44th Parl. 1st Sess.
February 27, 2024 10:00AM
- Feb/27/24 10:34:47 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I want to start with this: It was actually the Conservative government that cut IT staff in the public service. We saw outsourcing go up with the big six companies; it doubled under the Conservatives. We saw it quadruple under the current Liberal government. It has become unequivocally clear that the corporate-controlled parties, both Liberal and Conservative, are continuing to go to the highly paid private sector to give it taxpayer dollars to provide services that could be provided by the public service.
We put forward a motion, as New Democrats, to expand the study beyond ArriveCAN, as we know GC Strategies started doing business with the government under the Harper regime. We asked to expand it to look at all outsourcing, including Deloitte, which went from $97 million doing contracts with the Government of Canada to $275 million. My question to the Conservative leader is this: Why is it that the Conservatives will not let us expand the study? It has been a year since the motion passed. Is it because Peter MacKay is a director at Deloitte or is it because Pierre Pettigrew is a director at Deloitte? We know that it is the corporate-controlled parties that are blocking us from having a real look at what is going on—
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- Feb/27/24 10:36:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, let us start with “corporate-controlled”. The NDP-Liberal government is corporate-controlled. It voted together, including that member, to double the amount of money spent on outside consultants. He voted to increase outsourcing by $11 billion, 100%. He voted to make his constituents on Vancouver Island spend $1,400 per household on outside consultants.
Conservatives voted against every single nickel of that outsourcing. We are the only party in the House that can say that. All three costly coalition parties voted for those things. We are going to cut the outsourcing. We are going to save the money. We are going to deliver common sense for the common people by axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime.
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- Feb/27/24 10:50:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we saw outsourcing to highly paid consultants double under the Conservatives, including GC Strategies owners, who were formerly operating under another company. We saw the Conservatives bring in the Phoenix pay system. It was supposed to save $80 million, but it has cost $3.5 billion. Therefore, we cannot give credit to the Conservatives that they are going to lead the path with respect to taking on highly paid consultants.
I brought forward a motion at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates a year ago to expand the study to include the big six corporations. We saw Deloitte go from $97 million last year to $275 million this year. In fact, it did $11 million worth of business in Canada in 2015 and now it is up to $275 million. However, it did not want to look at it. Why? Because the corporate controlled parties have a former Liberal cabinet minister, Pierre Pettigrew, as a managing director. They have a former Conservative cabinet minister, Peter MacKay, as a managing director.
When will the Conservatives stop protecting their former ministers and their Conservative insiders, and will they start taking a look at all of the outsourcing and actually try to fix this problem?
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- Feb/27/24 11:11:12 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, while we are hearing Conservatives and Liberals fight over who started with which highly paid consultant and who spent more, we actually need to get to fixing the problem and have that conversation. This is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of what is going on at CBSA and ArriveCAN. This is not just deeply concerning, as my colleague talked about. This is outrageous.
We saw Deloitte go from $11 million in outsourcing in 2015 to $275 million, PricewaterhouseCoopers from $20 million to $115 million, and KPMG from $3.9 million to $48 million. It has gone up 546%.
It doubled under the Conservatives. It has skyrocketed under the Liberals. This is on top of layers and layers of commissions that these big firms are taking, including GC Strategies.
They talk about cutting outsourcing by 15%. It will put them at only 464% above when they started in 2015.
When are we going to see a full investigation, broadening beyond the ArriveCAN app, which includes all of the big six and all of the outsourcing?
When are they actually going to demonstrate that they have a plan to cut the outsourcing and put those services and those jobs back through the public service, so that taxpayers are not paying these lucrative, highly-paid consultants tons of profits on the taxpayers' dime?
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- Feb/27/24 12:02:29 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise in support of this motion today.
I am going to speak to the broader issue of outsourcing and what New Democrats have been trying to do from the beginning in terms of revealing and bringing an end to the rampant outsourcing to highly paid, external, for-profit consulting firms that are making money hand over fist. Earlier I talked about how, under the former Conservative government, we saw the number of highly paid consultants double. Under the Liberal government it has gone up 546% to the big corporations, to the six highly paid consultant firms.
What we want to do is stop these profits and the economic leakage happening in our country, and bring that work back to the public service. We saw the Conservatives with their Phoenix pay system that was supposed to save taxpayers $80 million. It has cost us over $3.5 billion. Talk about a failure. I find it laughable when Conservatives are up in the polls and they want to force an election. They want us to go from one corporate-controlled party to another. That is not good enough. What we need to do is actually fix the problem.
There is waste worth billions of dollars. It hurts the public service. It also hurts the morale in the public service when it sees a company like GC Strategies, which is two guys who do not have an office or staff but probably have two bar stools at a local bar dedicated to them, getting $59 million in government contracts. What we learned at government operations committee is that they get a commission between 15% and 30%; let us call it 20%. These two guys made $11 million just in commissions. Neither of them is an IT specialist. They are headhunters. This is easily a job that should be brought in-house and not done by external consultants.
We know that ArriveCAN is just the tip of the iceberg. We heard the parliamentary secretary say that this is deeply concerning. It is not just deeply concerning; it is absolutely outrageous, and it needs to end.
I want to compare the over $21 billion in outsourcing, and by the way, the Liberal government wants to make us feel good by cutting 15% of outsourcing. It has gone up 546%, but the Liberals are going to cut it by 15%. Does that gives everybody at home a lot of comfort? I do not think so. Let us think about what the $21 billion in outsourcing could have done for building hospitals or schools, or providing a pharmacare plan that is going to cost $10 billion or a guaranteed livable income for seniors and people living on disability, the most marginalized people in our society.
With ArriveCAN, we saw what was an $80,000 app skyrocket out of control. As my colleague, the member for Timmins—James Bay cited, money needed to be spent in terms of the emergency response to COVID. We absolutely support that, but not the outrageous runaway train. We put forward motions and ideas. We tried to actually look at the outsourcing procurement problem. We put forward a motion at the government operations committee to ask the Auditor General to look not just at ArriveCAN but also at all outsourcing and buy-and-sell decisions by the Government of Canada.
Initially the Conservatives were hesitant to support my motion, but they did. Then they took the motion and brought it to the House on an opposition day to call on the Auditor General to look at ArriveCAN. However, we need to go bigger than that. I supported that and am glad I could work with the Conservatives on it.
Let us face it: The Conservatives gutted the public service. This is when outsourcing started. Michael Wernick, the former Privy Council chair, showed up at the government operations committee. He cited that it was cuts in leadership and training that led to the start of the outsourcing that happened under the former Conservative government. Those were critical, huge cuts. They were very costly, as we can see now as the government goes to outside consultants to provide that leadership. I will talk a little about that.
We put a question on the Order Paper to look at the government's spending on outsourcing consultants. One instance we found was that Natural Resources Canada spent over $600,000 to advise the government on how to cut outside consultants. It used an outside consultant to give it advice to cut outside consultants. One cannot make this stuff up; it is that outrageous. This is what we are seeing.
Let us talk about the history of outside consulting and the need to invest in public servants. We saw the previous Conservative government privatize the Phoenix pay system that was brought in. It was supposed to save $80 million a year. It has actually cost us $3.5 billion. The ArriveCAN scandal pales in comparison to what has happened with the Phoenix pay system.
What we keep seeing are continued sole-sourcing structures of outsourcing, which ensure that companies like GC Strategies are the only ones that can properly bid. We heard at committee about GC Strategies actually altering résumés to help companies qualify and get task authorizations. These are security clearances that are pretty critical and important to the safety of our country. We are also concerned about how they misused indigenous set-asides. They hired a company on an indigenous set-aside that was not indigenous. The owners of that company were embarrassed when they found out, because they believe in reconciliation. They believe that money that is dedicated for indigenous procurement should go to indigenous companies.
We want to get to the bottom of this. We talked about outsourcing doubling under the previous Conservative government. It has more than quadrupled under the current government. We are literally seeing the corporate-controlled parties let the foxes run the henhouse. Today we see the Liberals and Conservatives fighting over who hired whom, who started the whole mess with consulting, who spent more on the same consultants. It is a big problem.
What we need to do is to stop the layering of commissions. We need to take action and solve this problem. There should not be a layering of commissions. We learned that GC Strategies got a contract and then subbed it out to another contractor, who subbed it out again. We saw cases in which Dalian and Coradix, another two-person outfit that was making millions of dollars, subbed out to GC Strategies, which then subbed out to somebody else. They took commissions along the way. We heard from the deputy minister that there is no limit on commissions. We could see that commissions could be 60% to 70% of a bid. This is an economic leakage that is out of control, and it is a self-perpetuating cycle in terms of outsourcing that reduces public service capacity.
I want to say that that layering is like the biggest pyramid scheme I have ever seen. Someone gets a contract, subs it out and takes a cut. Then they sub it out to the next person. They are all friends. These companies with two staff and no offices are something that seems to be coming up, and that was just with CBSA. We need to look beyond. We wanted to look at Deloitte, for example. It went from receiving $11 million in contracts in 2015 to $275 million. We wanted to look at PricewaterhouseCoopers, which went from $20 million to $115 million. This is just since 2015.
I put forward a motion to expand the outsourcing study to include the big six. Madam Speaker, you should have seen the room when I put forward that motion. Everybody ran to their phones. The corporate-controlled parties were checking in with their head offices, making sure it was okay to support this motion, and they delayed it.
They delayed the vote on it, and then the Conservatives decided to delay it one more time. It took three meetings before they supported it. The reason they supported it was that they knew that it would never see the floor. We are close to the anniversary of expanding that motion, and we have not gotten to the bigger study. I find it kind of odd, given that a former Liberal cabinet minister, Pierre Pettigrew, is a managing director at Deloitte, and a former leadership contender in the Conservative Party, Peter MacKay, is a managing director at Deloitte. No kidding that they do not want to study it and put it under the microscope, and they do not want the Auditor General taking a look and doing a deep dive. These big corporations are just like the smaller ones, like GC Strategies. They get the bid, sub it out and take a cut. They are not doing a lot of the work.
We want to fix this. We will keep fighting for that. We want to put a cap on commissions. We want integrity in procurement, and that includes making sure that all bids are competitive, instead of this sole-sourced business. We want to end and prevent the misconduct that is taking place. We want to stop our public dollars from turning into private profits. In terms of looking at indigenous set-asides, they actually need to go to businesses that are indigenous-owned and indigenous-operated and delivering services.
The New Democrats are here to actually bring solutions and try to fix this problem, so that we can get the support to Canadians who are struggling right now.
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- Feb/27/24 12:14:40 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, just very briefly, the outsourcing issue is something that governments both present and past, at the national level and at the provincial level, have actually been involved in. All political parties participate in it. I suspect that one would even find New Democratic administrations that have outsourced to Deloitte and Touche, just so that is on the record. The amounts might vary, obviously.
If we take a look at everything that has been done on ArriveCAN, a number of standing committees have been investigating it and thousands of pieces of information have been provided; we have had departments internally and we have had independent offices of Parliament looking at it.
I am wondering if the member feels that there is still a need to continue to try to create more information on the file.
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- Feb/27/24 12:15:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, we need a mechanism and tool to do a full investigation. Right now, the Conservatives are focused on ArriveCAN because it is a “gotcha” campaign. They are not actually trying to fix the overall problem with outsourcing.
My colleague talked about an increase in outsourcing, but like I said, Deloitte went from $11 million in 2015 to $275 million, and I can assure my colleague that there is no New Democrat government in this country that has seen such an outrageous increase. This is not just deeply concerning, like the Liberals call it. This is outrageous, out-of-control spending on highly paid consultants. It is an economic leakage, work that should be done by the public service, and money that could be spent supporting people who are struggling right now.
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- Feb/27/24 12:17:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will say it. They are hypocrites. Let us face it. Conservatives started the outsourcing and the out-of-control situation that we are in. They cut public service. They outsourced IT. They started the Phoenix debacle that was supposed to save $80 million but cost us $3.5 billion. It is absolutely outrageous.
What we are trying to do, and I will say that we have been working really well with the Bloc, is actually fix the problem, but we are being blocked by the corporate-controlled parties from conducting a full investigation and examination of this outrageous outsourcing to highly paid for-profit consultants.
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- Feb/27/24 12:32:36 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member well knows that requires the unanimous consent of everyone in this place.
The fact that he is misleading the House is simply to cover up the fact that under the Liberal government outsourcing has absolutely skyrocketed, even though, in 2015, it campaigned on the promise of reducing the use of consultants. Spending on outsourcing has increased by almost 50% under the Liberal government.
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- Feb/27/24 1:14:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I hear the Liberals continue to talk about the surge from COVID. The reality is that the Liberals had $8.4 billion in outsourcing the first year they were in government that they inherited from the Conservatives. Now they are at $21.4 billion. In terms of the big six consulting firms, the government had $119 million, pre-COVID; now it is $470 million just to the big six.
The argument about a surge from COVID no longer holds water. I will tell members what it is like in my riding. In the Comox Valley, the maintenance of search and rescue helicopters flown by Canadian Forces members has been contracted out to a private company, IMP Aerospace. It is seeing substantial staff shortages due to the low wages paid by the company, resulting in concerns for safety by the public. DND is not ensuring that the contractor is following through with the terms of the contract.
Will my colleague ensure that when it comes to outsourcing and when it comes to public safety on the coast, the government will ensure that those workers are getting paid fairly and that they are being treated properly and there is some actual accountability that is happening?
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- Feb/27/24 1:35:55 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, again, under the Conservative government, the outsourcing to highly paid consulting firms doubled. Under the Liberal government, it has gone up fourfold.
The ArriveCAN fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. We have been calling for the government, and for the government operations committee, to investigate the big six consulting firms.
We saw Deloitte with over $100 million in contracts just last year. Already this year, it is at $275 million. Deloitte is run by a former Conservative cabinet minister who is the managing director. We put forward a motion to expand the study to include Deloitte. People should have seen the room. Panic ensued, and the Conservatives delayed voting on it, not once but at three meetings.
Will the Conservatives stop blocking and let an investigation ensue on the big corporations, including Deloitte, or are they going to continue to work with the Liberals in protecting their friends and the highly paid consultants through their corporate-controlled parties?
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- Feb/27/24 1:50:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am going to raise it again. The ArriveCAN scandal fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. We have watched companies like Deloitte go from $11 million to $275 million a year. These are highly paid consulting firms, and the NDP put forward a motion to expand the investigation to look at all outsourcing, including these big corporations.
I have asked Conservatives all day long why they will not talk about expanding it and actually moving forward with an investigation. Is it because one of the former Conservative cabinet ministers is a senior managing director at Deloitte?
Will they comment on why the corporate-controlled parties are working together so that we do not have a full investigation into the outsourcing spending by both of these parties, which is out of control?
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- Feb/27/24 3:39:11 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, government outsourcing to the big six consultants went from $119 million prepandemic to over $470 million last year, and the ArriveCAN scandal is just the tip of the iceberg. The big challenge we are facing is that both Liberal and Conservative governments have chosen to privatize the work of government.
Can my colleague across the way explain how government outsourcing has ballooned by over four times over the last number of years?
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- Feb/27/24 4:10:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, earlier, a Liberal member said that the Conservative government laid off nearly 37,000 federal public servants to finance its promised tax cuts, reducing the government's internal resources. The Conservatives are therefore responsible for the rising costs of outsourcing.
I am curious. I would like to hear my colleague's suggestions about all the contracts and all the problems we are seeing now.
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