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House Hansard - 295

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 8, 2024 11:00AM
Context: House Hansard - 295 - Apr/8/24
Mrs. Stephanie Kusie (Calgary Midnapore, CPC)
  • Apr/8/24 1:34:23 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House on behalf of the good citizens of Calgary Midnapore. Who is Kristian Firth? Kristian Firth is an individual who is at the centre of this debate here today, an individual who has been called, in contempt of this Parliament, to come and to make amends by providing information that he has not provided to committees, to this House and to Canadians. Who, really, is Kristian Firth? Kristian Firth is one half of a company called GC Strategies that in 2018 ranked fourth of the fastest-growing companies in Ottawa. The products it offers are IT solutions and consulting. It had a three-year revenue growth of 676.4%. It is no wonder why when we see the scandal of the arrive scam app, a $60 million app that could have been created at a fraction of the price by a group of university students over a weekend. This individual is wanted here, before the House, for not getting answers for Canadians. I am sure when Mr. Firth started his enterprise, he was like any other well-meaning entrepreneur who wanted to make a dollar to support his family. He has cited incredible stress since he undertook this role, with the scrutiny that he and his partner have come under. Before I continue, I just want to point out that I will be sharing my time with the wonderful member for Edmonton West, who is also the chair of the government operations committee. The things Mr. Firth did were certainly unscrupulous. For example, he falsified résumés. He essentially did what we have come to know in the government operations committee as the “bait-and-switch”, where a certain set of information is provided, a contract is won, and then the vendors are switched out, and those individuals who would be completing the work are switched out. He certainly inflated the prices. He has made $19 million on arrive scam, an unbelievable amount. As I said, it was a $60 million app, but it may in fact be even more than that. The Auditor General was not even able to confirm that it was just $60 million, as a result of incomplete documentation. In addition to the bait-and-switch, the falsified résumés and the inflated prices, he made relationships with bureaucrats that many would consider not above bar and, in fact, subject to strong ethical scrutiny. Kristian Firth is an individual, one partner in GC Strategies, who started a business, who got $19 million in funding for arrive scam, who has now been called in contempt of the House and who has done some extraordinary things. Why is Mr. Kristian Firth being called before the House? It is evident that it is the incompetence and the unethical conduct of the Liberal government. Without a doubt, that is the real reason Kristian Firth is being called in front of the House. The current government is incapable of taking responsibility for anything it does. It simply cannot say it is the government's fault. Sadly, it is a combination of incompetence and unethical behaviour. It is incompetence that it has had eight years to fix the procurement policy, which the procurement ombudsman said was an absolute shame, an absolute failure, and it allowed this scandal to happen. It is an ethical breach, as we have seen at every single layer and level of the Liberal government, to the Prime Minister, three times, with nothing more than a slap on the wrist. It is no wonder that Kristian Firth thought he could get away with those types of atrocities and that he is being called forward to the House. We have seen several instances where the current government has not taken its responsibility seriously, or at all, with dismal results and with terrible consequences for Canadians and, in fact, for members of its own party as well. We recall Jody Wilson-Raybould, the former justice minister, who tried to do the ethical thing with the Liberal government. When shuffled out of her position as minister of justice and given the lesser cabinet position of minister of veterans affairs, she later told Canadians that the Prime Minister's Office had attempted to put pressure on her to intervene in the SNC-Lavalin case. We see that no one has a chance with the current government, not even the justice minister. In a letter, Ms. Wilson-Raybould later thanked constituents, saying she was stepping down from cabinet and looking forward to serving her constituents at that time. However, in her book, she later on came out and said, “I wish...I had never met you.” Those are the words she said about the Prime Minister, who leads the unethical government, who leads an incompetent government that has brought us to this position with Kristian Firth having to come in front of the government here today. In fact, on her way out, Ms. Wilson-Raybould said to the incoming justice minister, David Lametti, “Be careful, all is not what it seems.” As I said, it is a government that does not want to take responsibility and does not want to have accountability. We see this again with the calling of Kristian Firth. Where else did we see this? We are seeing it with the dismissal of the two lab scientists out of the Winnipeg lab where we had, first of all, a CSIS investigation that showed information such as an X-ray of a package containing vials of a substance that was later found to be mouse protein, but they were labelled as kitchen utensils. As well, there was a trip to China that was a personal vacation. Even a CSIS investigation was not enough for the Prime Minister to insist that all the documents be released around that scandal. That is another another example where we see how the current government does not take responsibility. It is unethical and does not even have the competence to right the wrongs it makes. It has no capacity to fix this policy, even though it has had eight years. It has no capacity to follow the recommendations of independent investigators of Parliament such as the procurement ombudsman or even the Privacy Commissioner, as we saw in the government operations committee this morning. Worse than incompetent, the government is unethical. It attempts to cover up its unethical behaviour and to place the blame on other individuals, as the Prime Minister did with the former minister of justice, Jody Wilson-Raybould; as he did with the former parliamentary secretary to international development, Celina Caesar-Chavannes; and as he did with Jane Philpott, and the list goes on and on. Do members see former minister Lametti in the House today? No. He was lucky; he jumped off the bus before he could get run over. That is what the Liberal government does. That is what the unethical government does. Where else did we see this? If we look at the chair you are sitting in, Madam Speaker, it is the chair of the Speaker. The Prime Minister could not even accept responsibility for inviting a Nazi into the House. Instead, he got rid of the predecessor to that chair. The government is incompetent and unethical. It cannot take responsibility for anything. It throws everyone and anyone under the bus, and this is the latest victim. It is certainly as a result of his own doing and of his own terrible inaction of not responding to the House. However, it is the Prime Minister who throws those people under the bus. Who perpetuates these lies? In fact, it is the Prime Minister and all the ministers around him. It is all the ministers who showed up in the government operations committee and indicated that they did not know how this happened. It is their deputy ministers. It is Erin O'Gorman, who is just there covering up for the unethical government. Do members know what makes me the most mad? My colleagues and I, in the next government, after the next election, will have to fix this pattern of unethical behaviour and have to fix all the policies. It is the member for Edmonton West, the member for Barrie, the member for Calgary West and the member behind me for Sarnia—Lambton, who are going to have to come in and clean up this mess. That is because even though it may be Kristian Firth who is coming to the bar today, in contempt, for refusing to provide answers, it is fundamentally the responsibility, the fault and the blame of the unethical Prime Minister and of the incompetent Liberal government. Frankly, Kristian Firth is just the latest victim in this train wreck in this parade of victims of the Prime Minister and his team.
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Context: House Hansard - 295 - Apr/8/24
The Deputy Speaker
  • Apr/8/24 2:59:48 p.m.
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The hon. member for Calgary Centre.
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