The subamendment we're debating today is really whether or not Canada is going to be given sufficient time to study the damning report from the Auditor General.
In question period last week, I asked the Minister of Small Business why they would allow a company like Accenture, which was verified by the Auditor General, to write its own contracts, set its own terms and conditions and pay itself whatever it felt was acceptable. I asked the Minister of Small Business how in the world she finds it acceptable that $3.5 billion of taxpayer money could be misused, or in the words of the Auditor General, how we could have one of the largest social programs in the history of Canada show no value for money. I've asked the Minister of Small Business and officials here about the conflict of interest between Accenture and Export Development Canada.
I state all this because these are serious questions and we're in a time in Canada when people are divided. They're divided between the extremism of the Liberal Party, which is tearing new divides in Canadian society.... Violence against women is up. Extortion in my community in the Fraser Valley is up over 300%. The RCMP has had to devote hundreds of new officers to deal with major issues related to crime. I mention that because it gets down to the core of what many people are thinking, which is, “What the heck is the Government of Canada doing?”
We had the Auditor General come forward. She presented a bombshell report. We, as parliamentarians, have an opportunity to either investigate, get to the bottom of why some bad decisions were made, understand what the consequences were and hold the relevant officials accountable, or continue down the path of divisiveness that's been made by the NDP-Liberals, who are doing everything in their power to avoid possible corruption...but also, absolutely, accountability for the operationalization of government programs. It's because of this that Canadians are divided, Canadians are losing trust in the democratic process and they feel like their voices aren't heard.
All of us here, especially at public accounts—and I'm not a normal member of this committee.... The purpose of this committee is to do the hard work and examine why decisions were made. We look at the line-by-line spending of government departments to look back at why decisions were made, how they were made and the context in which they were made. What we have here today is the NDP-Liberals trying to avoid that accountability.
Let's recap some of the main findings that the Auditor General wants us to discuss and questions that I wanted to ask Auditor General Hogan and the officials from Finance Canada today.
One of the main findings is that although 91% of loan recipients met eligibility requirements under the CEBA program, the Office of the Auditor General found that the remaining 9% were ineligible recipients, amounting to $3.5 billion in loans. That's a fact. It's a fact that we're not studying.
The non-deferrable expenses stream was intended “to help small businesses cover a variety of expenses that could not be deferred during the pandemic, such as payroll, rent, insurance, and utilities.” When introducing this stream, Export Development Canada “introduced more pre-payment controls, which required additional processes to determine eligibility, including assessing the validity of expense documents submitted by applicants.” However, the Office of the Auditor General “found some issues with their implementation” and “found that about 19% should not have been deemed eligible based on the criteria of the program at that time and should be investigated further.” This represents “approximately 26,000 loans or about $1.5 billion.” That's 26,000 loans.
I'm the critic for small business. One of the biggest complaints I receive from small businesses in our country is that, when they get a question from the Canada Revenue Agency or they're contacted by the Government of Canada, they basically have to stop what they're doing.
It might be a minor discrepancy, but it's at the discretion of an individual auditor to review how they're conducting their business. In some cases, this can mean major losses for a small business, but these are absolutely major inconveniences without any consequences for the auditors at CRA, even if they are found to have been completely in the clear.
I want to apply that same type of pressure on the decision-makers in government because, when 26,000 loans are deemed ineligible to the tune of $1.5 billion, that's a big concern. That's a big concern for the small businesses paying taxes that have felt the wrath of CRA upon them numerous times in their business careers.
According to the Office of the Auditor General, 90% of the errors “were due to loans being wrongly assessed as eligible based on the documentation provided by the small businesses.”
The OAG further found that “EDC approved loans based on the assessments performed by its vendor even though documentation clearly indicated ineligibility or basic information was missing. For example, documents were accepted without a business name or for expenses outside of the eligible period of the program.” In other words, Accenture wasn't doing its job with the sweetheart contract it got with EDC.
The Auditor General wrote that “EDC conducted no post-payment verification” for the non-deferrable expenses stream, and “therefore did not discover the extent of [its own] errors.”
The Auditor General concluded that too much control given by EDC to a third party vendor to administer CEBA contracts had grave consequences. She found that “EDC decided to make extensive use of external contractors to minimize the impact and separate the CEBA program from its own core operations” because, according to EDC, “it did not have the capacity to embed CEBA in its regular operations”.
This resulted in $230 million in administrative spending going to contracts with third parties, of which 91% was awarded to a single vendor. That is Accenture.
Today we had Finance Canada officials before us. My line of questioning was going to be focused on how these decisions were made, how EDC was first given authority to run this government program and how EDC made the decisions to sole-source most of it to a global multinational firm. These are important questions and we're not getting to them.
EDC was dependent on Accenture to deliver the CEBA program. In total, EDC awarded 19 non-competitive contracts to Accenture out of 48 CEBA-related contracts, “representing approximately 92% of the total $342 million awarded in contracts to support the delivery of the CEBA program.”
EDC, DFC and GAC—that's the Department of Finance and Global Affairs Canada—“identified the reputational and financial risks—