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Decentralized Democracy

House Hansard - 301

44th Parl. 1st Sess.
April 17, 2024 02:00PM
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.
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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?
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Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Peter Julian
  • Apr/17/24 5:34:12 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have not seen a scandal like this since the ETS scandal under the Harper government. The ETS scandal cost Canadian taxpayers $400 million. The Conservatives had a majority government at the time. The Conservatives did everything they could to keep Canadians from getting the answers they were looking for. This Conservative scandal was never resolved and we never got the information. However, this time, since we have a minority Parliament, we are getting answers about the ArriveCAN scandal. That is extremely important. It is because of the parliamentary powers we have. As we saw under the Harper regime, with a majority government, it was not possible to get answers about the $400 million the Conservatives had spent without any transparency at all, but today, we have the opportunity to get more answers, and I think that is important. If I understood correctly, Mr. Firth stated earlier that he only influenced three things in the 220 requirements of the contracts. Is he saying that he did not influence the contract, or is he saying that he did not influence the contract as much as is being claimed?
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Context: House Hansard - 301 - Apr/17/24
Mr. Peter Julian
  • Apr/17/24 5:36:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Mr. Firth mentioned earlier that he did in fact falsify or alter the résumés. According to what we heard in committee, one person was said to have 13 years of experience, when that was not true. Other information about these people was also falsified. I want to ask two questions. First, does Mr. Firth regret the fact that those résumés were falsified? Second, to date, the federal government has not asked for the questionable amounts to be repaid. Is Mr. Firth prepared to reimburse Canadian taxpayers for the questionable amounts of these contracts?
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