- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $170,231.20
- Government Page
- Jun/6/24 3:20:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, on a point of order arising from question period, following my question in which I referred to the other Randy, you made some comments about skating close to the line in terms of using the first names of members in the House. I wonder if you could just clarify your ruling. Is your ruling that the other Randy is a member of the House of Commons?
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- Jun/4/24 9:40:45 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I listened to my hon. friend's speech and he recounted some truly horrifying instances of abusive action by police officers against individuals, in particular individuals from marginalized communities. I want to affirm the importance of noting and reflecting on those instances of abuse.
I would also contend that I think it is important to include, as part of this conversation, that the vast majority of police officers go to work every day with good intentions to protect our communities. Indeed, the role of police officers is important in protecting all of us, particularly in protecting marginalized communities that would otherwise be at greater risk of violence. Further, I would say that efforts to defund the police undermine the role of police in our society and have made people less safe and have made marginalized communities, in particular, less safe.
Does the member agree with me that, in confronting these instances of abuse, we also need to affirm the work that the vast majority of officers are doing, which is working hard to keep all of us safe?
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- May/29/24 9:50:00 p.m.
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Madam Chair, there have been 12 meetings with a heroin-selling company. The government is refusing to release contracts involving the Government of Canada and corporate drug dealers.
Why will the minister not tell us what was discussed in those meetings, and why is the minister sitting on these contracts?
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- May/29/24 9:48:09 p.m.
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Madam Chair, a lot of people want to hide their meetings with drug dealers, but I would have expected better from this minister.
What is the purpose of these 12 meetings with this corporate drug dealer?
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- May/29/24 9:47:09 p.m.
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Madam Chair, 12 meetings in two years. Four in-person meetings with this heroin company and the former minister. This new incoming minister must have been briefed on the nature of this close relationship and what was being discussed.
For a final time, why is the government meeting 12 times in two years with this heroin company? What is being discussed? What is Fair Price Pharma asking for?
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- May/29/24 9:46:29 p.m.
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Madam Chair, this is not a dispassionate expert. This is someone who went from the public health world into selling heroin. Twelve meetings in two years is not normal even for an expert. Again I will ask, what is being discussed in these meetings? What is Fair Price Pharma asking the Liberal government for?
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- May/29/24 9:45:08 p.m.
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Madam Chair, I am splitting three ways, and my questions will be for the Minister of Mental Health and Addictions.
My colleagues have asked about a company called Fair Price Pharma, which is run by former B.C. public health officer Perry Kendall and a partner. Its business is selling heroin. The results of an Order Paper question show that in a two-year period leading up to December 13 of last year, the minister met with Fair Price Pharma on September 15, her predecessor met personally with Fair Price Pharma four times and that health officials met with it an additional seven times. That is a dozen meetings in two years, which is a lot of meetings for a minister and officials with one company in the heroin business.
What is being discussed in these 12 meetings between Liberals and this heroin company?
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- May/28/24 12:16:15 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is unbelievable to me that the NDP-Liberals are still defending the arrive scam policy. The fact is that this app was a disaster. Sixty million dollars was spent. A big chunk of it went to this do-nothing middleman company. Most versions of the app, according to the Auditor General, were not tested. As a result, over 10,000 people who followed all the rules were accidentally sent into quarantine because of a glitch in the app.
We can imagine that someone does everything they are supposed to. They are coming back home; they are supposed to be able to see their family and get back to work. They are sent into quarantine, not because they are supposed to go, but because the government could not be bothered to test the app. Rather, it hired two guys working out of a basement with no IT experience, who went on LinkedIn to find other people to do the work.
The Auditor General very clearly said that there is no excuse. The government continues to make excuses in spite of it. Does the government have no shame? Will it finally admit what a disaster the arrive scam policy was?
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- May/28/24 12:09:03 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is now clear that the costly, crooked, cover-up coalition engaged in corrupt practices in the arrive scam scandal. The Auditor General's report revealed that the government rigged the process, which was that senior officials sat down with the well-connected insider firm, GC Strategies, and discussed and arranged the terms of a deal, which GC Strategies would then bid on. It was able to rig the process, discuss the terms of the deal, which it then bid on and, surprise, got the contract. However, we still do not know why the NDP-Liberal coalition went to such lengths to favour GC Strategies.
Let us paint the picture. GC Strategies is two guys who work out of a basement. They do not do any actual work on projects; they simply receive the contracts and then subcontract them and take massive commissions along the way. It would be as if the member for York—Simcoe and I went out and started Lake Simcoe Enterprises, did no work but just got contracts and passed them along. That would be a good deal for us, but it would be a bad deal for taxpayers.
Why is it that the government did not simply hire the IT professionals to do the work rather than going through a couple of middlemen sitting in their basement who know nothing about IT and whose only business is to go on LinkedIn, find people who can do the work, then get the contracts, find the people to actually do the work, and collect millions of dollars in commissions in the process?
However, the government chose the two people from GC Strategies. The government chose this company to be the favoured son of Liberal corrupt procurement. Why were they chosen? We still do not have an answer to that. Maybe the parliamentary secretary will be able to explain it to the House.
Frankly, we have seen that the government, the Prime Minister and the people working under him, have persistently rigged the process to reward insiders and punish taxpayers, and the process is broken. We will hear Liberals say, “Well, those Conservatives will make cuts. What will they spend less on when they are in government?” I will tell members; it is not rocket science. If there is a two-person firm that receives the contracts then passes them along and does no work in the process, it seems pretty uncomplicated. I mean, it would be ideal to cut out the contracting in general and have the work done inside government, but at least cut out the middleman.
GC Strategies has rightly gotten a lot of attention. It has done very well under the current government. It was founded in 2015 and has done extremely well under the NDP-Liberals. However, there are over 600 different companies doing IT middleman contracting and subcontracting, doing so-called staff augmentation for the public service. This is out of control, and it involves massive amounts of money. There has been a dramatic growth in public service spending but also a dramatic growth in contracting out at the same time, and a substantial amount of the contracting out is going to do-nothing middleman companies and is going to advice from professional services.
Why is the government spending so much and getting so little for Canadians?
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- May/27/24 9:33:09 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, members will be familiar with the expression “casting pearls before swine.” Looking across the way, I wonder if it was more casting pearls before an empty pen tonight.
I do want to recognize the points the member made about how this bill would make it more difficult for greener projects to proceed as well. This bill is bad for energy development, for traditional energy and for green energy. The government likes to talk about green energy, but when one piles red tape on new development, it affects all sectors. I wonder if the member wants to comment further on that.
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- May/8/24 11:36:48 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I did not want to interrupt my colleague, but in the middle of it, the member opposite shouted across “Where is the tin hat?” Aside from the fact that I think he meant “tinfoil hat”, the point is that I think that is unparliamentary. We are trying to have a serious conversation about foreign interference, and he is dismissing real facts, real experience and history about this.
Frankly, it is typical of the Liberals that they try to claim it is a conspiracy when we are pointing out real—
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- May/7/24 7:02:52 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it being May 7, I want to start by wishing my dear wife back home a happy anniversary. With five kids and one more on the way and through four election campaigns, it has been a wild 13 years. I am so grateful to her and to my whole family for supporting me in this important vocation. It involves far more sacrifice for them than it does for me.
The process was rigged. The arrive scam process was rigged in favour of well-connected insider companies. We know this because the procurement ombud's report identified the well-connected insiders at GC Strategies, the small two-person company that the government loved giving deals to, over and over again. GC Strategies, the small two-person company, was actually founded in the same year that the Prime Minister took office. Fancy that.
The company was founded the same year the Prime Minister took office, and it became a favoured go-to supplier for the government. A supplier of what? A supplier of nothing. This company did no work. It simply received contracts and subcontracted all of the work. If the government needed to pay someone to do nothing, GC Strategies was its go-to.
The process was rigged because GC Strategies sat down with folks inside of the government who were deciding the terms of critical contracts. GC Strategies said what the specifications of the contract and the terms of the contract should look like, and that advice was taken. GC Strategies then bid on the contract, which it had informed the development of, and, surprise, it got it. GC Strategies was able to sit down with those developing the contracting process, fix the process by saying exactly what the specifications of the contract could be and then, surprise, it got the deal.
I have continually asked the government why. Why did sketchy companies like GC Strategies develop this favoured stature within the NDP-Liberal government? Why did it continue to go to the same shady characters over and over again to give them these incredibly generous contracts?
On arrive scam alone, this glitchy app that did not work, that sent over 10,000 people into quarantine on an error, that had real horrifying impacts on the lives of Canadians, this company got, according to the Auditor General, almost $20 million for nothing. It simply got the work and then subcontracted all of it to other people. Now that is a glorious gig. It got millions of dollars, tens of millions of dollars, from the NDP-Liberal government to do nothing. It had the process rigged in its favour when it was a two-person company working out of a basement.
I am trying to understand. There is this systematic rot in the procurement process. This arrive scam issue is just the tip of the iceberg. We keep hearing new reports about broken contracting, contracting across various departments that clearly did not follow the rules.
I want to ask the parliamentary secretary a question. Why did the government rig the process in favour of the shady characters at GC Strategies? Why did the government do it?
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- May/7/24 3:11:07 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, behold, the ghost of Paul Martin is back. When a government is drowning, it will grasp onto anything, but it continues to sink nonetheless.
Six years ago, the House and the government voted to list the IRGC as a terrorist organization and, therefore, prevent it from fundraising, converting or operating in Canada. Six years later, this terrorist group continues to operate here with impunity. Tomorrow, the House will vote again.
Will this NDP-Liberal government finally do what it failed to do six years ago and vote to shut down IRGC operations in Canada?
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- Apr/17/24 5:25:35 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, in meetings outside the office with Paul Girard, did they discuss replacing resources or increasing resources? Did they discuss new contracts? If the witness is unable to answer that question, will he provide a response in writing?
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- Apr/8/24 2:09:34 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister used to say that no relationship was more important to him than Canada's relationship with indigenous peoples, and yet the NDP-Liberal government has been using indigenous contracting to funnel money to well-connected government insiders in ways that produce no actual benefit for indigenous communities. This is a gross betrayal of taxpayers and indigenous peoples.
David Yeo is the arrive scam contractor whose company made $8 million while, according to his own LinkedIn page, he was simultaneously a government employee. We still do not know what he actually did for the money. Yeo's two-person company benefited from an indigenous contracting set aside, even though no indigenous communities saw any of the money.
Indigenous leaders have warned that the Liberal approach to contracting is encouraging shell companies and other modes of obfuscation to gain an advantage in procurement processes, all to the detriment of legitimate indigenous peoples of Canada, communities and businesses.
It is time to end the corruption, to respect taxpayers and to insist that indigenous contracting policies actually benefit indigenous peoples, not well-connected NDP-Liberal insiders.
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- Apr/8/24 1:00:56 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, very clearly, under the NDP-Liberal government, contracting out is out of control. There has been a ballooning of external contracting, as well as significant growth in the public service.
Do I think it is never reasonable to contract out? No, I do not think that. I think there are cases where contracting out is legitimate. However, we have seen an excessive use of management consulting and the use of unethical companies like McKinsey. There are contracts to contract, to subcontract and so on. I think our position is a reasonable and balanced one, which is that we need to have proper accountability and spending controls.
The NDP is very disingenuous. It continually votes confidence and supply to its Liberal partners to allow them to pursue the same policies the member claims to denounce. If the member wants to actually see any kind of reform, if he wants to see us move away from the kind of excessive contracting out and the waste we have seen under the Liberal government, I would challenge him to put his money where his mouth is and to vote no confidence in the government.
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- Mar/20/24 10:37:02 p.m.
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Mr. Chair, members have been called to account before many times, on various sides, for suggesting that members of the House have sympathy with foreign authoritarian regimes.
The member who just spoke made an outrageous, verifiably false and unparliamentary claim. He accused members of being part of a so-called pro-Putin wing. He was not called to order by you, Mr. Chair. Now the Liberal member is continuing to cast aspersions.
Frankly, it is disgusting to see what the Liberals are doing here. They are trying to foment division when we should be trying to work together on this issue. I would ask you, Mr. Chair, to call these members to account for their unparliamentary language and their disgraceful conduct during this debate tonight.
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- Mar/19/24 10:14:08 a.m.
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Mr. Speaker, I have just one petition today.
It is deeply troubling to see the passage of article 23 in Hong Kong. This is another devastating attack on the people of Hong Kong. It creates a provision that would allow sentences of up to 14 years of imprisonment if an individual fails to disclose that another person indicates an intention to commit treason. This builds on the national security law of 2020, but it is another devastating action that requires the condemnation of the government. The government should also call for the release of Jimmy Lai.
I am presenting a petition in relation to the situation in Hong Kong that calls on the Government of Canada to recognize the politicization of the judiciary in Hong Kong. In doing so, it could create a mechanism by which Hong Kong people with pro-democracy movement-related convictions could explain such convictions. Therefore, they would not be deemed inadmissible to come to Canada under the criminality provisions of the Immigration Act.
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- Mar/18/24 5:06:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, as the Conservative shadow minister for international development, I want to reiterate that we are deeply concerned about the impact of this war on civilians, Palestinian and Israeli, and that we have been highlighting the critical importance of humanitarian access from the earliest days of the war. Conservatives also support a two-state solution, negotiated and agreed on by both Israelis and Palestinians, where each can exercise democratic self-determination in peace and security.
Unlike the NDP, though, we do not believe rewarding bad actors, specifically funding bad actors, is going to lead to peace. In particular, Palestinians do not want to be under the thumb of Hamas. Durable peace and democratic self-determination for Palestinians is only possible through the defeat of Hamas and the delivery of support through organizations that do not incite violence.
Does the member support calls for the complete disarmament of Hamas?
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- Feb/27/24 6:35:02 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is truly incredible listening to that member talk.
This government has been in power for eight years. It has broken the procurement system in this country, and the Liberals speak about problems that happened as if they have no responsibility for what happens under their watch. This government is supposed to be in charge and it refuses to take responsibility for the costs, the corruption and the criminality that we now see as part of the ArriveCAN system.
The Liberals want us to believe that, well, it was an emergency and the ArriveCAN app was necessary. This app went through 177 different versions, it sent over 10,000 people into quarantine by accident and the versions were not properly tested. They hired two people with no IT experience. There are no excuses, and this government should take responsibility.
Again, will the government co-operate with the RCMP investigation into criminality, yes or no?
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