SoVote

Apr/8/24 12:24:44 p.m.
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Re: Bill C-2

Madam Speaker, if we are going to go back nearly 18 years in history, let us remember the very first action of the former Conservative government. Bill C-2, the very first bill introduced by the Conservative government in 2006, was the Federal Accountability Act, an act that directly came as a result of the Liberal sponsorship scandal of the previous Liberal government. That is the action the former government took to root out corruption and third parties getting rich off of government contracts. We will take no lessons from the Liberals on actions to root out corruption because the first thing the former Conservative government did when it came into power was to put in place the Federal Accountability Act, something that the previous Liberal government failed to do.

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Context: House Hansard - 295 - Apr/8/24

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Apr/8/24 12:34:59 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, the member opposite was enthusiastic about hearing the rest of my speech, and I invite him to hear it now. The Prime Minister is responsible for $46.5 billion this year in debt service costs. That is more than the federal government will transfer in health care. Astronomical amounts of money are being given to bankers and bond holders for the Prime Minister's out-of-control debt. The Prime Minister is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption. Today, as the member pointed out, we are not debating the budget directly. We are discussing a question of privilege that relates centrally to government spending, to how the government spends taxpayers' dollars and the lack of controls associated with that spending. The point I want to emphasize is that this arrive scam scandal is intimately linked to overarching questions about how taxpayers' dollars are spent. The government spent $60 million, according to the available data, on the arrive scam app, but that is a drop in a much larger ocean of contracting out to government insiders. The arrive scam scandal is illustrative of this larger problem of abuse, corruption, at best extremely generous contracting out, which has led to so much waste of taxpayers' dollars. The government will try to convince people that all of its spending is necessarily associated with meeting immediate needs that Canadians face, but that is very clearly not true. We need to understand this picture of how government procurement is being abused under the NDP-Liberal government, how costly it is for taxpayers, and what an opportunity this presents for us to do better, to save money for taxpayers and focus, instead, on the core needs of our country. Specifically on the arrive scam scandal, we had, according to the Auditor General's report, a rigged process. We had a process in which specifications were put in place that do not appear to make any logical sense but served the result of giving this one company, with only two people, the ability to access this contract. GC Strategies got the contract for the arrive scam app and subcontracted it. That company alone, according to estimates, got some $20 million. It did not do any work, other than a very sort of perfunctory activity of going to LinkedIn and finding others who might be able to perform the work. A simple way of understanding what GC Strategies did and did not do would be if I were hired to paint your fence, Madam Speaker, for $100. I then hired the member for Winnipeg North and paid him $50 to paint the fence. He painted your fence and got $50. You paid me $100 and I just got $50 for facilitating the deal. Maybe I went on LinkedIn to find out that the member for Winnipeg North could paint fences. He might be looking for job opportunities like this after the next election, so this may be a relevant example. In that process, the middleman, the person who got the contract and passed it on, did not actually do anything. They did not add any value, yet they were able to collect, big time. The nature of this scandal was that GC Strategies, this so-called staff augmentation firm, which I think is the lingo that was used, took the contract, subcontracted the work out and got a whole bunch of money in the meantime for doing nothing. The process that allowed GC Strategies to get this contract was a rigged process. In fact, the Auditor General revealed how GC Strategies, in one case, sat down with government officials and set the terms of the contract that they would then bid on. We heard at the Standing Committee on Public Accounts over the break that KPMG was told to go through GC Strategies by government officials. They said that if KPMG wanted to be part of this work, then they had to go through GC Strategies. The government was aware of other companies that could do this work, yet they directed those companies to go through GC Strategies. There was clearly something of a special relationship whereby members of the NDP-Liberal government were keen to see GC Strategies cashing in big time, for reasons that remain somewhat unclear. GC Strategies is also a company that doctored résumés they were submitting to the government. This is something that we should be teaching children not to do. It is not appropriate or ethical to be doctoring your résumé in order to access an opportunity that you would not otherwise qualify for. It appears that GC Strategies was doctoring résumés systematically. During his earlier appearance at committee, Kristian Firth said they change the résumés to make them compliant with the requirements of the contract. Then they go back to their resource and ask if it is okay. If I am applying for a government contract, and I have five months of experience when I am supposed to have five years of experience, then GC Strategies would cross out “months” and write in “years.” Then they would send it back to me and say, “We made this little change. Is that okay?” Then they would send it off to the government afterward. Kristian Firth admitted that this was not something that they did just once. Adjusting résumés to meet the requirements of the contract and then checking if that was okay before sending them in was their process. What a wild and broken system this was. We have rigging of the process and systematic cheating, things that young children should know are highly unethical and that seem to have been happening systematically in the government. Despite these obvious problems with GC Strategies, the Liberal-NDP government was keen to push other companies to work through GC Strategies. Then we have obfuscation in committees and accusing people of lying. These are some of the particular issues around the arrive scam scandal. Thinking about this in the context of the budget and the overall fiscal situation, we have been digging more on the arrive scam and asking what the procurement practices are that allow this sort of thing to happen. What is happening more broadly inside of the government that allowed $60 million to be spent in this case and for nobody to seem to notice or care? First of all, this process of contracting to people to contract other people was not just a one-off. It was not something that happened just in the case of ArriveCAN. We found that there are 635 companies that do IT staff augmentation for the federal government. There are 635 companies whose job it is to receive contracts and then contract out. I think there are cases where contracting out is likely legitimate, although I am very skeptical of the idea that there is any value in contracting out to those who subcontract and perhaps further subcontract after that. The general contractor project management function should be able to be performed inside of government, yet we have 635 companies that do IT staff augmentation only. They act as these middlemen, these middle companies that receive contracts and contract out. There are 635 of them in the IT space alone. That is not just a one-off. That is not just the arrive scam app. This is a larger issue with how the government treats money overall. The larger issue is systematic growth in contracting out and contracting out to those who just do this “staff augmentation” piece. We have seen how, in the midst of dramatic growth in spending on the public service, there has also been dramatic growth in spending for contracting out. The government was spending tens of billions of dollars in contracting out. Some of it was for management consulting, and we have talked about the enormous growth in spending on McKinsey, and some of it was for those who further contract out. We are spending more inside of government and we are also spending dramatically more outside of government. We would expect those things to be inversely related in that if we are spending more growing public service then we should be contracting out less, or maybe if we are contracting out more, that should correspond to having a smaller public service. However, the government is growing the size of the public service and contracting out more at the same time. The NDP-Liberal government clearly has a profound lack of respect for taxpayer dollars. Then it will try say that the Conservatives want to fix the budget and that the money will come from cuts. However, when we look at how broken our contracting system is and when we look at the 635 companies doing staff augmentation in the IT space and the tens of billions of dollars being spent on contracting out, pretty clearly there is a lot of room to get the budget under control. We can stop giving money to those outside companies that are abusing the taxpayer and providing no value and we can instead provide tax relief to Canadians who need it. We can instead axe the tax, build homes and cap spending. We can get out budget under control if we fix these grotesque abuses in government spending. One key aspect of this scandal we need to ask about is where the minister was in all of this. It is right and important that we demand answers from these contractors. Canadians elect members of Parliament from which emerge a cabinet and a government, an executive branch, that are supposed to be accountable for the decisions that the government makes. They are supposed to be providing oversight and policy direction. Of course, ministers are not involved in the minutiae of every decision, but they are responsible for the culture and the policy frameworks that are established. I asked the minister of procurement what he was doing in the midst of this arrive scam scandal. Actually, there have been a number of different ministers. I think four ministers just in the period since the pandemic have been responsible for procurement. Therefore, there have been many hands that should have had an opportunity to impact this process, yet all of those ministers, and anybody who speaks from the government, would have us believe that they were just there, that something happened in the department that they were supposed to be in charge of, but that they had no accountability or responsibility for it. That is absurd. Ministers should take responsibility for what happens in their departments. They should establish clear expectations in terms of accountability, ethics, respect for taxpayer dollars. When costly criminal corruption is occurring under the watch of a particular minister, then the minister should have some responsibility and some response to what she or he is doing in order to address those concerning events. However, when the current Minister of Public Services and Procurement was before committee, I asked him when he was briefed and what did he do. He said that he had received a briefing and that he provided no directive in terms of action in response to this scandal. That is unbelievable. The descriptions by public servants are that ministers receive briefs, remain apprised of or seized with what is going on, but then ostensibly do nothing and have no role in actually shaping policy outcomes, which is just unacceptable. At best, the government has been a disinterested passenger in the midst of declining respect for taxpayer dollars. That is a an overly charitable description. The government has itself shown flagrant disregard for taxpayer dollars and has been complicit in various corruption scandals over the eight long years that it has been in power. Even in its defence, the government says that the minister had nothing to do with it. We have someone in the government whose title is “Minister for Public Services and Procurement”, yet when there is one of the biggest procurement scandals in our country's history, the government says that we cannot expect the Minister of Procurement to have anything to do with a scandal in procurement. It is just in the name. At committee, I proposed, and it elicited points of orders and maybe it will today, that we could replace the Minister of Public Services and Procurement with a potted plant and we would have the same result. A potted plant could receive briefings, naturally. A potted plant could be apprised of events, though it would obviously not take any action in response to those events. Ministers were in the room, received briefings, but did nothing. They would want us to believe that the role as a minister of procurement is to simply be there, to hear things, to be interested in those things and to receive updates. Again, we could save a drop in the bucket in comparison to other money that could be saved, but we could at least save a minister's salary if we replaced the current procurement minister with some such inanimate object. I want to underline that the arrive scam scandal, as bad as it is in and of itself, is a drop in this larger ocean of government waste and corruption. Tens of billions of dollars are being spent on contracting out. There was clearly a basic incontinence associated with government spending. The money just flows out for no discernible reason. The processes are rigged. There is obfuscation and unresponsiveness at committee. The latest is that we have seen how the indigenous procurement rules are being abused by insiders, insiders who feel they have no obligation to bring about any benefit to indigenous communities through their access to indigenous procurement. A lot more work needs to be done to understand the abuses of the indigenous procurement process that have been happening under the government. Very troubling information has come out, for instance, David Yeo saying that the point of the program is not to benefit indigenous communities, it is just to benefit him as an entrepreneur. I do not think that is the point of the policy. We see costs, corruption and crime happening under the government. This privilege motion is one key piece of getting to the bottom of what happened, demanding answers from Kristian Firth that he was unwilling to give at committee. This would help us suss out, in detail, all the crime, corruption and the cost that we are seeing under the NDP-Liberal government. Enough is enough. Canadians are looking for an alternative that will respect taxpayer dollars, that will restore probity in spending, that will bring it home.

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Context: House Hansard - 295 - Apr/8/24

Mr. Garnett Genuis

Apr/8/24 12:54:41 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I am not aware of some of the long-tenured, historical events about which the member is speaking. I am a relatively young member of the House, so events before a certain date are before my time. It is pretty rich for the Liberals, after eight years in power, to always want to draw our attention to things that happened in decades past. The fact of the matter is that since 2015, the national debt has more than doubled. More than half of our national debt is the responsibility of the Prime Minister. That is why we are now spending more on debt servicing than we transfer for health care. It is outrageous, out-of-control spending under the government. The $60 million for the arrive scam scandal is important, but it is part of a larger pattern of cost, crime and corruption. I mentioned some of these numbers in my speech, such as over 600 companies just doing staff augmentation. It is out of control.

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Mr. Damien Kurek

Apr/8/24 1:28:29 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is fascinating that the member is talking about a myopic view of history. It is the member's leader and the members of the NDP who support, at every turn, the corruption of the Liberal Prime Minister and his cabinet, as well as the Liberal backbench. I find it a little rich. It is time for a government that is willing to roll up its sleeves and do the hard work of administering and stewarding what Canadians expect their government to do. I am happy to unpack the many practical ways that the member for Carleton has proposed. He has proposed a path forward to increased accountability with a dollar-for-dollar law in terms of spending and ensuring that the government spends within its means to make sure that we are doing what Canadians expect their government to do. I will not take any lessons; when I point fingers, I am pointing them at a coalition that has propped up one of the most corrupt governments, if not the most corrupt government, in Canadian history. It is time for a change, because that is what Canadians are demanding. They expect the government to work for them and that is certainly not what they are getting from the Liberals and the NDP.

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Mr. Garnett Genuis (Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, CPC)

Apr/8/24 2:09:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister used to say that no relationship was more important to him than Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples, and yet the NDP-Liberal government has been using indigenous contracting to funnel money to well-connected government insiders in ways that produce no actual benefit for indigenous communities. This is a gross betrayal of taxpayers and indigenous peoples. David Yeo is the arrive scam contractor whose company made $8 million while, according to his own LinkedIn page, he was simultaneously a government employee. We still do not know what he actually did for the money. Yeo's two-person company benefited from an indigenous contracting set aside, even though no indigenous communities saw any of the money. Indigenous leaders have warned that the Liberal approach to contracting is encouraging shell companies and other modes of obfuscation to gain an advantage in procurement processes, all to the detriment of legitimate indigenous peoples of Canada, communities and businesses. It is time to end the corruption, to respect taxpayers and to insist that indigenous contracting policies actually benefit indigenous peoples, not well-connected NDP-Liberal insiders.

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

Apr/8/24 4:15:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate many of the comments the member has put on the record. I, for one, not only expect that Canadians would get accountability; it should be a given they will get accountability. Whatever government happens to be in place, of whatever political stripe, has an obligation to look for that accountability. Part of the concern I have is that we need to take a look at the bigger picture regarding the procurement process. One of the reasons it is important that we maintain the integrity of the system is so we ensure that we do not allow corruption to infiltrate it. That way, we can ensure that Canadians are all being given a fair opportunity and can have confidence in the system. That is the reason why I think that, in a situation like this, having the individual come to the bar is of great benefit. I wonder whether the member can provide his thoughts on that aspect.

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas (Lethbridge, CPC)

Apr/8/24 5:05:15 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Peace River—Westlock. It seems that the Prime Minister all too often finds himself at the centre of scandal and corruption, and here we are again. Whether it is the WE Charity scandal, the green slush fund or the arrive scam app, when it comes to doing favours for friends, of course we know that the Liberal government just cannot help itself. It turns out that we are seeing this once again. The government actually promised it would create the app for about $80,000, but then it turned out that close to $60 million was funnelled into that app. It is an app that Canadians did not want and did not need, and ultimately at the end of the day, it did not work. It malfunctioned a good portion of the time, which, of course, had a detrimental impact on 10,000 Canadians during its time of use. What is insane about the contract is that not only did the government pump $60 million, at least, into the app, but according to the Auditor General's report, 76% of those who were contracted to work on the app actually did no work. They collected a robust paycheque but actually did not do anything to earn that paycheque. That seems to be a classic Liberal way of operating. It is important to bear in mind that $80,000 was the promise, but over $60 million was the actual spend, which is 750 times the amount that the Prime Minister told Canadians he would be using. That is a problem in and of itself that deserves accountability, but there is more to the story than just that. It turns out that was the tip of the iceberg. Here we are today, talking about the more. The Auditor General discovered that the Canada Border Services Agency, CBSA, failed to adhere to policies, failed to adhere to controls and failed to be transparent in terms of its procurement processes and procedures. That then limited competition and, again, resulted in favours being done for friends. Notably, the agency failed to maintain adequate documentation. The Auditor General actually made note of this in her report, stating that she was led on a trail of what seemed to be deception and secrecy. She actually was not able to get to the bottom of it, but she did her best. Of course, we appreciate that because taxpayers deserve answers when it comes to how their money is being spent. One of the things the Auditor General found was that GC Strategies, one of the companies that was contracted to work on this app, actually did not do any work. Rather, GC Strategies found others through LinkedIn and other processes to do the work for it. It just wanted the cash. GC Strategies was permitted to draft its own contract. How is that for competition? It actually drafted its own contract and the government was like, “Sure, it looks great to me. We'll sign off on that.” What we see, though, is that this is not a one-off. We have watched the government over the last eight and a half years operate in this regard over and over again, with a lack of due process, a lack of transparency and a lack of accountability. A few months ago, Conservative members moved a motion to bring the two leads of GC Strategies, Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, to committee in an effort to hold them accountable. That is really the point of this debate today: accountability. It is the accountability of the government and its illogical decisions, as well as the accountability of one of these individuals, Kristian Firth. This is where I will spend the remainder of my time. It was highlighted in the report from the Standing Committee on Government Operations that Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, the founders of GC Strategies, actually failed to appear not only once or twice but multiple times when summoned to committee. It was only when they were faced with the prospect of arrest that they eventually complied. That brings us to where we are today, because those two men from GC Strategies finally showed up but Mr. Firth refused to provide answers. It is one thing to take a seat at the table but it is another to actually be productive, and he refused. While he was at committee, he declined to provide answers to the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. When he was asked whether he had previously misled committee, Mr. Firth went mum. Similarly, when questioned about his interactions with public office holders outside of government premises, Mr. Firth again refused to answer. He then refused to answer again when asked questions by the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and again when asked questions by the member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek. Let us talk about defiance. Furthermore, on its website, GC Strategies showcases detailed endorsements and recommendations from senior government officials without giving names, and when asked to disclose those names during that testimony, Mr. Firth again refused to answer. It is not just the refusal to answer that is the problem we are discussing today, but it is also the outright lies. During his initial appearance before the committee, Mr. Firth made false statements regarding his interactions with government officials outside of official settings, and he also lied with regard to money that was spent on hospitality initiatives and on trying to court government officials in order to win the contract. Subsequently, when summoned by the committee to return and to provide further clarification, Mr. Firth chose to evade further questioning and went into hiding altogether. It is worth noting that during Mr. Firth's initial appearance at the committee approximately a year and a half ago, he pledged to provide the necessary answers promptly and agreed to return to committee. However, during his most recent appearance, once again compelled by the threat of arrest under a House order, he assured the committee that he would provide the names of the implicated government officials by the following morning at 9 a.m. However, when the committee started at 10 a.m., lo and behold, they were not provide, and in fact, the clerk had reported back to the committee that Mr. Firth had once again deceived them and would not be providing what he had sworn to. Subsequently, the committee had to resort to threatening Mr. Firth with arrest by the Sergeant-at-Arms to compel his co-operation. Only under this ultimatum did Mr. Firth emerge from hiding. However, even then, he refused to provide straightforward answers to questions that any individual would not normally have a problem answering. It is important to note that Mr. Firth was chosen by the Liberal Prime Minister and given tens of millions of dollars. In fact, he has been given hundreds of millions of dollars since the beginning of the current government in 2015. GC Strategies has benefited from this friendship; there is no doubt about that. However, what is most important today is the fact that Mr. Firth came to committee, was asked questions and refused to answer or just lied altogether. It is important to note that he did this after taking a solemn oath that holds him accountable to this place. He swore that oath the morning of his appearance, and it is meant to uphold the integrity of this institution. His failure to respect that oath and function accordingly then calls into question his respect not only for the elected members of this place but also for the entire Canadian population because it is here that 338 elected members represent those Canadians, and it is those Canadians whose tax money was taken and was used potentially inappropriately. Therefore, we have to get to the bottom of these important questions. When Mr. Firth arrives at committee and altogether refuses to answer those important questions on behalf of Canadians or outright lies, we have a problem. It is then incumbent upon those in this place to hold him to account. With that said, I believe we must work together as the House of Commons to reinstate the confidence Canadians rightfully deserve in this place. Therefore, the motion being discussed today presents a fitting response to the breaches of rules that have occurred. That, of course, is an admonishment. Holding the individual accountable and ensuring transparency would provide the necessary answers to the questions that were rightfully posed. If this motion is approved, the individual in question will be brought before the bar of the House, ensuring accountability and rectifying the transgressions that have occurred. Therefore, today, we are calling on the members of this place, especially the governing party, to vote for accountability and transparency.

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Mrs. Rachael Thomas

Apr/8/24 5:21:05 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I very much appreciate that question. I think that should ultimately be the goal of this place, that we would get to the bottom of this and that we would understand why these types of scandals are allowed to take place. We at least somewhat know the answer to that: It is a lack of transparency and a lack of accountability. We have seen where the current government, over and over again, has failed to adhere to those principles. Therefore, it has put Canadian taxpayers at risk and has disgraced this place known as the House of Commons, which is our democratic institution. It is meant to protect justice and the rule of law. It is supposed to protect the Canadian people and to make sure their voices and their dollars count. When we do not insist on that transparency and accountability, then more corruption is allowed to take place. I appreciate the support of the Bloc Québécois in pursuing this endeavour.

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Mr. Arnold Viersen

Apr/8/24 5:32:58 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I hope we can restore some trust in our democratic institutions, and that we can make it so that, when people are required to come to committee and are sworn in, they tell the truth and help us get to the bottom of it. The member opposite wants to cast this narrowly as being about one individual coming to the bar so he can be questioned and we can get the truth from him, but it is likely that, when we get the truth from him, it will only lead us to more questions on the extent of the corruption, the extent of the taxpayer money waste and all of these things. The member may want to narrowly cast this, but this is only the tip of the iceberg when it comes to investigating the ArriveCAN app.

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