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Context: House Hansard - 251 - Nov/20/23

Jan/30/24 3:09:49 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, scandal continues to follow it with the ArriveCAN app. Liberals insisted there were no forged resumes. However, it is a fact that almost 40% of the resumes GC Strategies sent in were forged. Liberals insisted security was never compromised, but it is a fact that almost 80% of all contracts did not follow security protocol. Liberals insisted procurement rules were followed; the fact is that the system was rigged in favour of GC Strategies. I have a question for the Liberal government: What kind of operation is it running over there?

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Context: House Hansard - 244 - Nov/1/23

Nov/20/23 3:10:47 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal-NDP government, one thing is clear: It has no respect for the Canadian taxpayer. GC Strategies, a two-person company working out of a basement, was paid $11 million to send messages on Linkedin to other companies to build the ArriveCAN app. The Prime Minister is simply not worth the cost. Bureaucrats refused to say who signed the paper to hire GC Strategies for $11 million, so I am going to ask this of the Liberal caucus: Which Liberal minister paid $11 million to GC Strategies?

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Context: House Hansard - 238 - Oct/24/23

Nov/1/23 7:39:28 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise in the House to speak on behalf of the fine constituents of Calgary Midnapore, especially on such an important issue that truly affects their tax dollars. I want members to take a moment and imagine a Lifetime movie that includes the elements of identity theft, forged resumes, contractual theft, fraudulent contracting and collusion. Members do not have to imagine this Lifetime movie, because it actually exists. It is the ordeal behind ArriveCAN. ArriveCAN was created for $54 million. Experts have said that the app could have been created with simply $200,000 over a weekend. Instead, $54 million was spent on the app. Of that $54 million, $11.2 million went to a company called GCStrategies, and $4.3 million went to two companies called Coradix and DALIAN. I will add that these companies have actually received $80.3 million from the federal government over a significant period of time. It is very concerning that these companies would receive these large amounts of funding for the $54-million app. Originally, this was an issue brought to the government operations committee last spring. I will say that the government tried to dismiss it. It tried to write it off as “nothing to see here”, and our objective at that time was just to try to get value for money for Canadians. As we have found out, it has become so much more than that. It has become a search for the truth. This was broken by The Globe and Mail's Bill Curry, when he broke the story of the RCMP's investigating this CBSA contract. The fact that GCStrategies, the group central to the creation of ArriveCAN, is the central player in the scandal leads to a lot of concerns. The company at the centre of this is a small company called Botler. It originally did some work for the Justice Department. It was eventually reached out to by GCStrategies, the company at the centre of the ArriveCAN scandal, to do a pilot for Bill C-65, relative to sexual misconduct. According to Curry's article: The developers said they were first approached by GCStrategies's managing partner, Kristian Firth, via LinkedIn in late 2019. Mr. Firth said he was reaching out on behalf of his ‘client,’ who he later said was the CBSA's then-director, Cameron MacDonald. [They said] they were shocked to discover that after interacting with GCStrategies and Mr. MacDonald for months, the funding for their software was approved through an agency contract with another company—Dalian—without their knowledge. They said they had never heard of Dalian at that time and never worked with any Dalian employees. They said they later discovered that Coradix had submitted forms to the agency about their work experience without their knowledge or permission. For instance, [one of the employees] said a two-month summer internship at Deloitte on her résumé was inflated in an invoicing points form to say she had 51 months of experience working for [an] accounting firm. Years of experience is used in federal contracting to determine whether a contractor qualifies for [those positions]. It is also used to calculate per diem rates. The story starts there, but it does not end there. GCStrategies' Mr. Firth also told these two employees of this company that: ...he could act as a broker to secure a contract with the agency. He also promised he could open doors for them to land contracts with other departments or have [their] software approved to use across the entire public service, which would be a substantial contract. He explained that he would do this for a fee that is contingent on successfully landing government contracts. This company went on to record conversations with Mr. Firth. Those recorded conversations show Mr. MacDonald directed Botler in February 2020 to “‘please work with [Mr. Firth]’ and ‘let [Mr. Firth] work his magic.’” “The conversations also reveal that Mr. Firth described Mr. MacDonald, in November, 2019, as a friend and said, 'I've been with him his whole career in government.' Mr. Firth referred to various senior public servants as friends.” “They said they were asked by Mr. Firth to start working on the project even though they had yet to...sign a contract.” We get into the fraudulent contracting piece here. “For months, [the two employees] said they were repeatedly denied answers when they asked Mr. Firth for a contract so their legal team could review it.” When called to appear last year before [the government operations committee] to answer questions related to ArriveCan, [the topic of discussion today], Mr. Firth said his company had invoiced $44-million in federal contract work with more than 20 different departments over the past two years. He said his company has no stand-alone office and just two employees—himself and Darren Anthony. Neither of them perform IT work themselves. Instead, they hire subcontractors to do the work in exchange for a fee of between 15 per cent and 30 per cent of the contract values. Mr. MacDonald wrote, “You asked me for advice on the key question of ‘why GC Strategies’”, as the government was struggling to determine why GC Strategies was chosen. Mr. MacDonald himself said that they were still “grappling with 'who selected GC Strategies'”. The article says, “Mr. MacDonald’s e-mail comments…suggested answers for the executives. The draft answers appeared aimed at convincing MPs that no one person was responsible for selecting [GS Strategies].” However, we know someone selected GC Strategies. Mr. MacDonald “set up meetings for Botler with the Canada Revenue Agency, Correctional Service Canada, Global Affairs, Shared Services Canada, Transport Canada, Treasury Board and others in an effort to have the software approved as a government-wide project to all public servants.” This is the crux of the concern for myself and my Conservative colleagues. When we are talking about ArriveCAN, it is a $54-million app, which, experts say, they could have done for $200,000. Here we have the company that received $11 million trying to arrange contracts across all of these other government departments. “During this outreach, Mr. Firth introduced them to another consultant named Vaughn Brennan, who Mr. Firth said had extensive government connections in Ottawa. Mr. Brennan recommended that they send and e-mail to [the Deputy Prime Minister] from Mr. Dutt's e-mail account.” In addition to the breadth of this fraud, we are concerned about the level at which individuals were complicit and informed. “The contract for Botler to provide its services was not a direct contract between Botler and the border services agency. In fact, Botler's company name was not mentioned at all, nor was GC Strategies. Instead, the agency relied on a contract with Dalian and Coradix.” “In a separate subcontracting document between Dalian and GC Strategies, which is not a direct contract with the government, GC Strategies is listed as a subcontractor to Dalian...along with an independent contractor named Patrick van Abbema—are listed as consultants.” Unannounced to you as Coradix/Dalian were brought in as a pass through and they demanded 15% for doing so, CBSA were pissed at the overall pricing and threatened to pull the contract,” Mr. Firth wrote in an e-mail. “Your cost, plus 15% for me and 20% for Coradix etc, it rose to close to $500k. I was not prepared to slow the process down and stop our first client from purchasing so I removed myself from the equation completely and gave them a 15% discount. “By September, 2021, Ms. Dutt and Mr. Morv [of Botler] had had enough and filed a formal misconduct complaint via the Sept. 27, 2021, e-mail to Mr. Utano and another agency official they had been dealing with.” I will add this initial complaint was ignored, so they had to go on and do an additional complaint as well. “They learned that the original contract through which their services were obtained was through an existing contract for IT services.” “Like with ArriveCan, the border agency had turned to a general standing offer contract for IT services and added a specific request...” “Through their research, [they] found that Dalian was submitting invoices and receiving payments...” To summarize, in the words of Ms. Dutt: This is about something that affects every single Canadian, every single taxpayer dollar that is taken from ... hardworking Canadians who are already struggling financially, that is given and spent through contractors through improper means. And I think that Canadians have a right to know what’s going on with their hard-earned money. That—

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Context: House Hansard - 237 - Oct/23/23

Oct/24/23 2:59:16 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, damning new information revealed today shows that ArriveCAN contractors submitted receipts to the government for a company that does not even exist. This investigation already includes allegations of identity theft, forged resumés, contractual theft, fraudulent billing, price-fixing and collusion in the creation of the $54-million ArriveCAN app. How much worse can this boondoggle get? I have a simple question: Which Liberal insiders got rich?

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Context: House Hansard - 174 - Mar/28/23

Oct/23/23 2:17:04 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the Liberal-NDP government is once again in the midst of a scandal and criminal investigation. The RCMP is currently investigating allegations of identity theft, forged resumés, contractual theft, fraudulent billing, price-fixing and collusion in the creation of the $54-million ArriveCAN app. Two whistle-blowers trapped in this scandal came forward to the media. This is the only reason we now know about it, as government officials were forced by their political masters to lie to Canadians about this contract. This investigation was hidden by GC Strategies, the Canada Border Services Agency and numerous Liberal ministers during our study last year. They deliberately withheld the truth from this House and from Canadians. The Liberal-NDP government will engage in criminal behaviour to pay their friends millions and continue their cover-up before they tell the truth. The Prime Minister once again has shown that he is not worth the cost.

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Context: House Hansard - 174 - Mar/28/23

Mar/28/23 3:01:50 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the current government is a government that helps its friends. The trade minister gave $23,000 to her friend. The housing minister gave $93,000 to his friend. The current government spent $21.4 billion on outside consultants. This is at a time when rents and mortgages are doubling. This is at a time when the excise tax and the carbon tax are set to increase on April 1. Why does the government not find some compassion and help struggling Canadians instead of just its rich friends and consultants?

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Context: House Hansard - 162 - Feb/16/23

Mar/28/23 3:00:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, the government spent $21.4 billion on outside consultants in this fiscal year alone. That is a 95% increase under the Liberal government. This is at a time when Canadians are struggling to put food on the table. This is at a time when Canadians have record-high credit card debt. Why does the government not show some compassion and stop helping high-priced consultants instead of struggling Canadians?

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Context: House Hansard - 159 - Feb/13/23

Feb/16/23 2:59:41 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal government, high-priced consultants at McKinsey & Company have never had it so good. They are setting immigration policy. They are setting immigration targets. Public servants are admitting this and it is reported in the CBC. Even Bill Morneau, in his book, admitted that McKinsey is setting immigration policy. Do members know who is not admitting to that? The Minister of Immigration himself. Who is telling the truth?

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Context: House Hansard - 157 - Feb/9/23

Feb/13/23 2:58:10 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal government, it has spent over $100 million on McKinsey & Company, and that includes $24.5 million from Immigration, Refugees and Citizenship Canada to create policy, which public servants should have created. Civil servants have even said that McKinsey & Company created the immigration targets. Why does the minister not just take responsibility for the mess that he created and stop giving pricey contracts to McKinsey & Company?

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Context: House Hansard - 155 - Feb/7/23

Feb/9/23 3:01:25 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the government's inflationary spending, things are worse than ever for Canadians and they are struggling just to get by. The government has given over $100 million to McKinsey & Company. Why does the Prime Minister not just take responsibility that McKinsey is influencing the government and stop giving money to well-connected insiders?

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Feb/7/23 3:01:43 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal government, business is skyrocketing at the high-priced consulting firm McKinsey & Company. The government has given McKinsey & Company over $100 million in contracts, including $1.4 million from the Canada Infrastructure Bank, an organization that is chalk full of former McKinsey strategists. Why is the government so hell-bent on giving $100 million to close Liberal insider friends while average Canadians are just struggling to get by?

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Feb/6/23 6:24:21 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for his question. He raises a good point. McKinsey's involvement in government decisions is part of this motion. It is not about just one, two or three departments. It is about several departments. We want to know how the government has worked with McKinsey. I am willing to look at the government's relationship with McKinsey for all departments involved.

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Feb/6/23 6:22:22 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as a relatively new member of the government operations committee, I know we have an outsourcing study, which is continuing. I certainly look forward to continuing to evaluate many of the other outside companies that provide consulting to the government. I think we are here because the Canadian public, and even the media in this country, turned Canadians and the official opposition onto what was going on in the House and with the government in relation to the unique relationship between McKinsey & Company and the government. Certainly, while I think the points made are very important, our leader has said that he looks forward to empowering the public service once again by reducing the use of consultants. I really think it was the Canadian people who drove us to push on the McKinsey file.

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Feb/6/23 6:20:16 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, it is apparent that they are not being followed, because even public servants are coming forward and expressing their discontent with the implication of McKinsey & Company in policy decisions, outcomes, policy directions and execution of policies within the government. They are clearly not being followed. The fact that the government would propose that it investigate these policies, which it has not itself followed, is really quite ridiculous. That is the reason we are here today with this motion asking to bring in an objective third party, the Auditor General, to do a thorough verification.

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Context: House Hansard - 153 - Feb/3/23

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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Context: House Hansard - 153 - Feb/3/23

Feb/3/23 11:31:45 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years, we know that the Liberal government has spent at least $100 million on contracts with McKinsey, but it is still trying to hide how much it has spent on the total amount for contracts. Canadians are demanding answers. Therefore, on Monday, we are going to ask at committee, again, how much it has actually spent on contracts with McKinsey & Company. However, before then, I am going to give Liberals another chance today. How much have they spent on contracts with McKinsey & Company and Dominic Barton?

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Context: House Hansard - 153 - Feb/3/23

Feb/3/23 11:30:41 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years and over $100 million spent, the government is still not admitting its close relationship with Dominic Barton and McKinsey, but close friends have dinner at each other's homes. Close friends embrace each other warmly when they greet each other. Canadians know how close the Liberal government and McKinsey & Company are, so why does the government not just admit it and tell us how much it has spent on McKinsey & Company?

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

Feb/3/23 11:12:11 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, after eight years of the government's inflationary spending, Canadians are barely getting by, while Liberal insiders and high-priced consultants have never had it so good. After eight years, Canadians have been struggling to cope with 40-year high inflation. After eight years, 1.5 million Canadians are visiting food banks in a single month, but after eight years, the government does not care. Instead of helping Canadians, the government decided to hand out over $100 million in contracts to its friends at McKinsey & Company, and that number keeps climbing. In fact, we still do not know the full amount awarded to McKinsey over eight years because the Liberal government refuses to say. However, we do know that, of the 23 contracts awarded, 20 of them were granted in a non-competitive environment and hand-picked by the government. We need to know how much has been handed out to McKinsey and the influence it has on our government. Canadians deserve answers, and we will not back down.

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

Jan/31/23 2:48:42 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, after eight years of the Liberal government, inflation is at a 40-year high as a result of the government's inflationary spending. The government has handed over $100 million in contracts to McKinsey & Company, with one contract not sunsetting until the year 2100. While Canadians have never had it so bad, Liberal insiders and consultants have never had it so good. Why does the Prime Minister and the government not come clean and tell us how much they promised Dominic Barton and McKinsey & Company?

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