I just want to respond to the accountability piece here. As I was saying, there are 72 instances of breaches here. I know that this guy paid the money back, which taxpayers will be happy about, but taxpayers are not happy about $330 million that's been misappropriated through the green slush fund. They're not happy about the millions and millions of dollars that Kristian Firth got through GC Strategies. They are not happy about the contracting practices that have gone on with McKinsey. They are not happy with the arrive scam debacle that continues to be an ongoing issue. When we talk about accountability, it's not just a one-off in one instance here.
The fact that there is accountability.... This is still a big scandal, but it's a small-scale scandal compared to the things we're currently dealing with and the way this government has mishandled taxpayer money and allowed it to be funnelled out. Navdeep Bains was the minister at the time of this. He was also the minister when a lot of the misappropriation of the green slush fund happened. It would almost be worth inviting him back to committee again to have another go at him around this stuff.
The air of entitlement or the idea that money can just be thrown about wherever or be taken by people hasn't changed. There's been nothing done to ensure that these kinds of fraud and behaviour don't happen and that the breach of trust doesn't continue to happen. That's the problem. That's where the lack of accountability lies.
Yes, this individual thankfully was investigated by the RCMP and criminally charged, but there are way bigger instances out there that I hope will be investigated and for which charges will be laid, much as was done with this fellow. The accountability doesn't stop with this guy. There's a lot more that needs to happen when we talk about accountability, and that's what I'm getting at here. There is a whole entire string of events that have happened since this. This is just the beginning, and it's gotten bigger and more grand as time has gone on. When you look at the hundreds of millions, probably into the billions, of dollars that taxpayers have been billed by people in the last 10 years because of this government, that's where the problem lies. That's where the accountability needs to come into place, and that's where the people of Canada are getting sick and tired of seeing money going out the door repeatedly over and over in an ill-gotten manner.
To Mr. Masse's point on the 72 sole-sourced contracts, those were before the public service doubled. We're still seeing that same kind of outsourcing, but if we've doubled the public service, have we not also increased the capacity to do some of this? We're still seeing those practices when you see the billions of dollars in consulting that happens regularly under this government. They spent money on hiring a consultant to figure out how to do less consulting. It's just mind-blowing what's going on here, and this is just the beginning of it.
This is a good study for us to do to dig into the beginning of the culture that has been allowed to permeate throughout what will soon be 10 years of this government. That's where the issue lies and that's where the accountability piece needs to go. This can't just be a one-off. This is just the beginning, and I hope that members on that side would also agree that there needs to be a higher level of accountability for the people who have been robbing the taxpayer blind while this government has allowed them to do so. That's where I hope this can go.