Qujannamiik, Iksivautaq.
It is a pleasure to represent the NDP, and I share the sentiments that were shared about my colleague, Blake Desjarlais. I do wish him well during his time of grief.
I have complete faith in our whole party, what we've heard and the advice given to us by our staff, so when I'm sharing my feedback, it is because of what I've heard. Unfortunately, what I'm hearing during this debate at committee is a lot of partisanship, when we should be demanding accountability.
What I've heard from the witnesses, the officials—and I appreciate that it was based on a new motion regarding this study—is that the officials were not able to answer my questions. Inviting them back will mean that even if I repeat those questions to those same officials, they will not be answered. I understand that there were officials from the Treasury Board Secretariat. I'm pretty sure that if I ask those officials those same questions, they would not give the information that Canadians deserve. I say “that Canadians deserve” because the original intended cost of the ArriveCAN app was supposed to be about $80,000, and to hear that, over time, $55 million, at the very minimum, was spent to have this app operate for the so-called protection of Canadians' health is completely unacceptable.
It was only recently that I learned that the recipients of this contract claimed to have indigenous identity and used that in this contract, so there are still a lot of unanswered questions. When I asked my questions, instead of the officials responding or accepting responsibility, they diverted that information to be answered by another department. I think, given the huge losses that this program cost, it deserves the scrutiny that it's received.
I'm not convinced by other interventions in which we've been told how many hours have been spent on this, especially when there are still lingering questions about the colossal failure of what has happened. We need to make sure that the officials aren't the final stop in seeking answers. We do need to hear from the President of the Treasury Board, because it is the president who can give us the bigger picture that we're looking for on where those miscommunications cost Canadians so many millions of dollars.
I need to say this again. Nunavummiut are suffering. With the level of poverty that exists in Nunavut, for Nunavummiut to continue to be ignored and for Nunavummiut to continue to lose profits to CEOs is completely unacceptable. We need accountability. We need answers. Because of that, I support this motion to get those answers from the President of the Treasury Board.
Qujannamiik.