Government Operations Committee on Feb. 20th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, everyone. We are back in session.

Before we start, I want to give personal thanks to our clerks, who have been filling in for the last couple of months beside our valued analysts Ryan and Olivier. The clerks we've had have done just an amazing job, each and every one of them, even though some of them have been here for only one day. They have put through a strong work ethic and have treated this committee as if they were the permanent clerk.

Thank you very much to all the clerks who have filled in for the last months. We look forward to March and having our permanent clerk assigned to us.

Very quickly, we mentioned that we'd get to the budgets for the ships. We've separated them into two different ones. There's the Halifax and Quebec City trip, and then Vancouver and Victoria. The Vancouver and Victoria budget is particularly high. It has planned for an extra day in case we get caught because of weather. Do not ask why we would expect Vancouver or Victoria to be caught with weather, but that's just it.

I'm just looking for thumbs-up. This is only to submit this to Liaison to start the process for our visits to the four shipyards. This has been sent out to everyone. Halifax is $79,612—that's up too. I've looked at the budget, and it seems a bit high. That covers every contingency. For Vancouver and Victoria, it's $95,255, and there's the same issue.

Are we fine for that? It's not setting dates or anything. It's just for us to send it to the Liaison Committee for their approval if we can get it.

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Wonderful.

I see you, Mr. Scheer. You have your hand up, sir.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I'd like to move a motion. I'll provide a bit of context before I move it.

Here's a bit of a recap of what brings us here today, to the motion I'd like to propose. It has to do with the ArriveScam app and some of the shocking revelations we've heard from the Auditor General on her findings.

To back up, during the pandemic, the government decided to bring in an app forcing Canadians to use this app to document crossing the border into Canada. It should have cost just around $80,000. Instead, so far, the Auditor General has concluded that at least $60 million in costs are attributed to that, and that's based on what she can find—

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I would appreciate it if my honourable colleague would ground his statement in fact, not fiction—

[An hon. member]

That's not a point of order.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

—and exaggeration. Again, I think it's important that we ground our discussions here. I know he's new to this committee, but I'd appreciate it if he would ground his arguments and interventions in fact.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Kusmierczyk.

Is your hand up on this point of order, Mr. Genuis, or can we proceed?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

No. I was raising it to be added to the speaking list.

This is really not a point of order. It's just a dilatory tactic, so—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

We'll go back to Mr. Scheer, please.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Let the record show that the Liberal MPs are now calling the findings of the Auditor General “fiction”. That's new to me, Mr. Chair, but that's what I heard.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair. I don't appreciate my colleague ascribing to me statements that I do not hold, and I would ask that he retract—

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

You just said it.

[Irek Kusmierczyk, Liberal, Windsor—Tecumseh, ON]

I said that you should stick to facts and not fiction—not the Auditor General, whose recommendations and rulings I respect.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

I have a point of order on that point of order, Chair.

Chair, wants and feelings.... I'm just wondering if we can point to those in the Standing Orders or if these are indeed dilatory tactics. Liberal members should restrain themselves.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

We will ask everyone to please maintain some decorum.

Mr. Scheer, we'll go back to you.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Just for the record I was quoting the Auditor General from her appearance just this morning. Basically what we're dealing with is $20 million worth of contracts going to GC Strategies. The Auditor General has told us and told committees that there was not documentation around decision-making, and that there was a non-competitive process that was pursued. There was an accountability void and these costs clearly ballooned from $80,000 to $60 million. This is a company that's gotten $250 million worth of government contracts since Justin Trudeau became Prime Minister. This committee has tried to get answers from the directors at GC Strategies. They have ignored two summons.

This committee has summoned them to come and testify. This committee has similar powers to that of a court of law and parliamentarians are entrusted to provide answers and transparency on behalf of Canadians, especially when it comes to tax dollars. When the government forcibly takes dollars out of the pockets of Canadians and decides to spend them, taxpayers have a fundamental right to know where the money went, why it was spent and whether or not all of the rules were followed. The Auditor General has raised major red flags. Her report and her testimony today in committee aren't just findings of sloppiness or some i's not dotted or t's not crossed. She has exposed monumental levels of mismanagement on this.

I would like to propose the following motion. Given the seriousness of the fact that the summons have been ignored, that these officials at GC Strategies have not come to answer on what they did with taxpayers' money, how invoices were accumulated, who signed off on these types of expenses, and whether or not the work was actually done, these are important questions that Canadians absolutely have a right to know.

Based on the statements of MPs of all parties in the House I believe that this should be a very straightforward motion that we should be able to accept very quickly because it touches on the collective rights of parliamentarians, not for ourselves, not as individuals, but with the responsibility entrusted to us from Canadians. Therefore, I believe that we should all support this common-sense motion to ensure that, when a parliamentary committee demands somebody come and testify how they spent Canadians' tax dollars, those summons are respected, the law is followed, and the proper process and protocols are adhered to.

Mr. Chair, I would like to move:

That the Committee report to the House that, given that,

(i) GC Strategies’ owners, Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, were issued summonses on November 2, 2023, compelling their appearance before the committee on December 5, 2023, and refused to testify, and new summonses were issued for them to appear by February 9, 2024, and again GC Strategies’ owners refused to testify before the committee,

(ii) The Auditor General revealed that GC Strategies received nearly $20 million in government contracts on ArriveCAN alone, double what was originally projected,

(iii) The Government of Canada has $250 million in contracts with GC Strategies listed on its website, but claims they cannot confirm the accuracy of this amount as the website is prone to error, casting further doubt on how much this two-person IT company has received since the company formed in 2015, and

(iv) The RCMP is investigating contracting links to ArriveCAN and has met with the Auditor General concerning her findings in the ArriveCAN audit,

The Committee recommend that an Order of the House do issue requiring Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony each to appear before the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates at dates and times determined by the Chair of the Committee, but within fourteen days of the adoption of this Order, provided that, if the Chair of the Committee informs the Speaker and the Sergeant-at-Arms in writing that one or both have failed to appear as ordered,

(a) the Sergeant-at-Arms shall take Kristian Firth, Darren Anthony or both of them, as the case may be, into his custody for the purposes of enforcing their attendance before the Committee at dates and times determined by the Chair of the Committee, for which the Speaker shall issue his warrant accordingly;

(b) the Sergeant-at-Arms shall discharge from his custody a witness taken into his custody, pursuant to paragraph (a), upon (i) a decision of the Committee releasing the witness from further attendance, or (ii) a further Order of the House to that effect; and

(c) the Speaker shall inform the House, at the earliest opportunity, of developments in this regard.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you, Mr. Scheer.

It has been distributed to everyone's P9.

I have a speaking list. I see Mr. Genuis and then Mr. Jowhari. I have reviewed it and do believe it is a case of privilege.

We will start with Mr. Genuis and then go to Mr. Jowhari, please.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Thank you very much, Chair.

I want to affirm and agree with everything that my colleague has said.

I want to just make a couple of comments about the general principle here. What are we actually talking about in terms of the powers of Parliament?

We have a massive, breaking scandal that has clearly gripped the attention of Canadians. This is the ArriveScam scandal.

As part of that unfolding scandal, we at the government operations committee have been trying to get to the bottom of what happened and who was responsible by calling witnesses and putting direct, challenging questions to them. We've been able to proceed I think fairly effectively with this investigation for a number of months. We've been hearing different witnesses and uncovering critical information as part of this scandal. Now, the level of public interest and engagement with this has significantly grown after the reports of the procurement ombudsman and the Auditor General, with even more devastating information.

We believe that in this scandal, or in any scandal, it's important for parliamentary committees to be able to do their work and get to the bottom of what happened.

Now we have this problem. The problem is that a number of witnesses are showing flagrant disregard for the critical role and the rights of parliamentary committees. We're not just here as individuals. We're here on behalf of the Canadians who sent us here and who want us to investigate this scandal and be able to undertake other investigations of other matters.

In order to do our job, we have to be able to bring witnesses before us—witnesses who may not be that keen on testifying because they have things that we might want to ask them about that are actually embarrassing for them. The principle has to be that parliamentary committees are able to do their work on behalf of Canadians and that means being able to bring witnesses.

When we have two separate instances of summons being sent to the same individuals and they refuse to testify, the committee must use its powers to insist that those individuals appear. This is really where the rubber hits the road and where members of all other parties have to consider whether they believe that we should be able to actually hear from the witnesses we need to hear from and get to the bottom of this or not.

The only way that this committee can enforce its insistence on hearing from these witnesses is adopting this motion, which will have the effect of enforcing the committee's demand that these individuals appear.

Darren Anthony, one of the two partners at GC Strategies, has never appeared before this committee. In all the time this has gone on, we have never heard from Mr. Anthony. We've heard once from Mr. Firth, but there was so much obvious trouble with his testimony and so many obvious gaps. He effectively admitted under questioning, actually from a colleague across the way, to a process that involved the forging of résumés, altering résumés and then seeing if the changes were okay.

We need to hear from these individuals who are at the centre of this scandal. I understand that they may not want to appear. Their company got $20 million, as far as we know, according to the Auditor General's report, for the ArriveCAN app. They essentially got the contracts and subcontracted them without doing any work. They got $20 million as a company simply for looking on LinkedIn and passing contacts and résumés on to the government, in many cases, as we now know, with alterations made to those résumés. These two guys have a lot to answer for and we need to hear from them.

Moreover, Chair, we cannot abide the principle that people at the centre of a massive national scandal can simply blow off a parliamentary committee. If we take our jobs seriously and if we take the integrity of the parliamentary process seriously, then we must insist that people who are told that they have to appear before a committee are actually made to appear before that committee, particularly when these are the individuals who are at the very centre of the scandal.

These two partners at GC Strategies are the ones who got the ArriveCAN contract. They're the ones who made the money. They're the ones who had the relationships within government and the public service. They're the ones who can actually shed some light on this.

It's up to committee members now to ask, “Do we take our jobs seriously? Do we take our role seriously? Are we willing to do what is required to get to the bottom of this?”, or are we going to establish a precedent so that any time there's a scandal and someone says, “I don't want to appear,” and comes up with some excuse for it, we just let them get away with it?

Conservatives say we don't let them get away with that. Conservatives say any party that's serious about investigating the ArriveScam scandal and getting to the bottom of what happened needs to support this motion.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

We'll have Mr. Jowhari and then Mrs. Vignola.

[Majid Jowhari, Liberal, Richmond Hill, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

On our side, we would like to ask to suspend the discussion on this motion.

The reason is we would like to validate whether the Sergeant-at-Arms can actually take witnesses into custody. Will he be going out of his jurisdiction to be able to do that, and what are the consequences and impact of that?

We need some time. It's not that we disagree with finding a way to be able to call the witnesses in to come and answer. We're all for transparency and we support it; we just want to make sure that we are doing it right procedurally.

This is the first time we've seen this motion. It would have been good to know that this motion had been prepared. We should have had it before we had the first hour of the meeting so that we could have asked such questions. We probably should have asked and we didn't. So be it. We have the opportunity to do that.

When I read the motion as it's been prepared, there are statements that I want to go back to validate, such as, “The RCMP is investigating contracting links to ArriveCAN and has met with the Auditor General concerning the findings in the ArriveCAN audit.”

I'm not sure whether the RCMP is actually doing an ArriveCAN audit. We've just heard from one of our colleagues that we don't know what the RCMP is doing and we don't know whether it's investigating complaints as they relate to Botler AI or ArriveCAN.

There are statements in here that, if we agree to them, may have an implication, and I'd like to go back to our team to have that conversation. This is not a 10-minute conversation for which I can ask for a suspension. We are not in the same room, so naturally, we need to set it up procedurally for us to get together and have that conversation.

My ask is for a suspension of this conversation. We will pick it up at the next meeting we have, whether on Wednesday or Thursday, and have this conversation, but we really need to get clarification around the jurisdiction of the Sergeant-at-Arms.

Is this doable? What kind of precedent does it set? How do they take these witnesses into custody and bring them to the committee?

I'm not sure whether the Sergeant-at-Arms has the right to make an arrest.

I'm probably reading it the wrong way, but this is my suggestion. It is in support of making sure that the motion we are putting to the House and to the Sergeant-at-Arms is the right motion, that it's actionable and legal, and that we understand the implications.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thanks.

I'm not sure I have the will of the committee to wait until tomorrow, but we have a speaking list, Mr. Jowhari. If it's okay with you, we'll continue on with the speaking list and then we can address it.

We have Mrs. Vignola, Mr. Scheer and then Mr. Green, and then perhaps we can get back to you, Mr. Jowhari.

Mrs. Vignola.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

This is a very extreme motion. To be sure, some people have said they had health issues that made them unable or unwilling to testify before the committee. Initially it was five; now it's three.

The teacher in me would like to point out to my colleague Mr. Genuis that Mr. Firth has testified before the committee not once, but twice. He testified on November 2, 2023, as well as on October 20, 2022. In fact, he came to testify twice.

We have three witnesses who are not feeling well for various reasons. We've asked them many times to come before the committee. There are options. However, as I recall, we were not very keen on the option of holding meetings in camera. Before resorting to the nuclear option, I would consider other alternatives.

Based on what Mr. Bédard said earlier, I wonder whether we shouldn't be taking baby steps instead. We can first report to the House by raising a question of privilege. The Speaker will then make a ruling. Afterwards, we can compel the witnesses to appear before the committee. If they still refuse, we will have to make it clear to them that they have been summoned to appear, so they have no choice.

Before going nuclear, we need to take it one step at a time. I know letters have been sent. I want to see them appear too. It's not that I don't want to see them or that I want to put a lid on it. Nothing of the kind. I do want to see them, but I also don't want to potentially make a situation worse.

These people tell us they have mental health issues. Is that true or not? I haven't seen the doctor's note. The lawyers may have seen it. Anyone who has worked with people with mental health issues knows that every little thing feels like climbing a mountain. We're bringing the mountain. I would proceed with caution. Maybe I am being too careful. Maybe I am coddling them. It's possible. That's on me, but I don't want the actions that someone may take out of desperation on my conscience.

I think we should start with small steps—the ones the law clerk mentioned to us, including reporting to the House—before issuing summonses to appear.

I am not fundamentally opposed to the motion, but there are other things we could do first.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Thank you.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

I also agree with suspending the meeting, so that we can think all this through together and discuss it.