procurement ombudsman, revealed that, in a staggering 76% of ArriveCAN contracts, the contractor did not perform any work. I will note that that ombudsman will be at the public accounts committee this afternoon. We look forward to hearing about those findings and how taxpayers did not receive value for money. Apparently some contractors received money for no work. The investigation also revealed that a two-person company, GC Strategies, which did no IT work, was the only supplier in North America that could win some big government contracts because of bid rigging. This is from the ombudsman. We will go back to the Auditor General, who reported, “We found that GC Strategies was involved in the development of the requirements that the Canada Border Services Agency ultimately included in the request for proposal.” This finding has not been addressed enough. The Auditor General is saying that GC Strategies was at the table when departmental officials were setting up the contract terms, meaning that it not only had the inside advantage, but also wrote the rules. GC Strategies is a two-person consulting firm that does no IT work. It bids on federal government contracting schemes and then outsources the work to others. When GC successfully wins a bid, all it does is subcontract out that work to other contractors. There is little to no value in these arrangements, except for the owners, because the bidder charges and pockets a fat commission, of up to 30%. Since 2015, this two-person consulting firm has collected over $250 million from taxpayers, according to reports by La Presse newspaper. In 2022, consultants such as GC Strategies were awarded $17.7 billion in contracts while ordinary Canadians struggled to pay for groceries and heat their homes. Now, a third investigation has begun by the Information Commissioner into ArriveCAN. This one focuses on allegations of deleted emails by federal officials responsible for overseeing the ArriveCAN program. This is a concern the Auditor General has not dismissed and one that needs to be investigated. Then to wrap all of this up, this taxpayer-funded mess, the RCMP is investigating it all. I believe evidence was heard at the public accounts committee indicating that the police should expand its scope after testimony from officials that reinforced that contracts were fraudulently submitted by contractors, work was not done at the value the taxpayer expected and that this needed to be looked at for fraud. How did the ArriveCAN waste happen? Well, public servants did not follow the rules. A Liberal government that is not able to manage the bureaucracy or protect tax dollars was in place. Consultants swindled the system and, in some cases, broke the law. If we listen to testimony from public servants who appeared before the public accounts committee, there is a trend of excuses: “I wasn't there” and “I don't know what happened.” We heard that public servants did not sign off on these contracts and that their predecessors had either been moved to another department or are now retired. We also heard that they just did not know. No deputy minister has been fired, and no minister has been held accountable, yet bonuses were paid, which are bonuses for outsourcing work that the public service was responsible for doing in-house. Three years ago, Conservatives called on the Prime Minister to end ArriveCAN. Instead of listening to common sense, these Liberals went ahead and wasted tens of millions of dollars. In the Auditor General's report, it clearly shows that the majority of spending on the ArriveCAN happened after the 2021 election. The truth is, this is a scandal that could only happen under the Liberal government. For those who have been around this place long enough, and in many cases even longer, ArriveCAN combines the worst of two previous Liberal scandals: the ad scam and the long-gun registry. In the ad scam, tax money was paid to Liberal consultants without records for little or no work. Does that sound familiar? Nearly $1.2 billion in sponsorship and advertising contracts were received by government outsiders through sole-source contracts. Taxpayers would remember when former auditor general Sheila Fraser was unable to calculate the long-gun registry price tag because expenditures were not saved by the government. The filing cabinet was empty. At the time, she estimated the total cost at over $1 billion. Members will remember that, under a previous Liberal government, that program was supposed to cost $2 million, yet it was up, up and away, just like the arrive scam. In conclusion, I will go back to ArriveCan and the Auditor General's report, which reads, “In our view, flaws in the competitive processes to award further ArriveCAN contracts raised significant concerns that the process did not result in the best value for money.” That is the Auditor General saying that it was a financial train wreck, and it is another failure of this tired, wasteful Liberal government. Who on that side of the House is accountable for this waste? Who will be accountable to Canadians?
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