SoVote

Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24

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

Apr/17/24 2:46:05 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, it was solved when rent was $973 a month, until he came along, but this is more proof that he is not worth the cost after nine years. He is blaming the whole world. If the world were to blame for the housing problems in Canada, then why is it that housing here is 50% to 75% more expensive than in the United States? Why is it that housing costs have risen faster than in any other G7 country relative to incomes? Why is it that we have the fewest homes per capita, despite having the most land and the most lumber? Why is that? Is it him?

110 words

Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24

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

Apr/17/24 3:12:25 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, David Dodge, proud Liberal and former Liberal appointee as governor of the central bank, said that this would be the worst budget in over 40 years. It turned out that he was right. We have had John Manley, a former Liberal finance minister, who said that the Prime Minister is pushing on the inflationary gas pedal. We now even have Bill Morneau condemning the government of which he is a former finance minister. Why is it that so many Liberals have come to the conclusion that this Prime Minister is not worth the cost?

96 words

Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24

Mr. Michael Barrett (Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, CPC)

Apr/17/24 3:42:53 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, ArriveCAN was supposed to cost taxpayers $80,000, but the NDP-Liberal government rewarded consultants and insiders, who got rich on taxpayer dollars for an app that nobody wanted. The app erroneously forced more than 10,000 people into house arrest. It did not work, and the Auditor General said it cost at least $60 million. ArriveCAN is now under 13 federal investigations. Two middlemen who do no IT work got rich in a corrupt system under the NDP-Liberal government. Some, including the witness today, became multi-millionaires. GC Strategies is a two-person company, and it claims to find people who actually do the work by using LinkedIn. Nearly $20 million for ArriveCan is what the company was paid, roughly $2,500 per hour. The people have been paid $100 million since forming GC Strategies just after the Liberal Prime Minister was elected. This is eight years under the Liberal Prime Minister. The Liberal government has been ordered to collect and recoup all funds paid to ArriveCAN contractors and subcontractors who did no work on the ArriveCAN app. Has the government asked Mr. Firth to repay the money paid to GC Strategies on ArriveCAN?

198 words

Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24

Mr. Luc Berthold

Apr/17/24 4:30:34 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the witness, Mr. Firth, is here in the wake of the Liberal scandal involving the Prime Minister's ArriveCAN application. It is an app that was supposed to cost $80,000, but ended up costing $60 million. Did the Liberal government, who paid tens of millions of dollars for work that was not done, contact Mr. Firth?

60 words

Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24

Mr. Luc Berthold

Apr/17/24 4:31:27 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, the witness, Mr. Firth, is here in the wake of the Liberal scandal involving the Prime Minister's ArriveCAN application. It is an app that was supposed to cost $80,000, but ended up costing $60 million. Did the Liberal government, who paid tens of millions of dollars for work that was not done, ask Mr. Firth to reimburse the money or contact him to find a way to do so?

74 words

Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24

Mr. Blake Desjarlais (Edmonton Griesbach, NDP)

Apr/17/24 4:55:38 p.m.
Watch

Mr. Speaker, I think Canadians across the country and members of Parliament are disappointed, not just in the dramatic failure of the procurement system in our country to address the real issues of value for money, but in that this sheds light on what has been a terrible instance of reporting missing information and lost invoicing. We do not even know the total amount to date. This is a serious and grave matter facing our country, one that stems back decades now. We heard testimony at the public accounts committee, of which I am a member, several times. Other contractors spoke to us about the tremendous vulnerability that exists in Canada's procurement system and also exists in the lack of investment in our public sector. According to The Globe and Mail, for instance, since 2017, GC Strategies has received $46 million in federal funding. The flow of tax dollars to GC Strategies has increased steadily each year, growing from $32.6 million in the 2016-17 fiscal year to $80.3 million in the 2021-22 fiscal year. According to the Auditor General, GC Strategies' ArriveCAN app cost Canadians almost $60 million. The total is still undetermined due to the lack of documentation and of a paper trail, a serious and grave error in and of itself. On top of that, we have noticed that this vulnerability of our public service and procurement process has created a system in which insiders are able to profit in extreme amounts because of a system that does not have the proper accountability and does not have the proper follow through, albeit, in this particular instance, that there is a lack of proper procurement. Canadians are rightly disappointed. Not only that, but they are angry at the very real fact that they wake up every single day, go to work, pay their taxes and do everything right, and then are told that the tax dollars they have worked so hard for have not gone to close in the gaps in social or economic outcomes, or for material benefits for Canadians, but have been going towards a dramatic outsourcing of jobs that Canadians in our public service could do. I recognize that not all IT services, of course, can be dealt with here at the House of Commons or in our public service, but a great deal of them could. When did Mr. Firth first start doing contracts and business with the Government of Canada?

411 words