Evidence of meeting #111 for Public Accounts in the 44th Parliament, 1st session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was cbsa.
A video is available from Parliament.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mrs. Shanahan, your point of order is that you're entitled to call a member's actions shameful, but a member cannot refer to the statements of a witness as shameful.
Liberal
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
You used the same word, Brenda.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
—when questioning the witness is not appropriate. It is inappropriate at this committee.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Your cover-up is inappropriate.
Liberal
Brenda Shanahan Liberal Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC
Calling on a civil servant to resign and then saying it is shameful are not worthy of this committee. We are here to ensure the accountability of civil servants—
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
If she wants to give an S.O. 31, she should do it in the House next week.
Liberal
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Mrs. Shanahan, first, you know it is my practice to give members latitude to ask their questions and, I think more unique to this committee, to allow witnesses to respond fully. I seldom cut them off because I think it is beneficial for this committee to hear answers.
One of the issues before this committee is the lack of answers that have come from the Government of Canada about who is responsible. I am tired of hearing, “We will fix it next time”, when this is about the Auditor General's report and finding out what happened.
You might not like the tone that Mr. Barrett is using, but it is entirely appropriate, and—
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
—I suspect a good part of the country agrees. Now, don't bring me into this debate with these frivolous points of order on tone, particularly when you take issue with the word Mr. Barrett used and then use it yourself to describe his actions, thereby reinforcing the point that it is accurate.
Mr. Barrett, you have the floor.
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
Yes, Chair. Again, on the same point of order on decorum, I would appreciate it if the chair—
Conservative
Liberal
Iqra Khalid Liberal Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON
I'm talking about a different person now. Perhaps the chair himself could be a bit more non-partisan in how he conducts our committee.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Williamson
Ms. Khalid, don't bring me into your bun fights. I will be non-partisan in conducting the meeting. If you're going to continue to disrupt opposition members when they are asking questions, then I will get involved and make a ruling, as it is my job to do. I'm not just a potted plant up here who is going to watch the clock. As you get more political and try to cut opposition members off while they are asking legitimate committee questions, I will reinforce their right as members to ask those questions.
Mr. Barrett, you have the floor for three minutes and 40 seconds.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
Mr. Moor, last week my colleague Eric Duncan asked you which CBSA executives involved in ArriveCAN received performance bonuses. You said, “I can't confirm if they received bonuses this year because the year is not actually at an end”. Well, year-end has come and gone. Which executives was it and how much did they receive?
Vice-President, Comptrollership Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
I'm not able to answer that question because I'm not responsible for executives' performance bonuses.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
That wasn't your answer last week, sir. You said that you weren't able to provide the answer because year-end hadn't come, not that you weren't responsible for them.
Let me ask you a question with precision that you will be able to answer. Did you, sir, receive bonuses for your work?
Vice-President, Comptrollership Branch, Canada Border Services Agency
As I said last week, I have received some performance pay during the periods I've been the CFO.
I want to come back to your previous question.
With respect, can I come back to the previous question, Chair?
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
There's been $60 million in waste, along with allegations of fraud, forgery and corruption, and this arrive scam sees executives like you taking bonuses. You said, “I am accountable for the failures.” You said that today. Where is the accountability? Everyone keeps their job, everyone gets a bonus and Canadians are on the hook for all of it, for tens of millions of dollars.
As to the supposed cost savings from using this application versus paper, those paper costs were human costs. All of those humans are still being paid. These were costs on top of that, and so much of this, tens of millions of dollars of it, is grift. It's just Liberal insiders getting rich while Canadians get hammered and have to pick up the bill. It's egregious is what it is.
I have a question for the deputy auditor general. In your report, on page 5 there's a table. It's exhibit 1.1, “Estimated costs of the main contractors on the ArriveCAN application at 31 March 2023”. This details the $19.1 million that GC Strategies received, which, of course, they deny having been paid, and CBSA has no concept of how any of the contracts awarded to these two grifters were awarded. At the bottom of that table there's a line “other” and it's $6.1 million. Obviously the big numbers, like $19 million, draw a lot of attention, but with this $6.1 million, Canadians are now wondering how much of this corruption exists in the system and what makes up these companies.
Are there numbered companies involved? We need to understand who is getting rich off this project, which, of course, border services officers said was absolutely ineffective and prevented them from fulfilling their responsibilities. We've heard that from their union representatives and directly from BSOs. For that $6.1 million, who makes up the list?
Deputy Auditor General, Office of the Auditor General
We didn't include the details in our report. All of those companies, those contractors, received less than $1 million. That was the cut-off we used for the table.
As we said in the footnotes to the table, there were 21 contractors. We hadn't notified those contractors that we would name them. We didn't name them in the report, but there were 21 of them. We're talking about anything from low dollar values up to, at the high end, possibly $1 million.