Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'd like to welcome Auditor General Hogan and her team today.
We truly appreciate the great work you do every day to assist this committee and Parliament in our oversight of government spending and operations. It's a challenging task you have with the Liberal government's $480 billion in program spending while running an annual $40-billion dollar deficit.
I believe the work you've done to uncover the historic levels of corruption and fraud associated with the ArriveCAN scandal will have a lasting legacy.
Your recent report reminds me of the work of Canada's first female Auditor General, Sheila Fraser, whose report on the sponsorship scandal rocked Canada's political scene during the last Liberal regime. Auditor General Fraser stated that the troubling transfer of hundreds of millions of dollars in sponsorship funds used “highly questionable methods”. She also referred to the Liberal sponsorship scandal as a “pivotal event with a lasting impact” and said it “broke just about every rule in the book”. Her quotes sound very familiar in regard to your comments to this committee about ArriveCAN.
In her 2011 speech, Madam Fraser also criticized the truly shocking lack of improvements on first nation reserves and said the following: “I actually think it’s quite tragic when you see that there is a population in this country that does not have the sort of basic services that Canadians take for granted.” I've seen this up close as minister of aboriginal affairs in my own home province of New Brunswick.
Your recent reports on housing and first nation communities and on policing show a lot of similarities to Auditor General Fraser's comments. It's very unfortunate to have seen a lack of progress over the past nine years.
The Office of the Auditor General has stated that it is committed to improving socio-economic outcomes for indigenous peoples by increasing opportunities for first nations, Inuit and Métis businesses in procurement processes. For example, you have stated plans to award a minimum of 5% of the total value of all contracts to indigenous businesses.
Because of the egregious misuse of indigenous set-asides that your ArriveCAN audit has uncovered, may I ask if you have considered taking a deeper look at the 5% program, and have you put in place a directive that your office not subcontract with Dalian Enterprises and David Yeo?