44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 8, 2024 11:00AM
- Apr/8/24 11:26:09 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, one of the key concerns that was raised by the Auditor General in the ArriveCAN report was the lack of documentation. The Auditor General herself said that the most surprising thing for her was what she did not find: documentation. She did not find copies of contracts confirming this.
However, the other thing that has come out of the investigation is the idea and the concept of double dipping, where active public servants are also securing contracts, sometimes with the department they actually work for. Last week at the public accounts committee, we heard from CBSA officials who said that, yes, they had contractors working for them who were also public sector employees, but they could not really give us an answer.
I wonder whether the member for New Westminster—Burnaby shares our concern about double dipping and whether we need further answers from the public service on the number of double dippers in the public service.
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- Apr/8/24 11:57:24 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I would like to start with a comment on the ArriveCAN situation. I wonder if the current government would have shown such indignation if not for the objections from the opposition parties, which pointed out that something was wrong long before the Auditor General of Canada. The Auditor General of Canada issued a scathing report on management, which, I would remind members, is the government's responsibility.
I hear the parliamentary secretary tell us that the government wants to strengthen and improve the system and close any loopholes. Have the parliamentary secretary and his government set aside funds for this in the upcoming budget, rather than sinking money into things that are none of their concern?
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- Apr/8/24 1:22:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, whether intentionally or by accident, the member just proved the point. The fact is, we have an entity that received $20 million in funding on an app that was originally supposed to cost $80,000, and the company that was contracted is named GC Strategies. The confusion that it has endeavoured to throw at this seems intentional in what we see as an exponential explosion of contracting by the Liberal Party, which was backed by the NDP every step of the way.
That is exactly the point. It manipulated the facts and the truth for its political agenda so it could get contracts or so, when somebody looked through a procurement list, they would see GC Strategies and maybe think that it must be another department under Treasury Board or something like that. That speaks to the exact point, I would suggest, that we need to be making here.
I would reference as well that the Auditor General has done some incredible work in outlining some of the egregious accounting, to say the least, when it comes to this. That is only one more thing on the laundry list. It would be one thing if this were an exceptional circumstance under the Liberal Prime Minister, but the government seems to be quick to run roughshod over accountability, our institutions and, ultimately, over the privileges that are the fundamental backbone of preserving our democracy. Therefore, many Canadians are simply saying that they do not trust the Prime Minister or the government.
It is not an exceptional circumstance. It seems that, every single day, there is a new scandal, a new controversy or something that the government has mismanaged that has led to corruption. One can only jump to this conclusion: It seems that this rot goes from the bottom all the way to the top, and change needs to happen. I will close with that.
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- Apr/8/24 3:35:20 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I would be remiss if I did not note that we are experiencing the eclipse right now. We even saw a dimming of the light in the House of Commons. Unfortunately, that will not be the biggest cover-up we talk about today.
It will also my great honour and privilege to split my time with the member for Mégantic—L'Érable. We will be talking about the privilege motion, which is the subject of debate today.
I will start by going through some of the facts, specifically quoting some of the Auditor General's report, of the scurrilous accusations in here, which are really quite disturbing, and certainly there is more to come. It will give us the context. I will then discuss the importance of parliamentary supremacy and the need for this body to get the information it requires to fulfill its democratic duties.
I will start by reading from paragraph 1.18 in the AG's report on the ArriveCAN application. It says:
We found that financial records were not well maintained by the Canada Border Services Agency. We were unable to determine a precise cost for the ArriveCAN application because of poor documentation and weak controls at the Canada Border Services Agency. We estimated that the application cost approximately $59.5 million.
For the rest of the speech, as a shorthand, I will refer to that amount as $60 million. That $60 million is a large amount of money. This was for a contract that was originally set to cost somewhere between $80,000 to $160,000, but it ballooned up to $60 million.
Just as disturbing as a $60-million price tag is the fact that the Auditor General, who has an incredible team with probably hundreds of years of service combined, when trying to investigate and fact-find, was unable to get through the poor record-keeping and terrible lack of detail at the Canada Border Services Agency. This was despite the AG's incredible abilities.
I believe that the Auditor General, in subsequent testimony, even said that she had never seen bookkeeping this bad in her entire career, and this is after many years of being a professional auditor. The AG could not even get to what the exact number was, but she estimated it as $60 million. It could be more, but we do not know that at this point.
I will go further into the report, to paragraph 1.39, where it says:
The Canada Border Services Agency informed us that GC Strategies was awarded the contract on the basis of a proposal that it submitted. Agency officials told us that they had discussions with 3 potential contractors about submitting a proposal to develop the ArriveCAN application. We found that the agency received a proposal from 1 of the 3 potential contractors, but this proposal was not from GC Strategies. There was no evidence that the agency considered a proposal or any similar document from GC Strategies for this non-competitive contract.
The Canada Border Services Agency awarded a contract on a non-existent proposal. CBSA initially said there were three different proposals put out there, but the Auditor General only found one of those proposals, and it was not from the eventual winner of this non-competitive process. As far as I know, that proposal still has not been tracked down.
It is amazing that there would be a $60-million contract awarded on a missing, or non-existent, proposal. Once again, this is incredibly troublesome. We have heard from all members in the House that we are shocked. We share that almost unanimously. How could it happen that a $60-million proposal would simply disappear?
The public service may face criticism on a variety of issues, but one thing I rarely ever hear is that it has a lack of record-keeping or a lack of data. The Auditor General said that she has never seen bookkeeping that bad.
We move on to continue the discussion of GC Strategies. I believe it has been reported that it is actually called the Government of Canada Strategies, which says a lot on its own.
We will go to 1.58 of the report:
Some of the requirements or eligibility criteria were extremely narrow, which likely prevented competition. For example, bidders were required to have been awarded 3 informatic contracts with the Government of Canada [within] the last 18 months with a [greater] value...[of] $10 million.
I don't think there would be too many of those. The report continues:
We also found that the reasonableness of per diem rates in the bid was insufficiently assessed. Per diem rates were assessed on the basis of the 3 non-competitive contracts, which the Canada Border Services Agency...issued during the pandemic. In our opinion, the agency should not have used these prior non-competitive contracts as a reference point.
It is just so odd. How does one define the request proposal process so narrowly that there is a handful, or even just one firm, that could possibly apply for this position? The amount of suspicion that comes from this is incredible.
I will just say that again: One of the conditions for the bid for the ArriveCAN app was that a company had “been awarded 3 informatic contracts with the Government of Canada [over] the last 18 months with a value greater than $10 million.” It certainly appears to me, just a simple guy from Orono, Ontario, that in fact it was almost targeted directly at one particular firm. In this case, it was GC Strategies.
We heard the testimony of Mr. Firth. I imagine I was one of tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands, of Canadians who tuned in to some of that committee coverage at the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, or OGGO. I could not believe this gentlemen's audacity in which he talked. To be candid, he acted as if this was some type of unfairness that had been done to him. The reality is that we have allegation after allegation and have $60 million spent without, yet, a really solid explanation. We have firms being paid $1,000 or more a day, an hour. This has caused incredible upset for Canadians struggling to get by and seeing record-high usage of food banks. They want answers.
That brings me back where I want to end, which is at the very heart of democracy. What separates this country from many others are our democratic principles and our commitment to the parliamentary Westminster system. It is this Parliament that guarantees the rights and freedoms of Canadians from coast to coast.
When we say “privilege,” I think it is miscast. It is not my privilege, and it is not any of the members of Parliament's privilege; it is Canadians' privilege. It is due to the years of sacrifice throughout our history, through wars and otherwise, when we stood up for freedom and democracy, which has given us the ability to voice our opinions. I, and I imagine all MPs, still hear that sometimes the people of this great land are concerned and frustrated with their lack of a voice and their lack of power. I certainly go to work every day to act for them and to give them a voice, and Canadians want to know what happened to their $60 million for this app.
How did a two-person firm make $20 million? How did they possibly justify this? Given the context of the AG saying that this is the worst record-keeping she has ever seen in her many-year history, Canadians deserve answers. That is what we are asking for.
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- Apr/8/24 4:17:01 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I agree that is why we should call the individual before the bar. I do not think that will get us all of the answers we need in order to get to the bottom of the irregularities, alleged misconduct, possible fraud and worse when it comes to the ArriveCAN app.
I would add that it is one thing to question the contractors who enrich themselves, but another thing to figure out how the problem was allowed to get this bad and how far this problem goes within government procurement. Of course, irregularities and problems with government procurement land at the feet of the minister responsible for the department that procures the contracts and the minister who is responsible for procurement more generally. It happened on the current government's watch. Therefore some, probably most, of the responsibility for what appears in the Auditor General's report should fall at its feet, and it should be accountable for it.
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- Apr/8/24 5:46:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely shocking to be standing here in this place and bearing witness to events that, in and of themselves, are difficult to believe. However, when one stacks them all up together, this situation reeks of the Liberal cronyism, corruption and incompetence that we have become all too familiar with under the Prime Minister and his government.
Although my colleagues have so ably made the case throughout the day for why it is important that this motion passes, I am grateful to rise and speak to it and to be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague, the member for Brantford—Brant.
This motion relates to the study of the ArriveCAN app taking place at the government operations and estimates committee. This study, I might add, started in October 2022. I have been a member of this committee since the beginning of the study, and I have seen the government repeatedly try to obstruct investigations of the app, and, I should say, the government members.
Members in this chamber will surely recall how the government voted against the Conservative motion to have the Auditor General audit the ArriveCAN app. Now that the Auditor General’s report has been released, we know why.
The NDP-Liberal coalition tried to minimize the issue, stall the study and filibuster, but this only served to confirm to Conservatives on the committee that we needed to continue pressing for the truth. We have seen a number of instances of the Liberals on the committee covering up issues, usually supported by their NDP coalition partners.
We can take, for example, the committee’s study on the government’s explosion in contracting with McKinsey, a company that drove the opioid crisis. During that study, the NDP-Liberal coalition members blocked Conservatives from getting these documents at committee for several months. To this day, a year and a half later, we have not received a single one of the unredacted documents we requested. They also blocked a motion to force the disclosure of the documents from coming to the House, essentially killing the study on the outrageous level of outsourcing by the Liberal government.
Despite the many attempts by the Liberals to cover up their arrive scam, Conservatives have pushed forward on the investigation and pressured their NDP coalition partners to hold the government to account. With at least a dozen investigations into the $60-million arrive scam, it is obvious that there is much more to this issue than simply another ineffective, money-wasting government program. The government spent at least $60 million on an app that started with a price tag of just $80,000.
From the beginning of this study, it was obvious that there were far more problems than the outrageous government overspending. During testimony at committee, we have heard allegations of corruption, fraud, forgery, bid rigging, reprisals, destruction of evidence and a large-scale cover-up. The cover-up extends beyond members in this chamber trying to shut down investigations into the scandal, with public servants and owners of companies being involved in the ArriveCAN contracting.
On several occasions, the committee has been forced to issue summonses for witnesses to appear at committee after they refused to attend. After they refused to comply with those summons, we have been forced to invoke powers that have rarely been used since Confederation to force witnesses to show up and testify under threat of arrest. We still have another witness who continues to fail to show up.
The disdain for the powers of Parliament, particularly parliamentary committees, is born, I believe, out of an attitude pushed by the NDP-Liberal coalition. It denies accountability and allows the powers of standing committees to be subverted and outright denied in order to cover up for its failings.
Currently, a dozen investigations have been launched into the arrive scam. We have already had two major reports, published by the Auditor General and the procurement ombudsman. They have found widespread incompetence and several instances of misconduct and potential criminality, which have been referred to the RCMP.
The Auditor General found a distressing lack of documentation across the three departments involved, making it difficult to determine who made the decisions, how much the app actually cost and where all the money went, or, rather, who got rich.
She also found that Kristian Firth's company, GC Strategies, sat at the table to draft the requirements for a $25-million contract that was later awarded to GC Strategies under the guise of a competitive process. She also found that public servants at the CBSA directed KPMG, one of the largest international consulting firms, to work with GC Strategies. This inexplicable decision cost the government more money and gave GC Strategies a larger profit.
Despite being at the heart of this scandal, Kristian Firth continued to refuse to answer questions at the committee after being directed to do so. He also gave testimony on the amount he claims was paid to his company for the development of the ArriveCAN app, but his number differs from the amounts on the invoices that he provided to the committee. As a result, we have had difficulty getting to the truth regarding Mr. Firth's and his company's actions, as he has both misled and lied to the committee, on top of admitting to submitting fraudulent résumés to a federal department in order to have one of his clients qualify for a contract.
To summarize, this witness has refused several summonses to appear at a parliamentary committee, and after being forced to attend under threat of arrest, has both refused to answer questions and given misleading testimony to committee members. This impedes the committee's ability to conduct its study on the arrive scam and must be dealt with directly and swiftly to ensure that this behaviour is not allowed to become commonplace. If we value the privileges of Parliamentary standing committees to send for documents, call for witnesses and expect truthful and fulsome testimony, we must shut down any attempts to infringe on the rights of Parliament. This is an opportunity for all members in this place to stand up for the sanctity of the institution of Parliament.
I understand my colleagues on the government benches will have a knee-jerk reaction to protect Liberal insiders and cover up for their friends, but this motion must be passed in order to protect the integrity of Parliament and its ability to fulfill its duties. The powers of Parliament are clear, and they are necessary for the functioning of Parliament and our ability to do our jobs. The powers granted to committees are particularly necessary when opposition parties must hold an ethically challenged government to account, such as this NDP-Liberal coalition has shown itself to be with its repeated ethics violations.
I encourage every member in this place to vote in favour of this motion. It is of extreme importance that this motion pass and that we demonstrate that there are consequences for attempting to defy Parliament and the powers granted to Parliament and its committees. Future parliamentarians deserve no less from us.
Conservatives will stand up for the rights and privileges of members and hold to account all those who defy them. I will be voting in favour of this motion and I hope to see my colleagues join me.
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