Debates of May 19th, 2022

Public Works and Government Services—Main Estimates, 2022-23

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, as I have said, executive bonuses that are paid out are paid in accordance with the contracts. We will honour the terms of the contracts.

With respect to the previous point on Phoenix, the work has resulted from what we inherited, and that work remains ongoing to correct the system.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, not one but two Auditor General reports on Phoenix actually contradict what the minister just stated.

Now, the Minister of Small Business in this place said, “I would encourage everyone to shop local.” Does the minister agree with this statement?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, I would encourage people in Canada to shop local, yes, and they can visit my hometown of Dundas.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, this is beautiful.

The minister's own departmental plan, on page 19, if she wishes to check, targets for this year a 15% decrease in purchases from Canadian small businesses last year. How is this supporting small businesses?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, we are working very hard to support small businesses. I do not agree with the premise of that question. In fact, during COVID-19, over 40% of the funds spent were spent on domestic production.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, I even noted on what page in the departmental plan, signed by the minister, the target decrease was.

Now, the previous minister for PSPC testified in committee that Amazon was a Canadian company. Is this why the Liberals are giving so much to Amazon and not buying from Canadian small businesses?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, I think the member is confusing the contracts. This is with respect to the cloud services we have procured.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, actually, last year, the government purchased $20 million in goods, not including the cloud services, from Amazon. This year alone, year to date, in just two months it is $10 million.

How is buying from Amazon supporting small businesses?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, these are all small transactions, which is the result of the numbers the member is speaking about.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, an Order Paper response showed over 7,000 pages of purchases from Amazon instead of from small businesses. Amazon's market cap is $1.5 trillion. How is this a Canadian small business?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, the web services are the big-ticket item. The smaller items are items like pencils and things like that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, that is not the case. The large majority of dollars in purchases from Amazon are not for web services, and the Order Paper response provided by the government shows that.

Why is the government spending so much on Amazon and not on small Canadian businesses?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, actually, we are absolutely supporting small and medium-sized businesses. As I have said, 42% of COVID spending with respect to procurement was for Canadian domestic businesses. We have entered into major contracts. Millions of masks are being produced locally here and we are going to continue to do that.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, there is $32 million in purchases from small businesses for direct non-cloud services, and about $20 million for cloud. That is the truth, right from the government's own numbers.

Amazon has sold items promoting Xinjiang cotton, three of which directly use forced labour. Will the minister immediately end all government Amazon purchases and buy from local Canadian businesses instead?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, I would like to add, with respect to the support for small businesses, that we have Procurement Assistance Canada. It helps small businesses, as I spoke about earlier this evening, to navigate in order to procure goods. We are going to continue to support them.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, the House voted unanimously that what the Communist Chinese government was doing to the Uighurs was genocide. I will repeat the question.

Amazon is selling items purchased from Xinjiang that are knowingly using forced labour. Will the minister immediately end purchases from Amazon and send those purchases to small and medium enterprises?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, we have provisions in our contracts now that do not permit forced labour to be used, and if it is used we can terminate the contract.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, will the minister immediately terminate all purchases from Amazon, seeing as it is selling items made with forced labour?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, we will continue to work to enforce the terms of our contracts to ensure that there is no forced labour and that the obligations of the contract are fulfilled.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, Panasonic has received $32 million in contracts from the Liberal government despite sourcing materials from factories using Uighur labour. Panasonic has refused to alter its practice.

Will the Liberal government immediately stop buying from companies using forced labour?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, I am pleased to talk about the progress we have made with forced labour. PSPC has now put in a code of conduct that has to be signed. There are provisions in the contracts that say if there is forced labour, we have the opportunity to terminate the contract.

We are going to continue to move forward in this regard because we are absolutely against forced labour and—

[The Deputy Chair, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, if the government was against it, it would listen to me and the companies that I have noted.

BYD received a quarter-million dollar contract from the government. Its supplier uses Uighur forced labour transferred forcibly from south Xinjiang, where mandatory unpaid labour follows years of educational transformation in concentration camps. Why?

[Filomena Tassi, Liberal, Hamilton West—Ancaster—Dundas, ON]

Madam Chair, I have been very clear that in the contracts we will not procure goods that use forced labour. If the member has evidence that forced labour is being used, he should share that information and we will look at it. We are not going to procure goods that use forced labour and we take the allegations very seriously.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Chair, I have been sharing it this evening and the minister has refused to rule out buying from these companies.

The Australian Strategic Policy Institute has identified dozens of companies that have knowingly used forced labour goods in their supply chains. These companies, according to the government's own Buyandsell website, have received hundreds of millions in contracts from the Liberal government.

If my office, with one person, can find all of this information, why can PSPC, with all of its resources, not find the same information and stop sending Canadian taxpayer dollars to buy services made with forced labour?