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Context: House Hansard - 232 - Oct/16/23

Oct/26/23 3:01:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, this Liberal government is involved in so many scandals that even the Prime Minister cannot keep them straight. Yesterday, in response to an important question about the SNC-Lavalin scandal, he gave an answer related to the $54‑million ArriveCAN scandal. That is how bad things have gotten after eight years of this Liberal government's scandals, ethical breaches and wedge politics. Why should Canadians keep trusting a government that paid GC Strategies, a two-person firm, $11 million to develop the ArriveCAN app when the company had no IT expertise? Will the Prime Minister admit that he is not worth the cost?

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Context: House Hansard - 150 - Jan/31/23

Oct/16/23 3:15:13 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the past eight years of Liberal management have been nothing but one scandal after another. We just found out that the RCMP has launched a criminal investigation into ArriveCAN, which cost Canadians $54 million for nothing. Botler, a Montreal company, was the one that blew the whistle. A senior Liberal government official strongly advised Botler to work closely on an IT contract with the same company that worked on the ArriveCAN app. That company was GC Strategies, a two-person concern with no office and no IT skills. What Botler uncovered is similar to something seen in Quebec before. After eight years of sticking their heads in the sand, are the Liberals going to tell us who exactly is getting richer every time they award a contract?

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Context: House Hansard - 150 - Jan/31/23

Jan/31/23 2:38:31 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we are against the millions of dollars being given to Liberal firms. After eight years in power, this Prime Minister is admitting that he will never be competent. The proof is that he awarded an 80-year contract for consulting services to the Liberal firm McKinsey. Imagine if a government had granted a contract like that in 1943, in the middle of the Second World War. There were no personal computers or cell phones back then, and no Internet either. How can this government predict that McKinsey will still be relevant in 2100? Could this be the Prime Minister's plan to ensure he gets a golden retirement?

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Context: House Hansard - 147 - Dec/13/22

Jan/31/23 2:37:15 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Metro's president confirmed that food prices will continue to rise in 2023. Even more families and seniors will be forced to rely on food banks to feed themselves. After eight years under this Prime Minister, people are so desperate that some have even resorted to shoplifting. News outlet 24 heures asked people why they stole. Marlène said, “After I pay rent and bills, all I have left is $80 to make it through two weeks”. How can the Prime Minister pay firms $1,000 an hour when Marlène has to break the law to feed herself?

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Context: House Hansard - 144 - Dec/8/22

Dec/13/22 3:03:56 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Minister of International Trade says she takes full responsibility for her actions. What does it mean to take full responsibility for one's actions in the House? It means doing something, not just apologizing, but assuming responsibility. She used her authority to award $20,000 worth of contracts to a Liberal friend. She is the fourth Liberal minister to be caught by the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner. He said, “There is simply no excuse for contracting with a friend's company”. Yes, she has apologized, but will she do the right thing and step down?

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Context: House Hansard - 144 - Dec/8/22

Dec/8/22 2:58:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, we have a serious problem in Canada. Judging by the Liberals' answers, the media is the Prime Minister's primary source of information on Beijing's interference. Whether it is a network of candidates funded by China or a company held by the Chinese communist regime getting a contract to protect the RCMP's communications, every time the Prime Minister denies having been informed by his intelligence experts. Either the Prime Minister has his eyes closed or he does not want to know; or he knows, but is voluntarily hiding the information. Which answer are we going to get today?

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Dec/8/22 2:56:58 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is something. The Liberal government gave access to the RCMP's secured communications system to a company held by Beijing while the RCMP confirmed that it was investigating Beijing's interference into our election. There was no security check nor any questions about the company that the RCMP is going to entrust its secret codes to for its internal communications. Our American neighbours have known about this for a long time and that company was on their blacklist. Instead of taking responsibility, as usual the Prime Minister is blaming others. Why is the Prime Minister always so slow and so spineless every time he needs to stand up to Beijing?

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Nov/1/22 4:31:14 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is difficult to see the benefits of ArriveCAN when there were already tools that had been put in place by the provinces. People could have presented vaccination status documents at the border. Everything was already in place. There was no need to create another app, another expense and another layer of administration to basically achieve the same objectives.

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Nov/1/22 4:29:33 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I could give many examples to show how, when the government keeps racking up debt, it loses some the flexibility it has to offer real services to citizens. More importantly, it affects the ability of future generations to access government services because the price of that debt is going to keep growing. Our children and the children of all Canadians are the ones who are going to have to pay that debt. That is the big problem. I just want to say one thing. According to the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, we are adding $6 million a day to the debt. That does not include the Prime Minister's $7,000-a-night hotel bill. It cost at least $14,000 for those two days.

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Nov/1/22 4:28:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleague for her question, which I am honoured to answer. I hope that one day, I or one of my colleagues will be lucky enough to answer the Bloc Québécois's questions every day. What we basically want is to put a stop to waste and spending associated with unnecessary programs and to replace the Liberal government, so that there will finally be responsible people on the other side to answer all of the Bloc's questions.

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Nov/1/22 4:26:32 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, since I got vaccinated, I had a piece of paper that I could have shown customs officers. That would have cost the price of a sheet of paper, and it would have allowed me to cross the border. Instead, everyone had to enter their information in the ArriveCAN app, otherwise they could not enter Canada. I had an app provided by the Quebec government that allowed me to show my proof of vaccination. Instead, the federal government wanted its own app, because it just had to get involved, or rather it wanted to reward good Liberal friends by handing out more valuable and juicy contracts. That is why the Auditor General needs to get to the bottom of everything pertaining to the ArriveCAN app.

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Context: House Hansard - 116 - Oct/24/22

Nov/1/22 4:19:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have the pleasure of rising today to speak to the motion moved by the hon. member for Carleton and leader of the official opposition on the important issue of the Liberal government's wasteful spending. Rather than helping to combat the inflation crisis Canadians are experiencing, this government is fuelling inflation and making everyone's life more difficult. I would like to share some aspects of this motion with my colleagues. First, the member for Carleton believes that the cost of government is driving up the cost of living. That is a fact. The cost of groceries has gone up by 11.4% in a year. That is the largest increase in 40 years. That means that some items at the grocery store will cost up to 40% more. That also means that mothers and fathers will have difficult choices to make at the cash register. They may have to decide not to buy certain items that week even though the kids want them. They will have to tell their children that they can only afford to buy those things once a month because they have difficult choices to make. That is today's reality. The cost of living is sky-high. After having dropped, the price of gas is on the rise again. It is now almost $2 a litre in Quebec. For workers in regions like mine, who have to commute and travel close to 60 kilometres every day to get to work, this money is coming directly from their pockets. They can no longer use it to feed their families. That is another really problematic situation. Now we learn that this government has decided to add new taxes. It wants to triple the carbon tax, which will have an even more damaging effect on consumers across Canada. The Parliamentary Budget Officer told us that this government has torn through $500 billion in inflationary spending. That is half a trillion dollars. I never thought I would use that term in the House. Canada's debt is now $1 trillion. The government has spent half a trillion in the last two years. It claimed that this money was used to help people deal with COVID‑19, to send cheques to citizens, families and businesses. Yes, Conservatives supported those measures. However, we did not support spending 40% of that $500 billion, or $200 billion, on things that had absolutely nothing to do with COVID‑19. The government created new programs and new spending that ended up boosting inflation in Canada. As a result, the family I was talking about earlier will have a harder time putting food on the table at the end of the month. That is the reality. Members will recall the Prime Minister saying that interest rates would stay low for decades, that it was fine to borrow money, that the government would absorb those expenses on Canadians' behalf. Now Canadians are the ones who have to pay back their loans at interest rates that are higher than they have been in years. What do the Liberals have to say to those Canadians? Will they pay their bills? No, they will not, contrary to what the Prime Minister said during his inaugural speech in 2015. That is the reality. The third part of the motion says, “Canadians are now paying higher prices and higher interest rates as a result”. Yes, Canadians are paying higher interest rates. The government is going to pay higher interest rates. That means that a larger portion of the money that Canadians send to the government will be used to make interest payments because this government spent an incredible amount of money, money that it should not have spent, spending that could be described as wasteful, as in the case of the ArriveCAN app. Paying off this debt is going to cost more for everyone. That is the reality. The motion also says, “it is more important than ever for the government to respect taxpayer dollars and eliminate wasteful spending”. Who can be against that? If there is one person here who is against that sentiment let him or her rise immediately and explain how they can be against using taxpayer money better and eliminating wasteful spending. One of the best ways to do that is to investigate the government's wastefulness. If my colleagues support the motion, it would mean calling on the Auditor General of Canada to conduct a performance audit, including the payments, contracts and subcontracts for all aspects of the ArriveCAN app, and to prioritize this investigation. This app cost $54 million, when it could have cost $250,000. Certain invoices led us to believe that some companies had been hired. We heard about a $1-million contract awarded to a firm that candidly admitted to the newspapers that it never worked on the app. That is to say nothing of how useless the ArriveCAN app is. I will conclude my speech by saying that I urge all of my colleagues to support this motion.

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Context: House Hansard - 110 - Oct/7/22

Oct/24/22 2:51:46 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, he is CBSA. He is the minister, so he is the one responsible for the ArriveCAN chaos. The Liberals are putting the lucrative contracts awarded to companies into quarantine. We want to know the details. The government paid $54 million to develop that app, which should have cost $250,000. Some 70 updates were needed for an app that never worked. The question is simple. Who are the other winners of the Liberal ArriveCAN lottery?

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Oct/7/22 11:46:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, the app must have been created in order to line someone's pockets. Let us break it down: $54 million works out to one million hours for an engineer, a professional, at $50 an hour. That means 31,000 weeks of work, which is 596 years of work for one person, or 596 people working for one year to create the app. The facts speak for themselves. Someone pocketed a bunch of cash in this deal, but the Liberals refuse to say who that was. Was it friends of the Liberalist?

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May/19/22 9:22:02 p.m.
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Madam Chair, is the minister telling us that PSPC blindly does whatever DND tells it to, without doing any checks? Is that how her department works?

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May/19/22 9:21:08 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am quoting comments made by a committee witness who worked for the Canadian government from 1981 to 2020. Mr. Kendrick also asked the committee to note that the offshore patrol ships are not wanted or needed by either the navy or the Coast Guard and are only being built to keep the shipyard busy until the Canadian surface combatant project is ready to move forward. Does the minister agree with that statement?

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May/19/22 9:20:39 p.m.
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Madam Chair, in his statement, Mr. Kendrick said that, broadly speaking, Canada is paying between three and five times the world price for ships and taking two to four times longer to get them. Is the minister also proud of those results?

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May/19/22 9:20:01 p.m.
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Madam Chair, Mr. Kendrick also says that Canada's national shipbuilding strategy is not delivering the ships that the Canadian Navy and Coast Guard need. According to him, the few ships that the strategy has delivered have cost an indecent amount of money, and Canada has become an international laughingstock. Is the minister okay with being a laughingstock?

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May/19/22 9:19:39 p.m.
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Madam Chair, Mr. Kendrick, who worked for the Government of Canada from 1981 to 2020, said that what concerns him about the whole shipbuilding process is that the government has lost control of situation. Does the minister agree?

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