- 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
- Apr/17/24 4:37:10 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, Mr. Firth has made connections and met with public servants for over a decade, wining and dining them for contracts. Officials became comfortable with this system. Officials allowed Mr. Firth to charge millions because they were not willing to follow the rules and used Mr. Firth as their easy way out of accountability.
Who is Mr. Firth protecting in this corrupt system?
64 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Mar/19/24 2:10:38 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, Canadians continue to ask questions about the ArriveCAN app, and Conservatives continue to push for answers.
Last week, we continued to prosecute GC Strategies, an IT firm of two people who performed no actual work, yet it was paid a third of $60 million in contracts for the ArriveCAN app. After hiding from accountability to the point of being threatened with arrest, the two individuals finally appeared at committee.
Although they were still evasive, MPs were able to learn that the two partners pocketed $2.5 million, and for what? One partner, Kristian Firth, that said he had averaged two to four hours per day at a rate of $2,600 per hour. His partner said that he had no clue as to what went on at any point in the ArriveCAN process and only processed the security clearances for their subcontractors, a job he did wrong.
The Liberal government must listen up. It must explain why it wasted millions of dollars. Canadians want their money back, so it should start explaining and pay up.
177 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/5/24 3:07:35 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, after eight years, the Liberal-NDP government would not know accountability if it was hit over the head with it. Today, the government operations committee heard from the Border Services Agency's head of professional integrity. The lesson is as follows: This is a kangaroo court for the government to investigate its own department.
Minh Doan, the chief information officer when ArriveCAN was in use, has been accused of deleting key emails, but the investigator reports to the senior officials at the same department that bought ArriveCAN. Will this coalition government hold those in charge accountable, or does it plan to hide the dirt as it usually does?
110 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
Madam Speaker, I am returning after the hour of PMB. I would like to thank my colleague from Niagara West for presenting that piece of legislation to the House. I would also like to mention that I will be splitting my time with the member for Prince George—Peace River—Northern Rockies.
I left off saying that, for many reasons, I am very concerned about the direction of Bill C-18, for the reason that it would create risks to the independence of the press. My conclusion from all the items I listed prior to coming to that conclusion was a larger conclusion, which is that the government likes to control everything.
I gave some examples that were provided to me through different media sources, and I will continue some of those examples now. This is very interesting commentary that Canadians have left on the Substack of Michael Geist, and these comments include the following: “I wonder if the Liberals view C18 as a win-win situation. If Google and Facebook pay then the media will be more likely to support the Liberals in the next election.”
We have seen this happen before, of course, where the Liberals pay the media and then it feels compelled to report positively on the government of the day. In fact, we just heard the deputy House leader make reference to an article. We know, not off the top, if this journalist would have been subject to this type of situation, whereby they felt compelled to print something positive about the government of the day.
Another comment reads:
The potential consequences of this bill are deeply concerning. Even its supporters acknowledge the serious flaws that could lead to significant losses for Canadian media, including lost links and deals. The fact that the government is willing to silence criticism from local media organizations raises alarm bells about the lack of accountability and transparency surrounding this legislation.
This is similar to what we saw with Bill C-11. The comment goes on:
If passed as it stands, it could result in reduced access to news for Canadians and diminished revenues for Canadian news organizations. It is crucial that we address these issues and strive for a balanced solution that supports the sustainability of Canadian media while preserving the public’s right to information.
Another comment off the Substack of Michael Geist, who has been a strong commentator on the negative aspects of Bill C-18, is from a Canadian named Brian, who writes:
Haha. The driving of the final nail into the Canadian news media coffin has begun. Once the referrals to news sites from social media and web searches stops, so will the traffic to those sites stop and so will the advertising revenue they enjoy from that traffic. The last revenue stream for those news organizations will dry up faster than a puddle of water in the Sahara desert.
Michael Geist himself makes a comment, which is really damning, on the government cutting off debate, which is nothing new for us. Unfortunately, we have experienced time allocation several times in the House. He says, “The government cut off debate at second reading, actively excluded dozens of potential witnesses”; this is pretty par for the course as well. It “expanded the bill to hundreds of broadcasters that may not even produce news,” which is interesting considering that they accuse us over here of providing misinformation. It “denigrated online news services as ‘not real news’, and shrugged off violations of international copyright law.” This is a larger problem altogether.
In fact, I believe it was the member for Hamilton Mountain who said the quiet part out loud in committee by claiming that online news outlets were not news. That is news to me. After apologizing, she never spoke up again at committee, but she chose not to maintain her silence in the House today.
DB writes, “After Bill C11 and C18 why should anyone trust this government? It's clear they value the interests of media organizations over the interests of Canadians.” That is my point, as I go to close here. The Liberal government wants to control everything. It wants to control our democratic systems, as we have seen with its hesitancy to do anything about the situation regarding foreign interference and call a public inquiry. It wants to control the cycle of our economy, keeping Canadians in poverty with higher taxation but giving back tiny bits. It wants to control our day care systems, in terms of providing no solutions for different types of families and taking away work from female entrepreneurs.
The good news is, in the member for Carleton, we will have a prime minister that will allow for freedom, and we will see all these things go the way of the dodo bird.
817 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/16/23 11:32:45 a.m.
- Watch
Madam Speaker, I think Canadians are really tired of the government's fake rage. The Prime Minister, in 2015, promised Canadians accountability, yet his Minister of Public Safety has misled this House on a minimum of five occasions. Most recently, he misled the House on the fact that he received a briefing about the transfer of Paul Bernardo from a maximum-security prison to a medium-security prison. Why does he not show just a little bit of respect for Canadians, a little bit of respect for the House and a little bit of respect for the victims of Paul Bernardo and resign?
103 words
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Feb/6/23 6:09:34 p.m.
- Watch
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.
1395 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- Jun/14/22 3:04:27 p.m.
- Watch
Mr. Speaker, there is only one person who is under investigation, and that is the Minister of Public Safety. The minister broke the law. How can Canadians be expected to trust the minister when he continues to spread misinformation about the Emergencies Act? The minister said that invoking the Emergencies Act was on the recommendation of authorities, but it has been confirmed by law enforcement that it was not in fact true.
Will the minister take accountability for his words and resign?
82 words
All Topics
- Hear!
- Rabble!
- add
- star_border
- share
- menumenu
- notificationsnotifications
- home
- mailmail
- searchsearch
