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Context: House Hansard - 294 - Mar/22/24

Mr. Michael Cooper (St. Albert—Edmonton, CPC)

Mar/22/24 11:11:24 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, waste, fraud and corruption: That is arrive scam and that is what we get after eight years under the Prime Minister. There was 60 million taxpayer dollars wasted and stolen, and for what? It was for an app that was not needed, that did not work and that caused chaos at our borders. A scandalous 76% of arrive scam contractors did no work, including a two-person basement company that ran away with 20 million taxpayer dollars for nothing. Now the RCMP has launched multiple criminal investigations. After overseeing all the waste and all the corruption, the Prime Minister has done nothing whatsoever to get taxpayers their money back. After eight years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost or the corruption. Taxpayers deserve a refund and they deserve it now.

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Context: House Hansard - 294 - Mar/22/24

Mr. Michael Barrett

Mar/22/24 1:12:08 p.m.
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He said: Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to have the opportunity to rise to speak to this important motion. I am pleased that members from all parties offered responses in the House following the Speaker's careful ruling that we have this opportunity to remind Canadians of the important work that is done here and the important powers that we have here, which allow us to do the work we have been elected to do for Canadians. This is borne out of the $60 million of corruption, fraud and forgery. This was a situation that saw 10,000 Canadians falsely forced into quarantine, and this is what we get after eight years of the Prime Minister and his broken arrive scam. For nearly 18 months, Conservatives have been holding the Prime Minister's government to account for his $60-million boondoggle. This app started out with a price tag of $80,000, and through mismanagement and corruption, the price grew to 750 times its original cost. We have seen two-man basement operations, such as GC Strategies and Dalian, make millions off the taxpayer for an app while doing no IT work. We have seen government officials wined and dined for contracts, and we have seen government officials levelling unbelievable and shocking accusations of wrongdoing at each other before parliamentary committees. We know that there have been substantiated reports of bid rigging and of fraudulent and forged documents being used for contractors to win government business. There are now 12 investigations into this scandal, including by the Royal Canadian Mounted Police. We have seen the institution of Parliament attacked by government officials who have lied to committee and by key players in the scandal lying and refusing orders of parliamentary committees. As is referred to in the reports from the Standing Committee on Government Operations, we know that Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony did not attend when summoned the first time, the second time or the third time. Only under the threat of arrest, using the extraordinary powers of Parliament entrusted to us by Canadians, did they finally attend, but that is what brings us here today. Using an extraordinary remedy to an extraordinary problem, which is ordering the appearance under threat of arrest, we had Mr. Firth do something that has not given rise to the kind of debate we are having now for about 110 years. It seems that this reminder is more important now than ever. We have seen varying degrees of offence but never anything as egregious as this. This stems from Kristian Firth, the principal of GC Strategies, that two-person firm that was paid nearly $20 million on the $60-million boondoggle of the arrive scam. He refused to answer questions and then obstructed the work of Parliament and its committees. At the government operations committee, I asked whether Mr. Firth had lied to a parliamentary committee before. He refused to answer. I also asked which public office holders Mr. Firth had met outside of government offices. He again refused to answer. The hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan asked Mr. Firth how many hours he spent sending LinkedIn invitations. Now, this is a key component of GC Strategies' apparent recruitment strategy, if we can believe it, and for what it earned its commissions of up to 30% on nearly $20 million. Mr. Firth replied and refused to answer. The hon. member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek asked Mr. Firth to name his contacts in the various departments that provided GC Strategies with its 134 contracts. Again, Mr. Firth refused to answer. One of the reasons that GC Strategies says that it was able to get these 134 contracts from the government was because of the reputation it built. On its website, there are very detailed referrals and recommendations from the most senior government officials, without names attributed to them. I asked Mr. Firth to name the individuals who allegedly provided these glowing testimonials that appear on the website, and Mr. Firth refused to answer. His contempt for Parliament goes back not two weeks, but to his first appearance at committee on the arrive scam nearly a year and a half ago, where he lied about knowing the secondary residence of a senior government official, now infamously saying it was a chalet not a cottage. Even at his most recent appearance at committee, if it could bring one to laughter and not tears, he then said that it was a cabin. He lied about meeting government officials outside of government offices in that first appearance, and he lied about providing hospitality to government officials. He then refused to return to committee to answer further questions, being summoned by the committee. Instead, he decided to hide out. I will note that, when Mr. Firth first appeared at committee nearly a year and a half ago, and he did not provide some of these answers, he undertook to provide them immediately and said that he would give a return to the committee. When he appeared at committee most recently, again under threat of arrest by House order, he said, “I promise” when saying that he would deliver the names of those government officials by the next morning at 9:00 a.m. The committee was called to order at 10:00 a.m. the following morning, when the clerk confirmed and the chair reported that again, Mr. Firth had lied to committee. He had broken a promise while under oath. The committee had to threaten Mr. Firth with arrest at the hands of the Sergeant-at-Arms if he continued to refuse, as I said, and it was only that threat that brought him out of hiding. Then he refused to answer straightforward questions that anyone with nothing to hide would, of course, have answered. These are the kind of people who the Liberal Prime Minister is more than happy to hand over millions of dollars to for an app, but who did no work. These are people who casually make a mockery of Canada's House of Commons, Canada's Parliament and the oath they took, a solemn oath that he took that morning at committee. There is no question that Parliament is the grand inquest of the nation, and it is to have unfettered right to send for people, papers and documents. This means Parliament has the full authority to summon and compel attendance and testimony in Canada, except his Majesty the King and his royal representatives, and to summon and compel the production of documents. The courts have clearly acknowledged the powers of the House as the grand inquest of the nation to inquire into any matter that it sees fit. As part of the grand inquest of the nation, parliamentary committees are not restricted in the scope of questions that they can pose to witnesses, and witnesses must answer all questions that are put to them. This latest episode, this latest report from the Standing Committee on Government Operations, is just the most recent development in a scandal that continues to grow and envelop the government through the many investigations that have taken place and are ongoing by independent officers of Parliament, parliamentary committees and, of course, the national police force. The Auditor General, in a report that was issued against the government's wishes, every member of the government having voted to block the Auditor General from having investigated GC Strategies and the $60-million arrive scam, outlined the glaring lack of oversight and accountability in the procurement and contracting development of this failed app. The Auditor General found that Canada Border Services Agency documentation, financial records and controls were so poor that she was unable to determine the price cost of the ArriveCAN application. Imagine, the Auditor General, a general with an army of auditors, was unable to give precision on the price of a scandal that is approximately $60 million. Using the information that was available, the Auditor General estimated the cost as at least $60 million. She found that the CBSA's disregard for policies, controls and transparency in the contracting process restricted opportunities for competition and undermined value for money. She found that the agency, of course, did not have documentation. Why GC Strategies was selected through a non-competitive process in the first place, she does not know and, so far, neither do Canadians. The Auditor General even found that Kristian Firth and GC Strategies were able to write their own contract in one case that saw the two-man company awarded a $25-million contract. The officials at IT firms working on arrive scam were playing fast and loose with the security and privacy of Canadians' private information, biometric health information. In one of the original contracts, the government waived the requirement for workers to have the requisite top secret security clearance. GC Strategies did not meet the requirements for another contract, and the government did not see a problem with that. The Auditor General was unable to find evidence of valid security clearances for multiple workers on the app. It is no wonder Canadians were concerned from the very beginning. It is no wonder that the Privacy Commissioner has launched his own investigation into the app for a second time, the first being related, of course, to the 10,000 Canadians falsely being sent into quarantine under threat of jail. That raises questions as to what exactly government officials were doing when all of this was going down. They were too busy being wined and dined by contractors, and even being treated to special whisky tastings. They were more than happy to dole out millions of dollars in contracts their hand-picked favourites, like GC Strategies, were looking for. They did not care one bit about the value for money that Canadians were getting for their hard-earned tax dollars. Now, they are scapegoating some and they are protecting others. They are lying. They are misleading parliamentary committees, right alongside GC Strategies own Kristian Firth. The government has been trying to cover it up the entire way. We have a situation in our country of a true crisis of the cost of living, with record food bank usage, with millions of Canadians lining up at food banks in record numbers, thousands collaborating on best practices to be able to feed their families out of dumpsters and tent cities by the dozen in communities that, just a few short years ago, could not have imagined such a thing. All the while, the Liberal government has been allowing insiders to benefit to the tune of millions and to become millionaires off the hard-earned tax dollars of single mothers, young families and seniors. What is the value for money that Canadians got for the millions that the Liberal Prime Minister awarded to these undeserving individuals, like GC Strategies? It was some Google searches, some LinkedIn searches and a campaign to corrupt the procurement system and the public servants who oversaw the awarding of contracts. It is rot and corruption, like the country has not seen in decades. Who was in charge? We have not seen any ministers stand up and take responsibility. Only after Canada's common-sense Conservatives pounded on the drum for a year and a half about the rot inside the Liberal government has it finally started to take some action, or tried to confuse Canadians into thinking it is taking this seriously. Every member of the Liberal government voted against the Auditor General investigating the $60-million boondoggle that is arrive scam. However, in what it described this week as the “first wave” of announcements on fraud in the procurement system, $5 million in fraudulent contracting was reported to the RCMP by the government. It is the first wave. We ask if it is $5 million of the $60 million, but these are new discoveries of fraud now being investigated by the national police force. The fact that we have seen obstruction from the government and not urgency to address this incredibly serious matter undermines Canadians' confidence in public institutions and creates incredible stress for families who are struggling to get by. We see the laissez-faire attitude of a government that is willing to dole out millions to the elites, while the beating heart and soul of this country, the everyday Canadian, is struggling to make ends meet. Of course, to add insult to injury, we are just weeks away from a 23% increase to the Liberal carbon tax that will see an increase in the price of gas, groceries and home heating. The rot and waste in the government goes beyond the $60-million arrive scam. We know that the system of procurement it is overseeing is broken, and we know that this is just one of a long list of scandals presided over by a Prime Minister twice found guilty for breaking Canada's ethics laws. However, today we are faced with, as a House of representatives of Canadians, the opportunity to send a crystal clear message that, when the grand inquest of the nation, Canada's Parliament, summons a person before a committee or when Canada's Parliament invites someone before a committee, we must get the full truth and nothing but the truth. As such, we are going to defend Canada's institutions. We are going to restore that confidence that Canadians have, and this motion offers an appropriate remedy for the rules having been broken: an admonishment. For accountability and transparency, it offers answers to the questions that were rightfully put to the individual who will, if this motion passes, be brought before the bar of the House. I invite all members of the House to support this important motion. I know that we have heard affirmation from members of Canada's official opposition, the common-sense Conservatives. I know that we have heard from members of the third and fourth parties, as well as from the Green Party, that they will be supporting it. I look with hopeful optimism that today, after eight years, the Liberal government will do the right thing and vote in support of restoring Canadians' confidence in its oldest and most sacred institution, the place we serve: the true north, strong and free; our country that we love; Canada. That is why we are voting to restore that confidence, and I call on all members to do the same.

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Context: House Hansard - 294 - Mar/22/24

Ms. Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné

Mar/22/24 2:25:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, there are two committees that are conducting a very intense study of the ArriveCAN issue. There is the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, which we have talked about at length, and the Standing Committee on Public Accounts, of which I am a member. We have been studying this issue for a long time. It is thanks to the questions that members ask and then relay through the media that the public finds out what happened. It is our work in committee and the responses that we get from witnesses that help us shed light on this story. As we know, it is a wild story. As I said in my speech, certain people disrespected our institutions. They may have stolen taxpayer money, because receiving money and not providing any services in return is called stealing. The answers we get to our questions are very important for ensuring that democracy continues to work and for building public trust in democratic institutions. That is why a person who purposely refuses to answer questions has to be charged with contempt of Parliament so that this does not happen again. It sends a signal to all witnesses, present and future, that when they appear in committee, they have to answer the questions.

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