Public Accounts Committee on April 3rd, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you. That's helpful.

Mr. Barrett, you have the floor.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Chair, it's beyond parody that the Liberals want to be able to call witnesses to rebut the Auditor General of Canada. We see that this is a Liberal cover-up. They're trying to cover up their $60-million arrive scam.

Let's go to a vote. If they're—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

—not comfortable with what's happening in their government, then—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We have a point of order, and then I'll return the floor to you, Mr. Barrett.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I take exception to us being blamed for rebuttal witnesses—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Ms. Khalid, that is a point of debate. I will give you the floor after Mr. Barrett is done, and you're welcome to give a rebuttal.

Mr. Barrett, you have the floor again.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

Chair, the Liberals, including Ms. Khalid, should vote for their cover-up and vote to bring witnesses to rebut the Auditor General, as they don't like the news being reported in this massive corruption scandal. I'd be interested to see who they bring out. I guess they'll bring in Kristian Firth as their expert witness to rebut the Auditor General.

We believe Ms. Hogan. We understand that they believe Mr. Firth—

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair.

[Michael Barrett, Conservative, Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON]

—so let's have a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Yip, do you have a point of order, or is it a point of debate? I have Ms. Khalid.

[Jean Yip, Liberal, Scarborough—Agincourt, ON]

It was on relevance.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Khalid, have you said everything?

All right. I'm seeing no other intervenors. The clerk will call the vote.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4)

The motion is carried, and I will of course follow it.

We're going to finish up our rounds. I apologize to our witnesses for the delay.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor for two minutes and about 10 seconds.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Wait just one second, please, Mrs. Shanahan.

Mr. Brock.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Given the unnecessary intervention that lasted close to 45 minutes, do we have resources beyond 12 o'clock?

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I'm going to work on that right now, so I can get back to the committee.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Okay.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It is my intention, though, to see us through to the finish of this third round, which we're just beginning, and then we'll finish up the fourth round.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor for two minutes and 10 seconds.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

I'll go back to you, Mr. Moor, and talk about the ArriveCAN application itself.

The ArriveCAN application, as we heard from the Auditor General, does have enduring value. You mentioned that just before we moved to the motion. Can you speak to what the enduring value means for CBSA?

[Jonathan Moor]

As I said to OGGO last week, I believe the ArriveCAN application provided value for money, but I also accept that it didn't provide the best value for the taxpayer.

When you're looking at value for money, you have to look at economy, efficiency and effectiveness. The Auditor General has recognized that it was an effective app for providing factual information about quarantine on a timely basis to allow them to do their job.

I have spoken about efficiency. The ArriveCAN app costs about one dollar, whereas the paper-based process was costing about three dollars, so it is definitely a more efficient approach than the paper-based process.

When we talk about economy, there is a judgment there. We've talked previously about differences in how we count the money, but I think we all agree that there was insufficient information to record all of the expenditures correctly. Some of that we are going to be dealing with, but we recognize that we should have had the accounting code at the start.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you for that.

I think it's important to note that the ArriveCAN project was conceived as something that would save money at CBSA. The fact is that it didn't, though, and we were all shocked by the testimony at this committee of people like Mr. Yeo, who was very proud to say that he was a Conservative member, Conservative donor and member of the People's Party of Canada, which means that he's not somebody who believes in tracking vaccination rates and so on. It was very bizarre, but he was very happy to make money on ArriveCAN.

What can you do to make sure that people like that don't get involved in projects again?

[Jonathan Moor]

It is very difficult for me to comment on that, because what you want to see in procurement is a fair and equal process. Everyone should be allowed the opportunity to compete fairly, in order to drive value for money in the public service.

One of the issues we had is that we allowed this to run too long. We used the same contractors for too long, and I think that's one of our core lessons learned.

I fully support the approach of having open, fair and transparent competition to allow all of us to get the best value for money.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you very much. That is your time.

Ms. Sinclair‑Desgagné, you have the floor for two and a half minutes.

[Nathalie Sinclair-Desgagné, Bloc, Terrebonne, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Moor, I'm going to take this opportunity to come back to what you just said. You're talking about value and efficiency. However, the awarding of contracts non‑competitively began in 2010, and this practice exploded between 2015 and 2019. In 2023, the Canada Border Services Agency awarded almost 20% of its contracts, if not a little more, non‑competitively.

Do you consider that all these non‑competitive contracts provide good value for taxpayers' money?