Evidence of meeting #134 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was amendment.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to thank my colleague Mr. Perkins for moving the motion. Indeed, when it comes to public funds management or supply management, for example, facts like these are always troubling.
Since it's directly related to the subject, I'd like to take this opportunity to remind you that the House unanimously passed Bill C‑290, which deals with whistle-blowers and will facilitate the process of reporting acts like these. The bill is currently before the Senate. We hope to get everyone's co‑operation to adopt it and thereby reduce the incidence of wrongdoing as much as possible. We'd prefer that these incidents not happen, rather than having to discuss them at committee.
Having said that, personally, I'm not a lawyer, God forbid. You may be the authority on this.
Bloc
Jean-Denis Garon Bloc Mirabel, QC
My first objective was to make you laugh, so it has been achieved. My second objective is to get an answer.
When a person pleads guilty, there's a judgment, in which the facts are set out. I understand that the courts will give us the answers we need.
That said, I agree with one part of the motion, and that is the part about the minister's visit. We can ask him questions about that. Ultimately, the minister is responsible for what happens in his department. He has an obligation to assume his responsibilities and explain his vision to us. I think that's probably a good way to go at the meeting with the minister. He'll probably be happy to answer our questions, explain what's been done and tell us about any corrective measures that have been taken. After the minister's visit, we'll be able to make an appropriate judgment and, if necessary, reconsider things.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you very much.
Colleagues, just before I yield the floor to MP Turnbull, we have the option of going to 10:30, if we want, because we did start at 8:30; I'm sorry about that. Otherwise, we can end at 10:15, because you might have prior commitments.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
I see general agreement around the table. We'll end at 10:15, then.
Go ahead, MP Turnbull.
Liberal
Ryan Turnbull Liberal Whitby, ON
Monsieur Garon made some good points today. In this particular case I agree with him, actually, that these questions could be posed to the minister when the minister appears.
Mr. Patzer said he seeks accountability. In this particular case I think that, through an internal accounting and record-keeping practices change, the department caught this individual, who was then dismissed from employment in February 2019. The matter was then referred to the RCMP for investigation. The RCMP investigated and laid charges on August 29—I believe the individual in question received a 24-month conditional sentence for the breach of trust charge—and PSPC revoked and suspended the security status of the subcontractors and referred the cases to the RCMP, which is now investigating. PSPC is also moving forward on recovering the illegitimate payments, on behalf of the Government of Canada, to protect taxpayers' money. The individual pleaded guilty on September 5, so there has been accountability. Is that not right? That is accountability.
There's no organization in the country that can prevent, in any form, individuals trying to game the system. If an individual does that undetected for a long period of time I could say, yes, that there aren't the right systems in place. However, if this individual was detected and then was referred to the police, let go from his position, charged by the RCMP, pleaded guilty and funds were recovered, to me that's actually a case of which we should be saying the system worked to find that person.
Yes, we can certainly say, “How could we prevent that from happening again?” I think that's a worthy question to ask the minister—and I think that's very fair—but in terms of saying that there was no accountability, I think that's just blatantly false in this particular matter because, clearly, there was accountability. It's unfortunate that individuals, like this individual, did what they did, but they were held accountable for their actions. As long as the funds were recovered, I think I would be pretty satisfied, as a taxpayer, that those funds were recovered.
That's what I have to say. I'm against the study, but not against, obviously, any individuals on the committee asking the minister questions about this when he comes. I think it's more than fair to do so.
Liberal
Liberal
Chandra Arya Liberal Nepean, ON
I agree with Mr. Garon's suggestion that this is something we can ask the minister. When I first read about this case in the media, one thing I was not very happy about was that it was just a slap on the wrist with no jail time. That was my first concern. That's my first thought.
Second, I have a question myself. For public service employees, I don't think there's any requirement for them to disclose the companies they own, the business they are in, like parliamentarians have to do with the Ethics Commissioner. I think that, if there's not, it's time for that to be instituted so that some of the straightforward cases like this can be nipped in the bud before they happen.
I agree with Mr. Garon that this is something that merits a question to the minister but not a full study.
Liberal
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
I'm really sympathetic to this for a different reason from what has been expressed up to this moment. I would rather see the minister answer it first, but I'm hoping....
If it's not brought back, I'll bring it back because I see this also through a different lens. This is outsourcing that shouldn't have happened. We have a public service, and what I would like to dive into a little deeper is why all these contracts were single-sourced and can't go to the public service, and how we've gutted the public service's capabilities. We hire outside the box of the public service so many times, with the least accountability. That, to me, is more germane to this. It sounds like we've captured some of what's taken place here.
The minister can respond when the minister comes here—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Hold on a second, Mr. Masse. I think Mr. Garon is telling me that there's no interpretation.
I'll speak in English to see if the translation is coming through.
It's back. I'm sorry about that.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you.
Mr. Garon is probably saying that I speak in gibberish. We're all good.
I'll be quick though to finish up. To me, right now it's about timing. I would rather see the minister respond to this. I'd be interested in looking at this with the mover later on to see how we can expand this a little bit more. What I want to chase down is why we're outsourcing so much. Why are there 72 sole-sourced contracts. How does that happen, and how often is that happening?
Also, what has been gutted in our system that we have to be so dependent upon contracts like that? To me it's about that issue as much as it is about the particulars here. For those reasons I'd like to see this put off until we can get the minister to come here and answer some questions.
To be fair to my colleague who moved this, we're telling him he has to use some of his questioning time to ask the minister about that. I also concede that in that way we are actually putting a burden on my colleague with respect to this motion. I think we should recognize that and try to find a solution to that. I think the motion is fair, and it can be done when the minister's here, but at the same time it is going to take a little bit out of his time while he asks about it. However, I still think that's the better of the options that are in front of us right now.
Conservative
Jeremy Patzer Conservative Cypress Hills—Grasslands, SK
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.
September 19th, 2024 / 10:10 a.m.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
There have been some interesting suggestions.
The committee's not going to tie me down if the minister deems to show himself here. There are a lot of things to ask him questions about. I hope he would come for the two hours. As the chair said, it's hard to get him out of here. I hope he'll come for two or three hours, so we have the time to go through this. If he comes for only the hour—the government seems to try to limit the exposure of its ministers—then one five-minute round is not going to allow me or other members to ask what we need to ask of him.
On this one, I'm certainly open to the broader issue that MP Masse mentioned about looking at the broader procurement issue. Obviously, there's a systemic problem throughout the government when a public servant can sole-source contracts to himself or when an ADM can sit at every board meeting in the green slush fund, where they vote for their own personal interests' money 82% of the time, according to the Auditor General. That's not bad legal advice; that's a culture of conflict of interest. It's a culture of entitlement in the billion-dollar green slush fund.
I'll have you know, that fund has spent $22 billion since it began. It was established by Paul Martin. It's the $2 billion in the last few years under this government that has been abused by the Liberal appointees. Nobody seemed to care about the accountability of it in the government—among government officials or in the Liberal government. They'll look at this thing and dismiss it: “Well, it's just a small amount of money again.”
We heard that with the one about Futurpreneur: “Well, it's only $35 million or $45 million. That's all.”
They spent $15 million on potted plants for an Oscar party, so who cares about how $200,000 got abused and sent 72 times to an employee?
MP Patzer was very clear. We won't go on. We have not proposed to prosecute other abuses of expenditures here because they're being done well in ethics in dealing with this government. It's persistent, whether it's the procurement problems that led to the arrive scam and to Firth and his company, GC Strategies, being able to basically fill their pockets without doing any work.... It was a company of two that got hundreds of millions of dollars in government contracts to then subcontract.
Public servants were involved in that too. There were lavish single-malt scotch tastings, people being bought off and no government control. There was no government control at the green slush fund and no government control at GC Strategies.
Let's not forget the most recent one. Here we have the special adviser—the next leader of the Liberal Party. He won't be the next prime minister unless the Prime Minister resigns because he's too afraid to call a carbon tax election.
Carbon tax Carney, who chairs Brookfield, is trying to get $10 billion from the federal government. Brookfield will get a 3% commission on that. It sure pays to be a connected Liberal and to be the real minister of finance, while conveniently avoiding conflicts of interest by saying that he's employed by the Liberal Party, not by the government, but he gets access to all the government information.
Not being willing to look at this in any timely way on its own and relegating this procurement issue in the ISED department to just asking a couple of questions of the minister is typical of trying to dismiss and sweep the corruption under the carpet, which we see so frequently with the Liberal Party.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Your timing is perfect, Mr. Perkins.
It is 10:15. I understand from members that it is the will of the committee to adjourn at 10:15, so we'll pick this up next meeting.
Have a great day. The meeting is adjourned.