- Member of Parliament
- Member of the panel of chairs for the legislative committees
- Conservative
- Calgary Midnapore
- Alberta
- Voting Attendance: 66%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $141,419.87
- Government Page
- Jun/20/23 2:39:36 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, it is evident that they do not take it seriously. After eight years, the Prime Minister has yet to call a public inquiry into foreign interference. In fact, he continues to stand in the way and enjoy the status quo because it benefits the Liberals. After seven months, all he did was appoint a special rapporteur, one who had to resign as a result of a conflict of interest.
After seven months, two votes in Parliament and no public inquiry, will he stand up today and support a public inquiry on foreign interference, yes or no?
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- Jun/20/23 2:38:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, Canadians are wondering why the Prime Minister has not done more to safeguard our democratic systems. We know that he was briefed on foreign interference six times in the last five years, we know that members in this very House have been intimidated by Beijing and we know that on two occasions this House has directed the Prime Minister to have a public inquiry on foreign interference.
Will he commit to having a public inquiry on foreign interference today?
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- Feb/6/23 6:09:34 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was an incredible speech from my incredible leader. It is certainly an honour to serve with the member for Carleton, and it is always very difficult to follow his speeches, but that is what I am going to have to do here today.
The bottom line is that the main reason we have brought forward this concurrence motion today is for one reason and one reason alone, and that is that we do not trust the government to audit itself. I say to call in the auditors. That is what I say.
Why should we have any faith in the government to audit itself after the horrific things that we have seen in the time that the Prime Minister and the government have been in office? We have seen things such as SNC-Lavalin, which was a terrible scandal. We have seen things such as the WE Charity, where millions and millions of dollars were spent without any idea as to where it was going.
As a woman, I find especially offensive all of the women who have been thrown under the bus, such as the former justice minister, for example, or the former health minister. We have seen Celina Caesar-Chavannes, who has now said that she was not treated well by the government or the Prime Minister and, sadly, most recently the former minister of sport, who had to take a leave of absence in an effort to deal with the government. Conservatives do not trust the government to be ethical or to audit itself, so I say to call in the auditors.
Liberals will not admit to how much money they have spent. On January 4, CBC published an article showing the Liberal government has spent over 30 times more in contracts with McKinsey & Company than previous government, but on January 17, The Globe and Mail published an article stating the actual value of the government contracts with McKinsey since 2015 amounted to $101.4 million, much higher than previously reported. However, it did not stop there.
On January 31, The Globe and Mail published another article based on documents in a court case in Puerto Rico. Federal contracts awarded to McKinsey are now estimated to be at least $116.8 million. We have asked the Prime Minister several times in the House to tell us the amount he has spent on McKinsey & Company. The Liberals will not even admit to how much they spent. It is time to call in the auditors.
Major policy decisions are being made by McKinsey & Company and not public servants. We have seen the influence of McKinsey & Company throughout the government, for example, specifically with immigration. We have seen Dominic Barton's influence on the immigration project, along with his new century initiative. This is influencing immigration policy within our country, in addition to other policies.
I just came from the government operations committee, where the current CEO of the Infrastructure Bank admitted to one of our fantastic members, the member of Parliament for Haldimand—Norfolk, that the Canada Infrastructure Bank was actually a product of Dominic Barton and McKinsey. He actually admitted to that, and it is not surprising because if we look at the Order Paper questions that we received, the outline of McKinsey's goal was consulting advice and recommendations on “decision criteria to screen and evaluate potential investments, including objectives, terms and principles [and] benchmarking review of these criteria with other infrastructure banks around the world”, based on its mandate.
It does not stop there. Other projects McKinsey was hired for by the Infrastructure Bank included, “Consulting advice and recommendations on strategy-related matters to advance the CIB's mandate and increase in public impact”. It sounds like it was hired to try to convince the public it was a good thing. It goes on to say, “Facilitating expert adviser workshops and recommendations to advance the CIB's mandate and increase the public mandate.“
Once again, we cannot trust the government because its major policy decisions are being made by McKinsey and not by public servants. We have to call in the auditors. There is a consistent lack of transparency and accountability that we have seen by the government.
When we had Mr. Barton at the government operations committee last week, he tried to create the illusion of no relationship, no friendship, between himself and the Prime Minister. However, good friends embrace when they greet each other. Good friends have friends over for dinner, as we saw Dominic Barton do with the current finance minister. He was over at her house for dinner with other influential people.
In addition to all the other things I previously mentioned, there is a clear lack of transparency and accountability with this government and its relationship with McKinsey & Company. We have also seen it from the former finance minister, Bill Morneau, who actually makes reference to it in his book. We have seen the glowing welcome that the Prime Minister gave Dominic Barton at Davos at the World Economic Forum, and in 2016. There is a clear lack of transparency and accountability, and there is the proximity of the relationship between the government, the Prime Minister and McKinsey & Company. Do members know what we need to do? We need to call in the auditors.
A government should not be doing business with a company with such low ethical standards. I would not even know where to begin there. I could start with the campaign financing in France that we have seen. We could talk about McKinsey's contributions in the opioid crisis with Purdue Pharma. We could talk about the criminal charges for insider trading, which its former employees have been implicated in. We could talk about the consulting work that it did for the U.S. immigration, ICE, and creating terrible conditions for refugees. We could talk about McKinsey's strategizing for Russian missile producers.
We could talk about McKinsey's implication in China. I thought it was public knowledge, but unfortunately the minister for procurement and public services had never heard of this. The company's retreat in China in 2018 took place only seven kilometres from an internment camp holding thousands of ethnic Uighurs. This was just a week after a United Nations committee had denounced the mass detentions and urged China to stop. McKinsey also consulted for China Communications Construction, which has built militarized islands in the South China Sea in violation of international law.
Of course, there are ties with the Russian bank. In August 2018, the VEB bank, which is owned by the Russian state and known to be intertwined with Russian intelligence and under United States sanctions, hired McKinsey to develop its business strategy.
Once again, a government, the Canadian government in particular, where we have such high ethical and moral standards across our country with our citizens, should not be doing business with a consulting firm with such low ethical standards. We need to call in the auditors.
Finally, it is not producing good value for money. It has been reported that McKinsey has, in fact, increased its contracts by up to 193% over market value. With this government alone, we saw that 20 out of 23 contracts were not placed in competitive bid environments. Many of them were sole-sourced, in fact. That is 20 out of 23, which once again makes us question the influence. We have seen the bad use of money, as in the example coming out of the Business Development Bank of Canada, where we saw lavish events and chauffeurs being flown to the other side of the country. We see public servants who are completely demoralized as a result of not being consulted on these projects and all of the authority being handed over to McKinsey.
I think we need to simply look at everything. The evidence shows that we should not trust the government to audit itself. We do not know how much it has spent or how it has made its major policy decisions, with a lack of transparency and accountability, working with a company that has no strong ethical values or moral standards and not producing good value for money. What do we need to do? We need to call in the auditors.
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- Jan/31/22 4:01:31 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to be in the House of Commons representing the wonderful people of Calgary Midnapore. I want to recognize the fantastic speech given by my colleague, the member for Langley—Aldergrove. He always speaks with so much wisdom and local experience when he speaks to what he has seen in his community.
I was asked today to speak specifically about foreign affairs in response to the Speech from the Throne as a result of my time at Global Affairs Canada. Page 23 of the Speech from the Throne holds special importance regarding foreign affairs. The title of this section says, “This is the moment to fight for a secure, just, and equitable world.” This is the moment. Page 23 goes on to say, “In the face of rising authoritarianism and great power competition, Canada must reinforce international peace and security, the rule of law, democracy, and respect for human rights.” This is the moment.
Frankly, when I look at the last six years and the Liberal government's approach to foreign policy, I would not say this is the moment. I would ask, when is the moment?
I think it is impossible to be here in the House today and not mention what is going on in the capital. We should ask ourselves what brought these individuals here. Was it indifference, being ignored, not being heard? Canadians are sick of the division. They are sick of being treated as less than. They are sick of being gaslighted, as we saw in the House earlier today. They are sick of being told that their feelings are not valid. The government brought this group to Parliament Hill today. When Canadians voted, there was a plurality of Conservative votes, frankly, so when the Prime Minister talks about an obstructionist agenda, it is actually him obstructing the plurality of Canadian votes.
I thought more about this. There is the same approach to foreign affairs as there is to everything the government does, and it is applied in all that it does: arrogance and indifference to the minority. It does not affect their electoral chances, so who cares? It is the same approach regarding foreign affairs. That is why there is no consistent foreign policy from the government. I will remind the government that we cannot conduct foreign affairs through social media, selfies and tweets. I ask again: When is the moment?
If I look back on the actions of the government toward the major foreign affairs activities that have taken place in our world since the Liberals have been in office, I have the same question: When is the moment?
We can look at Venezuela, for example, where there was no clear offer from the government to mediate the conflict. The government ignored the roles of Russia and China in aggravating the conflict in this country. Any assistance that came was always too little, too late. In fact, in Digest Venezuela today, it was reported that 96% of Venezuelans are living in poverty. This is even before we start to consider regional influences and the lack of help Venezuela has had within the region regarding migrants going to other places and those sorts of tolls. I ask again: When is the moment?
When we think about Saudi Arabia, the Deputy Prime Minister used Twitter, of all facilities and methods, to speak out against the kingdom following the imprisonment of civil society activists on women's rights. She used Twitter, social media, when diplomacy should have been used, which is again a fault of the current government.
What the government was able to do was expedite an export permit for $1.5 billion in arms to Saudi Arabia. That is pretty interesting when we consider what is going on in Ukraine today. The government did not speak up in December of 2018 when we saw the murder of journalist Khashoggi. I ask again: When is the moment with the current government?
Regarding Hungary, since Orbán came into power we have seen him centralize that power. He has weakened the rule of law. He has taken away academic freedom and freedom of the press. Again, the current government has not taken a strong position against this leader who continues to infringe upon democratic rights and rules. I ask again: When is the moment?
Then we have China. How can we forget China and the lack of action we have seen from the current government when China messes with our export market when it comes to soy and pork? The government did not stand up for us.
Who can forget the story of the two Michaels? My own colleagues from Global Affairs Canada actually reached out to me to say that I needed to speak up on this and that more had to be done to help these individuals. It was again the weakness of the government, with no clear values and using social media, that resulted in such a lack of action and poor stance.
Who can forget the plight of the Uighurs? We saw within the House a motion passed to support them, to stand up for their rights in China, yet the current government has done nothing since that time. I ask again: When is the moment?
As the shadow minister for transport, I oversaw the heartbreaking study and injustice with respect to PS752. The current government did little more than a study, not to mention that the House passed a motion, once again, that we hoped would see the IRGC placed on the list of terrorists. The government does this all the time. It has a complete disregard for what the House decides to do. Whether it's with respect to the IRGC, the Uighurs or the documents regarding the lab in Winnipeg, the government has had a complete disregard for the House, never mind Canadians and the Canadians who are on Parliament Hill today. I ask again: When is the moment?
The U.S.A. was previously our best friend, our closest ally. Then Trump got in and the Liberals would compare the opposition to him. Then Biden comes along, and they find out that they are actually powerless. When they went to the three amigos summit, it was not the three amigos summit. It was more like Canada: the third wheel. We got no wins out of CUSMA whatsoever, so I ask again: When is the moment?
Finally, we come to Russia today, where we are seeing Ukraine, a close friend of Canada, not being given the help and support it deserves.
I will tell the House when the moment was. The Conservatives have always stood for the strong values of justice, democracy, prosperity and the rule of law. Every decision made in a Conservative government was one of clarity and transparency, in complete opposition to the actions and positions of the current government. There was no foreign policy based on social media and no reactive foreign policy. That was the moment. Today is not the moment.
Look outside. We must listen. We must understand. How we do something is how we do anything, at home or abroad. It is not “this is the moment”. It is “when is the moment?”
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