Government Operations Committee on Dec. 12th, 2024

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

For the specific value, I'll turn to the deputy minister.

[Arianne Reza, Deputy Minister, Department of Public Works and Government Services]

It's $4.5 million.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Would you expect to find more, Minister?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

As I said, every effort that needs to be put into this is being put into this. Obviously, this is a politically independent process. We wouldn't want politicians, whoever they may be, to undermine the ability of the independent public service officers to do that job.

It's not a matter of how many I think there should be. It's how many the public service—

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Okay. You've said that you don't want to undermine public service officers doing their job. Then, in your opinion, please, Minister, do you believe that in all of the scandals—including the billions lost to CEBA, which we just found out about last week through the Auditor General, as well as the millions spent on ArriveCAN and McKinsey—the procurement officials are the ones whom Canadians are to blame for this large number, the millions of dollars, which I believe is actually significantly more than that?

Do you believe your officials are to blame, then, Minister?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Are you asking whether we should be blaming officials for—

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

I'm asking you what you think in terms of why it's currently $4.5 million for seven contracts. I think the number is way more than that. We've seen these numbers increase consistently, whether we're talking about contracts, fraud, the debt or the deficit, but in this case, the seven fraudulent contracts, why do you think that's occurring, please?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

As you are correctly suggesting, officials have the obligation to do whatever they can—in an independent manner, not focused on politics and politicians—to do whatever they need to do to find out instances of fraud, and, if there are such instances of fraud, to do whatever they need to do, including with the RCMP and other law enforcement institutions, to collect or recollect the amount that would have been paid inappropriately.

[Stephanie Kusie, Conservative, Calgary Midnapore, AB]

Okay. Thank you.

Minister, you mentioned politicians. I just want your ideas as to what you believe your leader, the Prime Minister, is doing to the finance minister. We've seen two days of leaks in The Globe and Mail. We know now that he has forced his radical spending on your finance minister, Minister Freeland, and that he has forced her to break the $40-billion deficit. In fact, we found out just today that he is begging Mark Carney—carbon tax Carney, conflict of interest Carney—to serve as the next finance minister of Canada.

I have some sympathy for you. Your Prime Minister, who actually has overseen all of this procurement, all of this fraud under CEBA and under arrive scam, is now going to oust the first female finance minister in Canadian history.

Do you think that's right?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I am going to focus—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I apologize, Minister. That is our time. Perhaps you can respond in Mr. Sousa's five minutes.

Mr. Sousa, go ahead, please.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Minister, thank you for being here.

I apologize for some of the antics across the way. The disrespect is really unfortunate, because I appreciate, and I think most Canadians appreciate, the work that's being done to try to bring transparency and greater order to procurement. Thousands and thousands of contracts are done by the Canadian government, and some are not done properly, which we have investigated and members of the team have ventured to correct.

I have three questions.

One is with regard to the Canada public land bank. In my community of Mississauga—Lakeshore, at 1 Port Street East, the Canada Lands Company is the property owner of a beautiful marina in the area. A lot of revitalization has been done in the community—they're very grateful for that—and is continuing. The residents are eager to see this revitalization.

Can you talk about how your department is working to convert underutilized and vacant properties into housing?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Thank you so much, Charles.

Thank you for pointing to the federal lands initiative, in your riding and across Canada.

We know and feel how stressful it is for Canadians to go through the housing crisis. The good news is that we have, in budget 2024, the most important housing investments ever seen in the history of Canada. They are going to transform the lives of millions of Canadians. We are going to build millions of homes. Many of them—hopefully, most of them—will be affordable.

That's coming through the leadership of PSPC. As you said, PSPC is an important supporter of that initiative. More broadly, PSPC is key. We have $34 billion in procurement activities every year and 400,000 contracts and amendments. We have 800,000 active security clearances every year, a large number of them being checked and reviewed every year as well.

The federal lands initiative, and the Canada Lands Company in particular, is going to build approximately 29,000 new homes in the next five years on federal lands. That's in addition and complementary to the federal lands bank initiative that you noted. As of now, we have 83 properties in that bank. We started in August. We're going to build approximately 35,000 new homes in the years to come.

We hope that your leadership and the leadership of other MPs around the room will help connect communities, mayors, councillors and not-for-profit housing providers to speed up the construction of those new homes.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Thank you, Minister.

There's another issue of concern in my community. Just two days ago, there was a town hall about guns and safety issues. It was about crime.

A lot of reforms have been made by the federal government to try to strengthen those issues and try to persuade the provincial authorities to proceed more effectively in enforcing the law. However, it's clear to me that there are a number of measures that the government has taken to support strong gun control measures. I'm actually quite appalled to see members of the opposition working with the gun lobby in an attempt to weaken those very gun laws. We're talking about assault rifles and so forth.

Can you explain how this government is taking assault-style firearms out of our communities through the buyback program that is, in fact, part of PSPC? Minister, regardless of what the members of the opposition are saying, it is part of the work you are doing at PSPC with regard to the gun buyback program.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

Indeed, it belongs partly to PSPC, as well as to Public Safety.

As a quick reminder, in 2020, we banned about 1,500 models of weapons that have no place in civil society in Canada—

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Chair, can you ask them to please settle down? We're trying to hear the answer.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Are you referring to the minister or the colleagues across the way?

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

I'm referring to the opposition.

Chair, I don't appreciate that either.

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

Come on, Charles.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

It's really unfortunate.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

You're right, because I believe the opposition—

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

I'm sorry, Minister. I'll pause the time.

Colleagues, if you'll allow—

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

On a point of order, Mr. Chair, I think Mr. Sousa already heard the answers during practice. Didn't he?

[The Chair, Conservative, Kelly McCauley]

That's not a point of order.

Minister, please continue.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Québec, QC]

I think it's a good gesture on your part, Charles, for everyone to be able to hear that story. It's going to be important in the weeks to come as we roll out phase one of the buyback program with shops, and then phase two with individuals who legitimately and totally legally bought these assault-style rifles years ago.

These weapons are designed for wars. They are designed to kill as many people as possible in as little time as possible. That's why we outlawed 1,500 models of those firearms in 2020. Last Friday, we added another 324 models because the gun industry is very creative in designing and then producing new assault-style weapons. That is why, this week, we're putting into place a firearms reference table, which will automatically update that list of prohibited assault-style weapons, and my department—