Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
My colleagues are talking about respect. That has been the most important value I have held in my life for a long time. I give lectures to young dropouts, and I write the word “respect” on the board. I tell young people that if they respect people in life, people will respect them. I tell them that there's a mirroring effect.
Why are we here today? It's because we have the biggest financial scandal in the history of the country, a project that has gone from $1.6 billion to $6.6 billion. That means there's a cost overrun of $5 billion. Our colleague was talking about respect.
The Liberal member Ms. Fancy was saying that this moves us away from our responsibility. What is our responsibility? Our primary role is to legislate. Our role is also to ensure sound management of the money that Canadians send to us, here in Ottawa. That's the respect we owe Canadians.
On top of that, the project we're discussing here, which has a $5‑billion overrun, doesn't work. Government employees themselves are telling us that it doesn't work. We're asking for thousands of pages of information, and Ms. Fancy is telling us that it's irresponsible, that it's going to cost a few million dollars. We're talking about $5 billion in cost overruns. What's irresponsible is to not shed light on the biggest financial scandal in the history of the country. That would be irresponsible: to not shed light on that.
What we need to do is get answers to our questions, as the motion calls for, because someone gave approval; someone said yes to a cost overrun of $5 billion. Someone agreed that the software doesn't work, that it doesn't deliver the expected results and that we should keep going in that direction.
That's our role as legislators. We were elected by the people of Canada, and the people of Canada expect results. I always tell my constituents that it's a great privilege to be their eyes, their voices and their ears here in Ottawa. That should be what guides us all: being the eyes, voices and ears of our constituents.
When we're faced with a financial scandal like this one, namely, a cost overrun of $5 billion, if we want to do our job, we have to be the eyes, voices and ears of our fellow Canadians and demand answers. That's our role as legislators.
We asked Minister Hajdu and Minister Lightbound to come and give us answers. How much time did we get? We were given one hour, that is, 30 minutes per minister. Did we have enough time to ask the questions and get the answers we expected? Of course not.
We're talking about a cost overrun of $5 billion here, and I only have 30 minutes; not 30 minutes for me alone, but 30 minutes for all of my colleagues to ask the minister questions. It's completely ridiculous. To go back to the word “respect”, it's a lack of respect for us as legislators to give us only 30 minutes to ask questions about a $5‑billion cost overrun. That's the respect the Liberal government has for the legislators who were democratically elected in each of the ridings to represent their fellow Canadians.
People work hard to earn their pay, and they send us practically half of their pay here to Ottawa. We have a cost overrun of $5 billion, and we shouldn't be asking questions because that will result in work for government employees. What would be irresponsible would be to not do so.
I wanted to be here because I'm a member of the Standing Committee on Finance and this is an unacceptable file for me. What's more, an article in the Journal de Montréal this morning talked about the fact that seniors are having trouble making ends meet. Once the rent is paid, they have a hard time paying for groceries. With the Cúram software, 86,000 seniors were unable to receive the benefits they were owed.
This is money that they're owed. They paid that money. It's our duty to be able to give it back to them. They have to wait eight to nine months to get their money. Some of our seniors are in distress. That's the reality for 86,000 seniors in the country. Would that mean our role is to not ask any questions, to accept that?
I will continue to fight for our seniors, and I will continue to fight for the Canadians who are working hard and place their trust in us by giving us a large portion of the pay they earn each week. They're asking us to provide services to Canadians in exchange for the money they send us every week, and we have a duty to manage it effectively and responsibly.
What we're currently seeing in this file isn't sound management. It isn't effective and responsible management. We owe it to ourselves to get answers, we expect answers, and I'm going to continue to fight so that we can get the answers, because someone, somewhere, approved those $5 billion in cost overruns. Someone approved the fact that this software doesn't work.
I reached out to the minister to meet with employees on the ground who use the Cúram system. They're the ones who use it every day. I suggested to the minister that we go together. I don't use the computer system. The minister doesn't use it either. I suggested that we meet with the people who use it, to understand the challenges they face on a daily basis, so that we can find a way forward, find a possible solution. We owe it to ourselves to get answers.
For our part, we're going to continue the work. You'll understand that, when my colleague talked about respect, the disrespectful thing would be to not do the work we're doing right now. We owe it to ourselves to get the answers we expect. We have a duty to respect Canadians, who are also asking questions. Where are those $5 billion in cost overruns? What happened in the decision-making chain?
A set of measures were requested in the motion. We're going to make sure we have the answers we need to shed light on this file. We're going to make sure we get the answers we expect.
Thank you, Mr. Chair.