Hon. Leo Housakos: Senator Gold, last week, I asked Minister Duclos who is responsible at the Canada Border Services Agency, or CBSA, and Public Services and Procurement Canada, or PSPC, for verifying outside consultants and subcontractors. We saw disturbing information this morning in The Globe and Mail about how $54 million of taxpayers’ money has been spent on ArriveCAN — on consultants who not only fudged their CVs but fabricated expertise for companies that, it seems, do not even exist. Given that information — and the fact that your government, since 2015, has increased spending on outside subcontractors and consultants by 74% — how can you possibly justify all this?

Can you tell this floor who in the Trudeau government is responsible for vetting these contracts? At the end of the day, ArriveCAN has become a fraud, a fiasco and an “ArriveScam.” Who is accountable for this?

Hon. Leo Housakos (Acting Leader of the Opposition): Minister, last month, your department provided a response to questions on the Senate Order Paper related to the procurement of two Polar-class icebreakers for the Canadian Coast Guard. One of the questions concerned the budget for this project. Your department refused to provide any estimate as to what this project would cost, despite the fact that the Parliamentary Budget Officer provided an estimate of more than $7 billion. The Trudeau government has said that the first ship will be in service in 2030 — seven years from now — yet you don’t even have a budget estimate that you can share with Parliament and the people of Canada.

Minister, you are either unwilling or unable to provide that number, and neither option is acceptable to Canadians. Do you have an estimate as to what that project will cost, and will you share it with us today?