- Member of Parliament
- Member of Parliament
- Conservative
- New Brunswick Southwest
- New Brunswick
- Voting Attendance: 65%
- Expenses Last Quarter: $123,506.39
- Government Page
- Feb/27/24 12:51:08 p.m.
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Mr. Speaker, that is up to the committee members. If my hon. colleague would like to urge his member to seek support to do that, it is something we can consider. Generally, our committee follows the reports from the Auditor General, so I would not decide this on my own. If the Auditor General studies it, we will take it up. Again, today is about ArriveCAN, a program that has not worked, as well as the support the NDP has given that program and the great waste to taxpayers.
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- Feb/27/24 12:47:33 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, next the member is going to be blaming youth crime on individuals who were born during the Harper era. This is a Liberal scandal. Liberals have had eight years to reform and manage the public service as they saw fit.
Those questions need to be directed to the government. How was a company able to fleece taxpayers, under its watch, of nearly a quarter of a billion dollars? That is a question for you. If you cannot ask it, voters will get you out of the way.
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- Feb/27/24 12:36:30 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, as chairman of the public accounts committee, I have the responsibility for coordinating the oversight of how federal programs and departments are managed by the Liberal government. Every day brings more evidence that the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister is just not up to the job.
Since my appointment as chair two years ago, I have to admit that not a month has gone by without the committee examining evidence from Canada's Auditor General that demonstrates ongoing mismanagement of taxpayer dollars and the abdication of any responsibility by Liberal ministers to improve performance or outcomes. I can report that even the Auditor General is becoming exasperated with a government that promises to do better, while little changes in report after report.
It is outrageous that taxpayers are being forced to bankroll the Liberal government's incompetence. The waste we discover is not an accident. It is the best the Liberals can do. On this side of the House, we believe that Canadians deserve better. Never has a federal government spent so much to achieve so little. After eight years, Canadians know that the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, the crime or the corruption, and he needs to be replaced.
In contrast, Conservatives would axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budgets and stop the crime. Liberals call this a meaningless slogan, but it is our mission statement for a principled and accountable common-sense Conservative government. Each point speaks to a promise that would reverse the decline the Liberal government has brought to Canada, which has left millions of Canadians worried and worse off, sometimes desperately so.
Today, the House of Commons is considering three important points, raised by the member for Carleton, concerning government spending and oversight. The leader of the official opposition, along with other Conservative members on this side of the House, wants to know how much the Liberal government spent on the ArriveCAN boondoggle, whether the responsible ministers will be held accountable for the budget failures, and whether the millions of wasted and unearned tax dollars will be returned to the Treasury.
The Auditor General reported that ArriveCAN was originally projected to cost $80,000, but it ballooned to at least $60 million. That is 750 times the original price. The key words from the Auditor here are “at least” because, as our Auditor General, Ms. Hogan, said in her value for money audit, it is “impossible to determine the actual cost of the application.”
For every MP and taxpayer to understand the severity of the mismanagement and waste, the Auditor General added, “This is probably some of the worst financial record-keeping that I’ve seen”. She also said, “Overall, this audit shows a glaring disregard for basic management and contracting practices throughout ArriveCAN’s development and implementation.”
It was lacking basic management and proper record-keeping, and there was no ministerial or departmental oversight. In other words, it is a bloody financial train wreck. That is the result of investigation number one from the federal government's own Auditor General.
The second investigation, done by the procurement ombudsman, revealed that, in a staggering 76% of ArriveCAN contracts, the contractor did not perform any work. I will note that that ombudsman will be at the public accounts committee this afternoon. We look forward to hearing about those findings and how taxpayers did not receive value for money. Apparently some contractors received money for no work. The investigation also revealed that a two-person company, GC Strategies, which did no IT work, was the only supplier in North America that could win some big government contracts because of bid rigging. This is from the ombudsman.
We will go back to the Auditor General, who reported, “We found that GC Strategies was involved in the development of the requirements that the Canada Border Services Agency ultimately included in the request for proposal.” This finding has not been addressed enough. The Auditor General is saying that GC Strategies was at the table when departmental officials were setting up the contract terms, meaning that it not only had the inside advantage, but also wrote the rules.
GC Strategies is a two-person consulting firm that does no IT work. It bids on federal government contracting schemes and then outsources the work to others. When GC successfully wins a bid, all it does is subcontract out that work to other contractors. There is little to no value in these arrangements, except for the owners, because the bidder charges and pockets a fat commission, of up to 30%.
Since 2015, this two-person consulting firm has collected over $250 million from taxpayers, according to reports by La Presse newspaper. In 2022, consultants such as GC Strategies were awarded $17.7 billion in contracts while ordinary Canadians struggled to pay for groceries and heat their homes.
Now, a third investigation has begun by the Information Commissioner into ArriveCAN. This one focuses on allegations of deleted emails by federal officials responsible for overseeing the ArriveCAN program. This is a concern the Auditor General has not dismissed and one that needs to be investigated.
Then to wrap all of this up, this taxpayer-funded mess, the RCMP is investigating it all. I believe evidence was heard at the public accounts committee indicating that the police should expand its scope after testimony from officials that reinforced that contracts were fraudulently submitted by contractors, work was not done at the value the taxpayer expected and that this needed to be looked at for fraud.
How did the ArriveCAN waste happen? Well, public servants did not follow the rules. A Liberal government that is not able to manage the bureaucracy or protect tax dollars was in place. Consultants swindled the system and, in some cases, broke the law. If we listen to testimony from public servants who appeared before the public accounts committee, there is a trend of excuses: “I wasn't there” and “I don't know what happened.” We heard that public servants did not sign off on these contracts and that their predecessors had either been moved to another department or are now retired. We also heard that they just did not know. No deputy minister has been fired, and no minister has been held accountable, yet bonuses were paid, which are bonuses for outsourcing work that the public service was responsible for doing in-house.
Three years ago, Conservatives called on the Prime Minister to end ArriveCAN. Instead of listening to common sense, these Liberals went ahead and wasted tens of millions of dollars. In the Auditor General's report, it clearly shows that the majority of spending on the ArriveCAN happened after the 2021 election.
The truth is, this is a scandal that could only happen under the Liberal government. For those who have been around this place long enough, and in many cases even longer, ArriveCAN combines the worst of two previous Liberal scandals: the ad scam and the long-gun registry.
In the ad scam, tax money was paid to Liberal consultants without records for little or no work. Does that sound familiar? Nearly $1.2 billion in sponsorship and advertising contracts were received by government outsiders through sole-source contracts.
Taxpayers would remember when former auditor general Sheila Fraser was unable to calculate the long-gun registry price tag because expenditures were not saved by the government. The filing cabinet was empty. At the time, she estimated the total cost at over $1 billion. Members will remember that, under a previous Liberal government, that program was supposed to cost $2 million, yet it was up, up and away, just like the arrive scam.
In conclusion, I will go back to ArriveCan and the Auditor General's report, which reads, “In our view, flaws in the competitive processes to award further ArriveCAN contracts raised significant concerns that the process did not result in the best value for money.” That is the Auditor General saying that it was a financial train wreck, and it is another failure of this tired, wasteful Liberal government.
Who on that side of the House is accountable for this waste? Who will be accountable to Canadians?
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- Jun/1/23 11:09:17 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, that was quite a show we just had from the member.
In my province, we have regulated gas pricing, so we understand locally just how much the taxes and regulations cost consumers. Right now before the province, we see a request to raise the carbon tax by 3.25¢. What is more interesting is that the clean fuel standard is going to add 7.5¢ a litre on July 1. This is the headline of the CBC back home right now: “New Brunswick consumers may face double carbon charges on July 1”. The total is 12.4¢ with the HST, because, of course, with the Liberals it is a tax and another tax, a tax on a tax.
My last point is this. The CTF, the Canadian Taxpayers Federation, has said that the tax will be 14¢, and by 2030 will be three times that, at 41¢. That is where we get the “triple, triple, triple”.
With the Liberals, it is all taxes, more taxes and taxes on top of them all the time. What does the member have to say about that?
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- Apr/28/23 11:31:06 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, it takes a special kind of incompetence to ramp up federal spending on the public service by over 50% and end up with the largest public service sector strike in Canadian history. The Liberals are spending $22 billion more on employees and wages but taxpayers are receiving fewer services, in some cases no services, from government workers.
When will the Liberal government get its employees back to work and protect Canadian taxpayers from more debt and high taxes?
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- Nov/18/22 11:58:29 a.m.
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Madam Speaker, whatever the Liberals touch, they break, and it is déjà vu all over again. The Auditor General has reported that the Liberal government keeps wasting tax dollars. According to the Auditor General, the Liberals are about to lose the legal authority to collect half a billion dollars in wage overpayments from the Phoenix pay system. This is on top of the $2 billion the Liberals have already spent on overpayments to civil servants.
What is the minister's plan to collect these overpayments to public servants and to finally protect taxpayers?
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- Nov/1/22 12:25:52 p.m.
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Madam Speaker, I appreciate that question from my colleague on the public accounts committee.
I tend to agree with the member. The amount of outsourcing from this government is stratospheric, and it is costing taxpayers way too much money, but I also think there is a quid pro quo. If we are going to rely on public servants, public servants need to show up and do their job. In my riding and across this country, Service Canada closed for too long during the pandemic. If Service Canada is not there when Canadians need it most, I think a lot of Canadians will ask: “Why do we need Service Canada?”
I agree with the member that we should rely on our public servants, but at the same time, let us ensure that they do the job they have been hired to do.
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