Debates of Nov. 25th, 2024

Public Accounts

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

These are points of debate. I would ask members to please hold off, because we are nearing the period for questions and comments.

The hon. deputy government House leader has two minutes and 52 seconds left.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will only use 30 seconds to plug a band I recently saw on Wolfe Island, in my riding. It is the Grievous Angels. The member for Timmins—James Bay is the lead in this band. They are really great, and it was a great opportunity. I was so thrilled he came to my riding and was playing there.

I would encourage anybody out there to see the Grievous Angels anytime they have an opportunity to do so. I now understand that the member for Timmins—James Bay's real passion in life is music, and perhaps this was just second fiddle to that, but good for him. I know he is not going to run again. I encourage him to continue with his music career. If he is ever coming through Kingston again, he should make sure I know so I can see him again.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, the member for Timmins—James Bay has claimed the Liberals and the NDP have broken up, but I think there is some evidence to the contrary. I will be cautious extending that analogy and describing exactly how there is evidence to the contrary, but I think there is evidence.

Here is why the privilege debate is important, to directly address comments the member made. Some $400 million of taxpayer money was essentially handed out among Liberal friends, people voting to give money to their own companies, with totally outrageous conflicts of interest persisting under the NDP-Liberal government. The House agreed to order the production of certain documents in relation to this affair. We have been very clear that this ends right this minute if the government agrees to hand over the documents. The reason the House is in this position is that the government refuses to hand over the documents.

We are not actually debating the privilege issue right now; we are debating a concurrence motion. The concurrence motion is aimed at preventing a government employee from simultaneously being an external contractor. It makes no sense for someone to receive the benefits of contracting while being a government employee. Again, why are we debating this motion? It is because the government opposes this proposal. A majority of the House supports it; the government opposes it.

Would the member agree to support this concurrence motion and implement this proposal? Then we can move forward in the best interests of Canadians.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, the good news is that this concurrence motion is time-allocated, so it is going to be voted on eventually.

In my speech, I spent a solid eight or nine minutes noting specifically the checks, balances and measures in place for any public servant, that they have accountability and that they have to inform their supervisor of the activities they are engaging in. Those are the kinds of things we need to do. When people go against the code of conduct, they need to be held accountable. I even indicated some of the ways in which they would be held accountable.

To the member's preamble, where he talked about the reason we are in this privilege debate, although I disagree with some of the premise behind his rationale as to Liberal insiders, I certainly share concerns about the issue as a whole. However, the RCMP specifically said that if it gets information in this manner, it may never be able to use it. It also said that it has the ability to gather information on its own, so we are taking the advice of the RCMP. The Speaker did too. He specifically told us to send this to PROC and deal with it there. That is what we want to do.

[Mario Simard, Bloc, Jonquière, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am always amazed at my colleague from Kingston and the Islands' ability to play the victim. Every time I hear him, he says that the poor government is trapped by this question of privilege, that the infamous Bloc Québécois, with the help of the NDP, will not help break the impasse in the House and that it is appalling.

He does not seem to understand that he is part of a minority government and that it is possible to negotiate something in a minority government. The government acted in such bad faith when it made its proposal last week. For ages, we have been calling on the government to increase old age security, and the Liberals voted for that. We are also asking it to ensure that the issue of supply management moves forward.

Last week, the Liberals instead proposed giving $250 to people who do not need it, to people who will earn $149,000 a year. They will be giving them $250, but then they are going to tell seniors to deal with their own problems. It is rather difficult to negotiate and to act in good faith with people who are this mediocre.

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I am not suggesting I am the government's victim. Who are the real victims in all of this? The victims are Canadians. They are the ones not having their representatives doing work for them for 29 sitting days while the Conservatives have jammed up the House until we “call a carbon tax election”, like we hear them say over and over. At some point, I think everybody has to realize it is time to move on.

If the member is genuine when he says he wants to talk about seniors, that is great. If we get out of this privilege debate, perhaps the Bloc can bring forward a motion specifically about seniors and we can have a discussion. I would love to talk about seniors and OAS and what the government and the Bloc are proposing and why I might not like their members' ideas and why they might not like our ideas. In the meantime, we are listening to AI-generated speeches from the Conservatives.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague talked about how this is normal procurement and every government does it. Under the Conservatives, we saw procurement to highly paid external consulting companies double. We have now seen it quadruple under the Liberals. This is the new normal: the rush to the trough by Liberal and Conservative insiders.

In this case, for ArriveCAN, we saw current public servants getting contracts, indigenous set-asides going to non-indigenous businesses, fraud, and security permits given to people who were not eligible. These are task authorizations and put Canadian security at risk. We learned of former public servants crossing over to work for these big firms. We learned of Liberal and Conservative former cabinet ministers serving as managing directors of companies like Deloitte. We saw doubling and tripling of commissions. By the time people actually did the job, at times 50% of the money had gone to commissions.

The member talked about normal procurement. If this is going to be normal, this economic leakage and rip-off of Canadian taxpayers, when are the Liberals and Conservatives going to get together and put an end to this absolutely abysmal destruction of the Canadian public service by outsourcing it to these external, for-profit companies? When is it going to end?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I love how the member twists the words. I did not say “normal procurement” or “this is normal procurement”. What I said was “procurement is normal”, and there is a big difference. Procurement happens. It is a part of what we do, how government operates, and at times it can be in the best interest to procure services. We accept and believe in that.

As I indicated in my speech, we also have a directive on the conflict of interest and values, and a code of conduct for the public sector. To the member's point, if people are abusing their positions or are doing things they should not be doing in contravention to those two documents, then they should be held accountable. I do not think we would find anybody in this room who would suggest otherwise. It is really important that people are held to the highest standards we set out in those documents, but the reality is that sometimes people are not. When that happens, they have to be dealt with. I believe that is the case, to the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan and his question earlier.

Yes, individuals have to be held accountable. Let us get on with it by sending this over to PROC, having PROC get to the bottom of the documents issue and sending it back to the House. That is how we function. However, Conservatives are not interested in that. They want to delay and obstruct so they can claim this place does not work so they can justify an election.

[Ted Falk, Conservative, Provencher, MB]

Madam Speaker, the member suggested at one point that the debates we are having in the House are meaningless to Canadians and that we could be engaged in meaningful activity. I suggest that the misappropriation of $400 million is not meaningless and Parliament getting to the bottom of it is very valuable to every single Canadian. He also seemed to suggest that he does not clearly understand why a government employee would not be entitled to receive a contract to provide goods or a service to the very department he works in.

Does the member across the way have a clear understanding of what constitutes a conflict of interest?

[Mark Gerretsen, Liberal, Kingston and the Islands, ON]

Madam Speaker, I went through it. I read it out. I do not think the member was listening to me. I went through the document in my speech and highlighted the important parts of it.

The member tries to conflate the issues. He said that I said this is not important and what Liberals have been talking about the whole time is strictly the issue. I would love to get to the bottom of the issue. I would love to figure out what the problem is. Unfortunately, the Conservatives will not let us do that because they are filibustering their own motion. They tabled a motion to send this to committee to let the committee study it. They then put up 172 speakers, and counting.

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity to rise and speak on the concurrence motion for the 37th report from the Standing Committee on Public Accounts.

I will be splitting my time with the member for Brantford—Brant.

This report states the following: “That the committee report to the House that it calls on the government to prohibit any government employee from simultaneously working as an external contractor.” This report is short and straight to the point. This practice of double-dipping by public servants is obviously unethical and should not be allowed to occur. Unfortunately, this Liberal government allows this practice across all departments.

I would like to begin by giving some context to this report and how it came about.

During our study of the arrive scam scandal, we uncovered a number of issues in the contracting of this app, not the least of which was the case of a government contractor being allowed to simultaneously work as a public servant. David Yeo, CEO of Dalian, was caught double-dipping. In fact, the day that he started as a public servant at the Department of National Defence, his company signed a big contract with that same department. His own signature was on the contract, and no one raised any issues. Under this government, this is seen as perfectly acceptable, just business as usual.

Now, while scandalous, this was just one case, and it could have just been the one that slipped through the cracks. However, when members dug into this situation, when we asked the government to advise the committee on how many public servants were simultaneously working as government contractors, we were shocked to find out that dozens of public servants have been allowed to do the very same thing. In other words, it has become commonplace.

Most Canadians would look at this and see the obvious conflict of interest in being both a public servant and a government contractor, but not the Liberals. As I said, it is business as usual to allow double-dipping; after all, we have seen sitting cabinet ministers who have been found guilty of ethics violations and many cases of Liberal insiders getting sweetheart deals in government contracts.

Currently, the House is seized with a privilege motion, calling on the government to provide the House with unredacted documents in the case of SDTC. More specifically, the current Liberal environment minister, who used to work for Cycle Capital as a lobbyist, still holds shares in this company, one of the largest beneficiaries of this fund that had insider access to funding to businesses it was invested in. We need look no further than the latest scandal with the member for Edmonton Centre, former minister of employment, who was forced to resign after months of controversy surrounding his medical supply business, GHI. More specifically, it is a company that falsely claimed to be an indigenous company in order to access funding that was set aside as part of an indigenous procurement program. So, is it any wonder that the practice of allowing public servants to bid and be awarded government contracts simultaneously is allowed to continue? Within this context, it is obvious why Conservatives feel the need to press this issue.

It is a fact that the government has grown the public service massively, but instead of having these tens of thousands of public servants do the work in-house, this government is outsourcing the work and, in some cases, paying public servants as government contractors to do the work at an inflated price. The practice of outsourcing is contributing to the massive costs of this Liberal government. The government must take immediate steps to crack down on double-dipping. It must address its failure to rein in this practice and take real action against it. Unfortunately, there is little hope of seeing this Liberal government take meaningful action. Even if it decides to implement new rules, we know that it will likely not enforce them, rendering them ineffective.

I would like to quote what Roch Huppé said about the arrive scam scandal, when he appeared at committee, which touches on this issue:

Canadians expect the Government of Canada to be well managed. They also expect their government to have the rules and controls in place for the sound management of their tax dollars. Audits like the one performed by the Auditor General of Canada on ArriveCAN are important instruments to ensure that those expectations continue to be met.

The findings of the Auditor General are clear and sobering. Requirements and good management practices were not followed. As the Auditor General has noted several times, the rules were there, but compliance was not.

He went on to say:

Again, as the Auditor General has noted, we do not believe that more rules are the answer. Procurement is already complex enough. Rather, this issue serves as a clear reminder that departments and agencies need to ensure that they are placing the utmost importance on ensuring that procurements are fair, open and transparent and withstand the closest public scrutiny.

This gets to the heart of the matter. The answer to these issues is not to add more rules that the government will not enforce. It is simply to enforce the rules that are already in place. We do not need the government making more rules to help its insider friends. We just need a government that is willing to enforce the rules and to find and address corruption. For example, we saw this when the President of the Treasury Board proclaimed that the government would now make sure that contractors actually fulfilled the contract before paying them. This was already a rule, just one that the government was not enforcing.

Another example of a pre-existing rule, which the government reinstated, was that it would now first determine if work could be done in-house before outsourcing it. This rule could have stopped the practice of double-dipping from ever becoming an issue, but the government failed to enforce it. The issue behind the report we are discussing today is this: We have a government that is failing to fulfill its role and to enforce the rules that it has in place, which are meant to ensure fairness and transparency in the procurement process and to fight corruption. The Liberals were not actively seeking to address double-dipping and shut it down. They waited until it became a big scandal and then only did the bare minimum to address the issues. Once the attention waned, it could return to business as usual.

Canadians deserve a government that is committed to accountability. We need a government that cares enough to seek out corruption and snuff it out before it can become widespread. We need a government that will enforce the rules that are already in place. Unfortunately, we have members of the government who are trying to pass the time until they can get their pensions and check out. They are more concerned with pushing the election date back a week than dealing with corruption, which they have allowed to fester throughout the public service.

This report is really a no-brainer and should have support from all parties. However, given the way the Liberals continue to dig in their heels when it comes to being transparent and accountable, we will likely not get any resolution to this issue from the corrupt Liberal government. We need a change in government in order to implement accountability across the government bureaucracy and ensure that Canadians are getting good value for money.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, I enjoyed working with my colleague on the government operations committee. We saw so much, along with so much dysfunction. However, we also know that the outsourcing to external consultants at highly paid consulting firms, which doubled under the Conservatives, has quadrupled. It has run away out of control under the Liberals.

We also know up here that there has been a culture instituted in this place. People come to work on the Hill with their ultimate goal being to go and work for those consulting companies; public servants retire from the public service and then go work for those consulting companies and make exorbitant amounts of money. That also happened under the Conservatives.

What does my colleague think her party will do to stop this culture of external outsourcing and this pathway of bringing insider information and then profiting from it?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I am reminded of my colleague's time on the government operations committee, when he actually helped the Liberals cover up their McKinsey scandal. The Liberals refused to hand over unredacted documents on their close relationship with McKinsey, and the NDP helped them filibuster, when Conservatives tried to raise the issue in the House. It is difficult to reconcile that member's behaviour with his self-proclaimed desire to crack down on outsourcing when he was playing defence for the Liberals outsourcing to McKinsey.

[Marilyn Gladu, Conservative, Sarnia—Lambton, ON]

Madam Speaker, my colleague works so hard and gets to the bottom of a lot of these issues. We have heard today, throughout this debate, that the Liberals are saying they have all read the conflict of interest guidelines and that employees have all read the conflict of interest guidelines. However, they simply do not follow them, so it seems to me as though there is a root issue in the culture of the government and of public sector employees who would double dip knowing that it was not right.

What would the member have to say about that?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, I thank my hon. colleague for the great work that she does in holding the government to account at every opportunity she gets.

This motion is about stopping double-dipping. There are instances where outsourcing may be necessary, but it has never been necessary to outsource to public servants. That work should be done in-house. She makes a very good point about the conflict of interest guidelines that are in place.

I will just quickly quote a very recent post by one of my colleagues. He wrote, “SHOCKING

“The ‘Conflict of Interest’ Policy at Trudeau's Green Slush Fund allowed Board members to buy & sell securities WITHIN DAYS of a funding decision.

“This is akin to INSIDER TRADING.

“Corruption not only happened, it was the OFFICIAL POLICY”.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member named the Prime Minister, and I would remind members that they are not to use the first or last names of members of the House.

The hon. member for Shefford.

[Andréanne Larouche, Bloc, Shefford, QC]

Madam Speaker, I would like to ask a question, after hearing the speech and comments by my colleague from Terrebonne, who did a great job explaining the infamous concept of double-dipping. She also explained that the problem of hiring outside consultants stems from the fact that, under the Conservatives, the number of public servants was reduced to such an extent that it created a problem. The Liberals then mismanaged that problem, of course.

However, it is clear that making cuts for the sake of making cuts and saving money, as was done at the time, has an impact on services to the public. In the end, we are in catch-up mode. We agree that this catch-up is really not being done in the right way.

Does my colleague agree that, under a Conservative government, it would be wise to avoid cutting the number of civil servants too much, in order to maintain services to the public?

[Kelly Block, Conservative, Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek, SK]

Madam Speaker, over the two years that I have been a member of the government operations and estimates committee, we have been studying scandal after scandal, and what it all boils down to is whether we have a government that is serious about the role that it has been elected to undertake in managing both the public service and all of the contracting rules that are in place. It does not appear to be willing to do that, and in fact, it is even willing to outsource when we have public servants who could very well do the work.

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

Madam Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the good citizens of Brantford—Brant, and it is a privilege to be speaking to the concurrence debate. Before I get into the merits of the concurrence motion, I would like to to recap how we got here.

The ArriveCAN scam is nothing short of a financial debacle, one that has ballooned from a modest estimate of $80,000 to almost $60 million, and that is only a guesstimate, as per the Auditor General. It was just not an accounting error; it was a result of chronic mismanagement and an appalling lack of oversight. The Liberals, from the Prime Minister on down, are directly responsible, and have been throughout their nine years of governance, for a waste of taxpayer dollars on an out-of-control project that has lined the pockets of well-connected consultants while Canadians are left picking up the tab.

The tale begins in November 2019, when a small, two-person, consulting firm called GC Strategies, operating out of a basement, was brought in for a seemingly innocuous task. It did not stay small for long. Run by Kristian Firth and his partner, Darren Anthony, the business quickly escalated from a low-level consulting firm to the chief contractor behind the bloated arrive scam app, securing multi-million dollar contracts at a staggering rate.

When all was said and done, the total cost exceeded almost $59 million, far beyond the original estimate. The problem, however, is not just the ballooning costs; it is also the complete absence of transparency. The very connections that GC Strategies built with senior government officials seem to have played a pivotal role in securing and expanding their contracts. By early 2020, GC Strategies was not only on the payroll but was also actively seeking more government funding, all while working behind the scenes to further entrench its position within the bureaucracy.

Despite growing concerns about the company's improper involvement and its rapid accumulation of taxpayer-funded contracts, it continued to rake in millions. By April 2021, it was celebrating the one-year anniversary of ArriveCAN with government officials, toasting its success during a virtual whisky tasting.

Meanwhile, costs continued to climb. By 2022, it became glaringly obvious that the project was not just over budget; it was spiralling out of control. By that time, $9 million of the $54 million spent had gone directly to GC Strategies. Even as public outrage grew, with citizens and experts demanding accountability, the government stood idly by. When calls for an audit of GC Strategies gained momentum, the Liberal government voted against it, further demonstrating its unwillingness to take any meaningful action.

Finally, in late 2023, more than four years into the debacle, the CBSA severed ties with GC Strategies and its partners, but the damage had already been done. The Auditor General's report revealed that the companies involved had not been properly vetted for conflicts of interest, raising serious questions about the integrity of the entire project.

The situation deepens when we look at the troubling revelations surrounding senior officials involved in the project. For instance, Cameron MacDonald, a CBSA official, testified about a heated call that he had with another official, Minh Doan, who had a conversation with the then minister of public safety, who admitted to being unhappy with the media coverage surrounding the selection of GC Strategies and demanded someone's head on a platter. As a result, there were no official records of communications between CBSA and GC Strategies; there were only vague emails about pricing.

It gets worse. I mentioned Minh Doan, who, despite his high-ranking position and expertise in computers, mysteriously lost over four years' worth of emails after a request for information was made. Conveniently, he claimed that his laptop battery change led to a technical glitch that caused his emails to disappear, an absurd explanation that would be laughable if the consequences were not so dire.

Mr. MacDonald and Antonio Utano, two mid-level officials, also got suspended without pay despite having flagged serious concerns about the lack of oversight and accountability in the project. The government's response was that they were punished for exposing the truth. Meanwhile, high-ranking officials who should have been held accountable, including ministers, remain untouched, while the real perpetrators continue to enjoy the spoils of their corruption.

The AG's scathing report on the ArriveCAN app revealed what can only be described as the worst record-keeping she has ever encountered in her career. The entire contracting process was a mess. There were no clear objectives, no accountability and no one properly in charge, including the Prime Minister and the government. The list of failures is staggering, including ghost contracting, fraudulent résumé manipulation, favouritism and a complete lack of transparency. This is a textbook case of how taxpayers' dollars can be misused when corruption runs unchecked.

The Liberal government's pattern of incompetence, mismanagement and dishonesty continues to be on full display. How can Canadians trust a government that not only mishandles taxpayer money, but actively obstructs efforts to uncover the truth? This is a government that has consistently failed to demonstrate any level of responsibility or transparency.

This brings us to the report, and why it is so critical and crucial. It is not just about exposing the incompetence and corruption within the government. It is about taking steps to ensure that this never happens again. The public accounts committee recently passed a motion calling for the government to prohibit employees from simultaneously working as external contractors. This motion came in response to a contracting company named Dalian that was paid almost $8 million for work on the ArriveCAN project. The president of Dalian was also employed by the Department of Veteran Affairs, which funded the very contract they were working on. This was a clear case of double dipping, where a government employee profits from both their salary and taxpayer-funded contracts.

The Liberals continue to argue that they need to hire outside contractors because of a lack of internal expertise. Yet, time and again, we see government employees being paid to do the same work that they were already being paid for in their government positions. This practice not only undermines public trust, but creates a system ripe for fraud and abuse.

When Conservatives pressed witnesses about this issue during the arrive scam investigation, we learned that this practice is not even explicitly prohibited. It is merely evaluated for conflicts of interest. That will never be good enough. We need clear, enforceable rules that prevent this kind of abuse from happening in the first place.

In conclusion, it is time for the government to come clean about the full extent of its failure with the ArriveCAN app. Canadians deserve transparency and accountability. Above all, they deserve assurance that their tax dollars will no longer be misused for political favours and consultant kickbacks.

This is not just a scandal, it is a crisis of trust, and it is one that the Liberal government has yet to address in any serious, meaningful way. I urge every member of this House to stand up for the taxpayers and for the integrity of our public institutions. We cannot allow this kind of waste, corruption and incompetence to continue. We must hold those responsible accountable and ensure this never happens again.

[Gord Johns, NDP, Courtenay—Alberni, BC]

Madam Speaker, my colleague and I worked very closely together in covering a lot of different holes in what was going on in terms of this contract with ArriveCAN.

We saw so many problems with this one that we should examine the bigger companies and the massive contracts that they are getting, like Deloitte, which has gone up 20-fold, in terms of outsourcing since the Conservatives took government and including the Liberal government. It has run away, but nobody is putting scrutiny on the contracts going to Deloitte, despite the fact that the NDP at the government operations committee wanted Deloitte to appear so that we could get to the bottom of why it is getting such a massive increase in outsourcing. These are for-profit companies.

Would my colleague agree that we should be examining those big contracts as well, not just ArriveCAN, and that clearly there are problems, fundamentally, right through the whole process?

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

Madam Speaker, any misuse of taxpayer monies needs to be thoroughly examined by all members of the House. There is a serious lack of trust in our federal institutions. That goes back to the time the Prime Minister formed government. Any companies on the Liberal payroll, so to speak, that are funnelling money into and padding their own pockets need to be severely investigated not only by Parliament but by law enforcement as well.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

It is my duty to interrupt the proceedings and put forthwith the question necessary to dispose of the motion now before the House.

The question is on the motion.

If a member participating in person wishes that the motion be carried or carried on division, or if a member of a recognized party participating in person wishes to request a recorded division, I would invite them to rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I would like a recorded vote.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, Carol Hughes]

Pursuant to Standing Order 45, the division stands deferred until Tuesday, November 26, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions.

Canada Revenue Agency

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am grateful for the opportunity to present a number of petitions in the House this evening.

The first petition is about taxes. Canadians are never that keen about paying their taxes, which is why Conservatives would axe the tax. This petition, though, is about tax filing.

The petitioners note that tax filing is a requirement for most Canadians, regardless of their ability to access online platforms. They note that paper filing and instructions on how to file have been available for decades. The petitioners are concerned that a recent decision of the CRA means that it will no longer print line-by-line instructions in the paper package and will impose penalties for paper filing of certain taxes, including for businesses filing GST/HST returns. This unequally disadvantages vulnerable Canadians and creates big challenges for those who do not have the same level of connectivity that most of us have.

The petitioners call on the government to remove all penalties associated with paper filing and to make available print copies of the line-by-line instructions for tax filing for anyone who requests them.