SoVote

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

Feb/27/24 10:16:57 a.m.
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Is that agreed? Some hon. members: Agreed.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Leader of the Opposition, CPC)

Feb/27/24 10:20:27 a.m.
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moved: That, given that, (i) the Auditor General's ArriveCAN audit determined that the app cost taxpayers at least $60-million, but concluded it is "impossible to determine the actual cost of the application", (ii) the Procurement Ombud found that in 76% of ArriveCAN contracts, some or all of the contractors' proposed resources, such as subcontractors and employees, did not perform any work, (iii) GC Strategies, an IT company that does no actual IT work, was paid nearly $20-million in relation to the ArriveCAN app, the House: (a) call on the Prime Minister to table in the House of Commons, no later than Monday, March 18, 2024, a report which details the complete direct and associated costs concerning the ArriveCAN app incurred to date, including the total amounts paid to contractors and subcontractors, broken down by contractor or subcontractor, and the value of staff time represented by the salary, bonuses and other expenses paid to all public servants who worked on the app, in relation to all expenses respecting, (i) research and development of the app, (ii) management and storage of the data collected by the app, (iii) software development, testing and maintenance, (iv) training for government employees for using and troubleshooting the app, (v) call centres used for the app, (vi) ArriveCAN-related communications with travellers by e-mail or text message, (vii) market and opinion research, (viii) advertising, (ix) public relations, (x) merchandise, gifts and promotional material, (xi) processing of security clearances, (xii) travellers' expenses after being wrongfully directed by the ArriveCAN app to quarantine, (xiii) the services of legal counsel involved in contract negotiation, litigation arising from procurement or the use and implementation of the app, and the numerous investigations conducted related to the app, (xiv) any other costs related to the ArriveCAN app; and (b) call on the government to collect and recoup all funds paid to ArriveCAN contractors and subcontractors which did no work on the ArriveCAN app, within 100 days of this motion being adopted, and for the Prime Minister to table a report in the House demonstrating that taxpayer funds have been repaid. He said: Mr. Speaker, I will be sharing my time with the hon. member for Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles. After eight years, this Prime Minister and the costly coalition with the Bloc Québécois are not worth the cost or the corruption. After eight years, everything costs more. This government's inflationary taxes and deficits are driving up the price of essentials so much that two million people a month depend on food banks. That number is incredible; it is unprecedented. After eight years of this Prime Minister, work does not pay. People make it, he takes it. After eight years of this Prime Minister, housing costs have doubled. They have even tripled in Montreal, the city the Prime Minister represents in the House of Commons. When the federal government prints money, causing widespread inflation, and funds local bureaucracies to prevent construction, adding to demand while squeezing supply, that causes a crisis. For the first time in Canadian history, young people cannot even dream of being able to buy a home. It now takes 25 years to save up enough money for a down payment in Toronto. Before this Prime Minister, people could pay off their entire mortgage in 25 years. After eight years of this Prime Minister, with the Bloc's support, people are living in tents in almost every major city in this country. Homeless people are trying to survive in tent cities and on the streets. We have not seen this kind of thing since the Great Depression. What is the Bloc Québécois doing? Bloc members vote for every single one of this Prime Minister's economic policies. They voted to raise the tax on gas by 17¢ a litre over the next few years. They voted in favour of all the government's spending. The Bloc Québécois gave the green light to all of the estimates, where discretionary money is allocated by the House of Commons. It is also interesting to note that, generally speaking, those expenditures are centralized. The money is spent in Ottawa, by Ottawa, for Ottawa and is not part of the transfers to the provinces that are already established in legislation. We are not talking about health care spending or other transfers to the Quebec government. We are talking about operational and discretionary spending imposed by this out-of-control Prime Minister, which has led to a doubling of the national debt, the worst inflation in 40 years and massive waste. Consider the ArriveCAN app, or arrive scam, as we call it. It should have cost $80,000. When the Prime Minister came to the House of Commons asking for tens of millions of dollars, we wondered what was happening. We had been told it would cost $80,000. Now the Prime Minister wanted another $24 million. It was bizarre. Naturally, we voted against it. However, the Bloc Québécois said no problem, it was just another $24 million, and they voted in favour. When the scandal was exposed by the Auditor General of Canada following the Conservative motion I moved in the House over a year ago, the Bloc Québécois members suddenly announced that they were outraged by the waste they had voted for. A journalist asked them why they had voted in favour of spending an extra $24 million on an app that should have cost $80,000. I will quote the Bloc Québécois whip. What he said is truly astounding: “We're not going to scrutinize everything the government spends. We're just going to tell the government, ‘Go ahead, spend the money’.” What is the point of the Bloc? Its only purpose is to encourage the government to take Quebeckers' money, spend it as it sees fit and waste it, while single mothers in Chambly, Saguenay and Trois‑Rivières struggle just to feed their kids. They have to pay taxes for this waste because the Bloc supports the government's spending. That is why the common-sense Conservative Party is demanding all the details on this spending. The Auditor General said she could not even say how much was spent on arrive scam. She said it was at least $60 million, but there are documents missing. We must get hold of all these documents, which is why we are moving a motion in the House today demanding that the government produce all the documents associated with arrive scam, so we can see all the costs and the extent of the corruption. Seventy-six percent of contractors did no work at all. One company with four employees that is headquartered in the basement of a cottage received $250 million. It does no actual IT work, but it received IT contracts. We need to know the truth. The government is spending $21 billion on outside contractors. We are going to do away with that to save money and redistribute it to Canadians through lower taxes. Our priorities are as follows: We are going to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. These are the Conservative Party's common-sense priorities, and we intend to keep our promises to everyone.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre (Leader of the Opposition, CPC)

Feb/27/24 10:27:46 a.m.
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The NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption. After eight years, his inflationary taxes and deficits have doubled the national debt, have driven inflation to 40-year highs and have driven two million people to food banks, a record-smashing number. After eight years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, work does not pay. People make it, and he takes it. After eight years of the Prime Minister, housing costs have doubled, mortgage payments have doubled, rent has doubled and down payments needed for an average home have doubled. After eight years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, we have crime, chaos, drugs and disorder. He is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption. Nothing could be more emblematic of this waste than the arrive scam app, an app that was supposed to cost $80,000 but went up to at least $60 million. What did the NDP do when it found out that the Prime Minister needed more money for his app? It voted for that money. Even though it knew full well that the app was supposed to cost $80,000, it voted for at least $24 million additional dollars for an app that did not work. About 76% of the contractors did no actual work. The prime contractor got IT contracts even though it does no IT work, and it is headquartered in the basement of a cottage. That is part of a $21-billion boom in outsourcing by the government, a 100% increase in external consultants that costs $1,400 for every single Canadian family, which are federal taxes for consultants: $1,400. Today, we call for all the details on arrive scam to be released. The Auditor General says she does not know how much was spent. It was at least $60 million. That is why we want the government to be obliged by the House to release all the documents, all the costs and to tell the truth. We want to know everybody who got rich through this corruption and how much Canadians actually had to pay for. We are going to get rid of that app. We are going to cut back on outside consultants. We are going to cap spending, cut waste, and balance the budget to bring down inflation and interest rates, because our common-sense priorities are to axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. It is common sense. Let us bring it home.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Feb/27/24 10:30:18 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, can we imagine that bumper sticker? They are going to fix the budget, they say. Allow me to tell— Some hon. members: Oh, oh!

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/27/24 10:30:34 a.m.
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Order. I am having trouble hearing the hon. member. The hon. parliamentary secretary.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux

Feb/27/24 10:30:41 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is actually code for the Conservative hidden agenda. We talk about the MAGA Conservatives. We can talk about the far right, headed by the leader himself. Over the weekend, I watched a YouTube video by Donald Trump that was saying something like “We are common-sense conservatives.” The Conservatives should look in the mirror. Today we have the common-sense Conservatives saying they would fix the budget, which is really a hidden agenda that means cuts: cuts to the civil service and cuts to social programs. Will the leader of the Conservative Party be honest with Canadians and tell us exactly what it is he plans on cutting?

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Feb/27/24 10:31:32 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, yes I will: We will cut arrive scam. We are going to cut the $21 billion given to high-priced consultants, which has gone up by 100%, doubling under the government. We will cut the $35-billion Canada Infrastructure Bank that has not built any infrastructure. We are going to cut the billion-dollar green fund that has not actually delivered any green technology, of which $150 million has already been misplaced and misappropriated. I could go on, but I am being extremely specific because it is so easy to list the waste that we would cut. The member said that all of these things, axing the tax, building the homes, fixing the budget and stopping the crime, should be made into bumper stickers. They will be made into bumper stickers because we have a very easy-to-understand, common-sense agenda, and there will be vehicles right across this country that will share that agenda. He said that it is hidden. How could it possibly be hidden if it is going to be on a bumper sticker?

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Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

Feb/27/24 10:32:39 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Conservative members are all worked up. I get it. Today is their opposition day. I am going to try to ask the Conservative leader a direct question, but I have no illusions. I do not expect an answer because he plays exactly the same political games as the Prime Minister: He refuses to answer difficult questions and tosses around political slogans. Still, I will give it a try. When the member for Carleton was parliamentary secretary to the minister of transport, from 2011 to 2013, his department awarded $6.5 million to the owners of GC Strategies, the same persons currently involved in the ArriveCAN matter, but operating under a different name back then. Could the Conservative leader tell us what that money was used for and how it was spent?

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

Feb/27/24 10:33:24 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are prepared to look at all of the contracts given to individuals and businesses. There was no arrive scam at the time. We could not foresee that, 12 or 13 years later, there would be a scandal involving a business operating under another name. I know that the former Conservative government did spend the money, but I would add that, during the years he is talking about, we were spending half as much on outside consultants. We were spending less on bureaucracy, less on outside consultants. Yesterday, I was in Saguenay. People wanted to know why this member of Parliament votes for the Prime Minister and against the interests of Saguenay. He votes for higher taxes on gas and diesel for trucks. He votes for higher taxes on small businesses. He votes for all of the Liberal government's inflationary spending, including all the arrive scam spending. He should have stood up and apologized to his constituents for having voted to throw their money out the window in support of the Prime Minister's arrive scam.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

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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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/27/24 10:36:16 a.m.
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We are out of time. I will allow the hon. leader to answer.

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Hon. Pierre Poilievre

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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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus (Charlesbourg—Haute-Saint-Charles, CPC)

Feb/27/24 10:37:26 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, today we are introducing a motion for debate in the House. This motion invites all sitting members from all parties, the 338 members of the House of Commons, to do some serious soul-searching. Let us think back to the pandemic. Let us think back to the report that the Parliamentary Budget Officer released after the pandemic. He said that there had been $500 billion in COVID-specific spending, but he could not explain where $200 billion of it had gone. In the report, he says that, although spending was needed during the pandemic, there were amazingly few controls. This first report highlighted something very important. He was unable to explain $200 billion in spending. We may now even be able to see that some of the remaining $300 billion in spending was a bit fishy. Another very important person involved in scrutinizing what happens to public funds is the Auditor General of Canada. Last year, the Conservative Party asked the House to vote. In November 2022, the Auditor General was asked to investigate ArriveCAN. ArriveCAN seemed a little strange from the start. It is a tool intended to track people's movements and obtain information on their vaccination status. In theory, it should not have cost much. However, we eventually became aware that something was wrong. It was costing a lot of money to create something that should not have been all that complicated. When certain information was brought to light, particularly concerning contracts with some odd people, it was decided that an investigation was in order. The Auditor General did her job. She spent almost a year and a half trying to get answers. Let us put ourselves in the shoes of Canada’s Auditor General, who is appointed to work independently to verify and examine everything concerning the administration of public funds in relation to a particular file. She released her report two weeks ago, saying she was discouraged and was unable to carry out her work. From what she could see, at least $60 million was spent on this app, but it could have been more, because she could not find the supporting documentation. She could not find the contracts. When she did find an invoice, there were no details. It simply listed an amount of a few million dollars, and the cheque was sent out. She was really depressed to see how public funds were handled in this file. In addition to the Auditor General, the procurement ombud did his own analysis, and our motion today mentions that too. He released a report a week or two ago, stating that 76% of the companies involved in the ArriveCAN file had performed no work. That means that $45 million was paid to people who did not even do any work. It is one scandal after another. When the Auditor General's report was released, I said it was the tip of the iceberg. I was sure more would be found and that this was not over. Today, we want to shed light specifically on ArriveCAN. We have a great deal of information showing that there was outright corruption. At what level was the corruption happening? Who did it? How did they do it? We do not know, but we want to know. That is why we need to get to the bottom of this matter. I expect everyone in the House to support the motion that the Conservative Party is putting forward today. There is nothing remotely political about the Conservative Party's motion. It is a motion containing three specific points with specific queries about documents. This is simply an effort to shed light on the matter, so that the House can get the documents and information necessary to understand what went on in with ArriveCAN. Last week, I sat on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. The Auditor General was there. The deputy minister of procurement and the assistant deputy minister of departmental oversight also attended. I asked the latter, whose office is in charge of oversight, a question concerning ArriveCAN, and she did not know what to say. She started giving me a vague answer. I told her that I did not want a written answer that did not mean anything. I wanted a real answer. I asked a question, which appears in the record of the meeting. I asked her if, when she heard about this issue a year and a half ago, everyone in her office started banging their heads against the wall wondering what was going on. We could see that no one really knew what was going on. Another thing to take into account is that there are people in offices who have specific oversight functions, but still do not know what is going on or, in any case, do not appear to know or do not want to know. I do not know what to make of all this. The point is that the federal government’s overall management of public funds is troubling. As I mentioned earlier, this is just the tip of the iceberg. Let us keep in mind that the Parliamentary Budget Officer did not even know where $200 billion of the budget deficit had gone. We are now dealing with the ArriveCAN scandal, an app that cost $60 million when it should have cost $80,000. There are a lot of questions about government spending in general. We also learned other very important facts. Minh Doan, the Prime Minister’s chief information officer at the Information, Science and Technology Branch, apparently deleted tens of thousands of emails concerning ArriveCAN. Why would he have deleted tens of thousands of emails documenting discussions between the people who were managing ArriveCAN if there was nothing to hide? That is another problem we have to solve. That is one of the reasons why the House of Commons needs to examine this issue in depth. This morning we learned something else about the member for Québec, the current Minister of Public Services and Procurement. During COVID-19, he was the president of the Treasury Board and therefore responsible for issuing contract management directives. I even asked him some questions at the time at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates about contract management. The minister did not seem to know how to answer. He often offloaded questions to his deputy minister. Since last summer's cabinet shuffle, he is now the Minister of Public Services and Procurement. According to La Presse, the minister's briefing book contained some sensitive items. The minister was told to pay attention to the shipbuilding strategy with Davie, the F-35 file and other issues. However, there were no notes about ArriveCAN. At the time, the Auditor General was conducting an investigation into a matter related to the procurement of federal government contracts. The ArriveCAN file was not even part of the minister's briefing. He was not even told to pay attention to it or that it was a sensitive issue. That is another question that needs to be explored. Why is it that when someone leads a department, they do not get any notes on a file that is being investigated by the Auditor General? There are so many questions, which is why our motion is very clear. I will close by referring to the mandate letter issued to the member for Québec when he was president of the Treasury Board. In the mandate letter, the Prime Minister clearly states: I also expect us to continue to raise the bar on openness, effectiveness and transparency in government. This means a government that is open by default. It means better digital capacity and services for Canadians. It means a strong and resilient public service. It also means humility and continuing to acknowledge mistakes when we make them. That last sentence is what I would like to hear from the government. I would like it to acknowledge that it made mistakes. Since the tabling of the Auditor General's report, we have yet to hear the government express a modicum of regret. On the contrary, it tries to put it off, saying it will do better in the future. These mandate letters are useless because all we see is scandals and the government does not seem to want acknowledge the truth.

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Mr. Kevin Lamoureux (Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons, Lib.)

Feb/27/24 10:46:36 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, when the member talks about accountability, what he has said is not really true. We need to put this into perspective with respect to what was taking place in a worldwide pandemic. Governments around the world were responding as much as they could. In Canada, I would like to think that we provided the types of supports that Canadians and businesses required, and there were all kinds of government expenditures. We have a civil service, which is second to no other, and there is a process that needs to be followed, particularly for procurement. When the government has been made aware of issues related to it, it has been very transparent about it. Internal work has been done. Things have been been pointed out by the Auditor General, and the government is working to rectify those issues. Is it not a responsible way for a government to react when it finds out, to take specific actions? That is exactly what this government has done.

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

Feb/27/24 10:47:42 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, to answer my colleague's question, I have here the transcript of a committee meeting that I attended on June 16, 2021. At that meeting, I asked a question about an April 2020 memorandum indicating that Treasury Board would be relaxing the rules for awarding contracts to speed up the process during the pandemic. In June 2021, the worst was over. We were regaining control. I asked the committee if we could take back control, and I was told that there were too many important investments to make and so on. We were already asking questions at that point and we could see that there were things that were not working. We understand that the situation was complicated at the beginning of the pandemic. However, after a year, we could also see that we needed to take back control. There were also other questionable contracts, but I will not get into that right now. Something went wrong. That much is clear.

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Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe (Lac-Saint-Jean, BQ)

Feb/27/24 10:48:39 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I enjoy debating with my colleagues. We may not always share the same opinions, but I enjoy a debate based on facts. Since 2015, the Bloc Québécois has voted against every Trudeau government budget and every Trudeau government economic statement. Knowing this, when the Conservatives say that the Bloc Québécois supports all of the Trudeau government's spending, would my colleague, hypothetically, without naming names, agree with—

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The Deputy Speaker

Feb/27/24 10:49:07 a.m.
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This is the third time. I would like to remind the member that we must say the Liberal government or use another wording. The hon. member for Lac‑Saint‑Jean.

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Mr. Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe

Feb/27/24 10:49:16 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I apologize. The Bloc Québécois has not supported any of this government's budgets or economic statements. I would like to ask a question of my colleague, who is a respectable man. If a politician—and I am not naming names—were to say that the Bloc Québécois supports all of this government's spending, would he not be shamelessly lying to the public?

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Mr. Pierre Paul-Hus

Feb/27/24 10:49:45 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I will answer my colleague by saying that, with respect to the issue being discussed today, the Bloc Québécois voted for the appropriations, knowing full well that they were intended for ArriveCAN. There were two separate appropriations of $12.5 million each. That is why it is so strange to see the members of the Bloc Québécois react by saying that what they voted for is scandalous. The House leader of the Bloc Québécois said that that was normal, that they did not have time to look at everything and that the money had to go out. That is what happened.

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Mr. Gord Johns (Courtenay—Alberni, NDP)

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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