Debates of Feb. 15th, 2024

Public Services and Procurement

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, the Leader of the Opposition knows very well that the government is collaborating with parliamentary committees and the Office of the Auditor General. The Border Services Agency is doing an internal review, an investigation with respect to many of these matters, and officials have from the very beginning referred, to the RCMP, any and all information they think might be appropriate for the RCMP to investigate.

The government will always cooperate with these lawful authorities to ensure that they can do the work that Canadians properly expect them to do.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the arrive scam scandal is so bad that even former NDP leader Tom Mulcair has taken note. He said that with the revelations of the past few days, he has to face the facts: This is the first major Canadian political scandal since the sponsorship scandal, and it is likely to be even bigger.

Given that the NDP's own former leader is saying this, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost or corruption. Why is the NDP keeping him in power?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we thought that this level of exaggeration would be exclusive to the Leader of the Opposition. I cannot speak for Mr. Mulcair.

What I can tell Canadians is that the government takes these circumstances extraordinarily seriously. We accept the recommendations of the Auditor General. We have at all times worked with parliamentary committees and senior officials to ensure that they have the tools necessary to investigate these matters and, of course, to hold to account those who may have done something inappropriate.

Housing

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, speaking of partisanship, yesterday the Minister of Housing unleashed a vicious attack on himself. He said the Liberal government is presiding over what he called a “generational, moral failure”, because so many people cannot find a place to live. There are a record number of 30 different homeless encampments in Halifax alone, his home province, after his Prime Minister doubled housing costs.

Given that they admit they have caused this moral failure, will they reverse the policies that caused it and start building homes instead of bureaucracy?

[Soraya Martinez Ferrada, Liberal, Minister of Tourism and Minister responsible for the Economic Development Agency of Canada for the Regions of Quebec]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my hon. colleague that on this side of the House we do not insult the mayors of cities in Quebec. We work with the municipalities.

On this side of the House we actually get real deals done, unlike him, when he was housing minister. We build real housing. We are going to keep working with all Canadians to put a roof over their heads.

Public Services and Procurement

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the $60 million that was wasted on the ArriveCAN is just the tip of the iceberg.

We now know that GC Strategies, a company of two guys in a cottage, snagged 140 contracts worth $258 million under the Liberals. Under the Conservatives, these same two crooks snagged nine contracts worth $3.6 million using the company name Coredal. Imagine. Twenty departments were involved and $260 million in IT contracts were awarded to guys who do not even do any IT work.

Seriously, when will there be a thorough investigation into the awarding of all of these contracts since 2010?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Speaker, I thank our colleague for reminding us, albeit rather discreetly, of the very difficult circumstances we experienced just a few years ago during the biggest pandemic since 1919, at a time when millions of jobs and billions of dollars in economic costs were at stake. We had to act quickly and decisively. Those were the operative words for the public service.

That being said, that is not an excuse. It is unacceptable that public service employees did not do their jobs properly.

[Alain Therrien, Bloc, La Prairie, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals are still trying to find excuses when they should be trying to find who is responsible.

All these contracts need to be investigated, but the CBSA also needs a major cleanup. It boggles the mind that an $80,000 app could turn into a $60-million scandal without anyone raising any flags.

It boggles the mind that public servants went to dinners and whisky tastings with contractors without their supervisors blinking an eye. This looks like a systemic issue.

Will the government put the CBSA under administrative supervision? It is long overdue.

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Speaker, our colleague is completely right. An investigation was and is necessary. That is exactly what the Auditor General has worked on over the last few months. She had access—and rightfully so—to all the necessary information to do her work.

We are grateful to her for her report. Obviously, we are appalled by what the report says. That is all the more reason to continue to implement her important recommendations.

Foreign Affairs

[Heather McPherson, NDP, Edmonton Strathcona, AB]

Mr. Speaker, for four months, innocent Palestinians have pleaded for help. Close to 30,000 people, including children, have been killed. In Rafah it is even worse.

All we hear from the Prime Minister are empty words. He is concerned, but he will not stop arms sales to Israel. He will not help Canadians fleeing Gaza, and he will not reinstate funding to UNRWA. Maybe the minister's parliamentary secretary should say publicly what he has clearly been saying privately, that UNRWA is the only organization that can help people in Gaza.

When will the Liberals finally act to save Palestinian lives?

[Ahmed Hussen, Liberal, Minister of International Development]

Mr. Speaker, only the NDP would consider that being the first western government to move on humanitarian aid is not enough. Only the NDP would think that adding an additional $40 million to get even more aid to the Palestinians is not enough. Only the NDP would think that our bringing like-minded countries to call for an immediate ceasefire is not enough. We have called for no military action in Rafah, in order to protect 1.8 million civilians. We will take no lessons from the NDP on this.

Employment Insurance

[Daniel Blaikie, NDP, Elmwood—Transcona, MB]

Mr. Speaker, being a parent is hard work. It can be exhausting, and people should not be punished for having a family. However, new parents who are laid off through no fault of their own before, during or after parental leave are denied access to the regular employment insurance benefits they paid for.

Women still do most of the unpaid caregiving work for Canadian families, so this disproportionately affects them. It is a clear case of gender discrimination. New moms should not have to cannibalize their EI benefits to get maternity leave, and the government should not have to wait for a court order to do the right thing.

When are the Liberals going to get the job done and end this discrimination against women?

[Randy Boissonnault, Liberal, Minister of Employment]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate my colleague's advocacy on this important issue. We have spoken about the ongoing work of modernizing our EI system, and the government continues to make progress on this. As my colleague is aware, this particular issue is before the courts, but make no mistake: We are supporting families, parents and women. Let us look at the child benefit, at $10-a-day child care and at all of the improvements we have made to the EI system, making sure that parents have more access to the system.

We are going to deliver for families and for women. That is what we are here to do and it is exactly what we are going to do.

Housing

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, the Minister of Housing, who was warned that his policies would cause a massive housing shortage, finds himself in hot water once again.

At the Standing Committee on Finance, he admitted that his $4-billion program, the so-called housing accelerator, is not working. No houses have been built and no apartments have been completed. He says the program will not even lead to future construction.

Will he follow my common-sense plan that will encourage municipalities to allow more housing?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing]

Mr. Speaker, I think the housing crisis calls for a co-operative approach. What is the Leader of the Opposition's approach? He insults the mayors of Quebec City, Montreal and throughout Canada.

That is not how to engage in a serious housing policy. The accelerator fund that he points to is incenting change at the zoning level municipally. That is critical if we are going to see more supply. It is absolutely vital that we see more supply because that is what underpins the housing crisis in front of us. He is not serious.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Leader of the Opposition]

Mr. Speaker, they are working together with municipal politicians to block housing. In fact, the housing minister, when he was immigration minister, was warned his policies would lead to a massive shortage, yet he went ahead with them anyway. He made some incredible admissions yesterday at finance committee. He said, first, that his $4-billion accelerator fund has not completed any homes, and second, “It doesn't actually lead to the construction of specific homes.”

Why does he not instead follow my common-sense plan to link municipal funding to housing construction so we can build homes and not bureaucracy?

[Peter Fragiskatos, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Housing]

Mr. Speaker, it is shame; he should follow the proceedings of the finance committee more closely because just a few months ago, officials there testified that his private member's bill, supposedly meant to build more housing, would do exactly the opposite.

He wants to tax home builders. He wants to cut infrastructure that communities require for housing purposes. His best idea, it would seem, to build more homes is to create some sort of 1-800 number where neighbours can rat on each other if they have concerns around NIMBY. It is not a serious approach. He has never been serious about housing. He is playing games.

Public Services and Procurement

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost or the corruption, and his arrive scam app is just like the Liberal government: costly and corrupt.

Look at the facts: two buddies, a basement office and an IT company that does no IT work yet got a $20-million contract for IT. Now the Auditor General tells us that she cannot track all the costs, saying, “We didn't find records to accurately show how much was spent on what, who did the work, or how and why...decisions were made.”

Will the Prime Minister order his officials to turn over all the documents, stop blocking this investigation and call for a full RCMP investigation?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, it may surprise my hon. friend, but the government does not actually direct the national police in terms of investigations. We have confidence that the RCMP will take the important responsibility it has seriously and do all of the work that is required. We have complete faith in the RCMP's independence and in its ability to look into all these matters.

More importantly, the government is also always available to work with parliamentary committees and the Auditor General's Office to ensure that every document is available so this important matter can be resolved.

[Andrew Scheer, Conservative, Regina—Qu'Appelle, SK]

Mr. Speaker, the Liberals voted against calling in the Auditor General in the first place and blocked multiple attempts at committees to get to the truth. While the rest of the country viewed the pandemic as a difficult time full of hardship, the Liberals saw it as an opportunity to enrich their friends. They got caught funnelling a billion dollars to the WE organization. A former Liberal MP got a sole-source contract worth millions from the pandemic. Now we find out that the Liberals' app cost 750 times what it should have, did not work and was not needed.

The Auditor General says the RCMP is going to have to get a court order to get the documents. Why should it take a warrant for Canadians to find out what the Liberals did with their money?

[Dominic LeBlanc, Liberal, Minister of Public Safety]

Mr. Speaker, it does not take a warrant for Canadians to see that the government has been transparent, both with the Auditor General and with parliamentary committees.

The facts may bother my friend, but he knows very well that the Auditor General is empowered to do all of this important work. We have accepted the report of the Auditor General. We acted on a number of recommendations before receiving the report because we asked the procurement ombudsperson to look into this matter. We value the importance of respecting taxpayers' money and will always do that.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, where was the minister on November 1, 2022? Here in the House, there was a vote on a request by the official opposition and the member for Carleton, the Conservative leader, for the Auditor General to analyze the arrive scam situation. What did the Liberals do? What did the minister do? They voted against that request.

Today, we are asking for access to all the documents. Will the minister once again hide under a rug and vote against this, or will he, for once, step up with the dignity we expect from this government and allow the whole truth about the arrive scam scandal to come out?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague stressed the importance of the Auditor General's work, and rightly so.

The good news is that she tabled a report on Monday with some troubling findings and solid recommendations that we are now implementing or continuing to implement.

The member says she is hiding under a rug. That is not true. The Auditor General is in contact with the Royal Canadian Mounted Police and all the other organizations, including internal ones, that will need the information she was able to gather.

[Gérard Deltell, Conservative, Louis-Saint-Laurent, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the good news is that the Auditor General did her job.

The bad news is that the government did not want her to do her job. Let us imagine what would have happened otherwise. People would just shrug off the fact that ArriveCAN turned out to be a washout, but it would be no big deal. In fact, ArriveCAN is the biggest scandal in Canadian history. That is the reality.

The original $80,000 contract ultimately ballooned to at least $60 million. Today, the Liberals are feigning outrage and saying we need to launch an investigation. Where were the Liberals on November 1, 2022, when it should have been investigated?

[Jean-Yves Duclos, Liberal, Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Mr. Speaker, not only did the Auditor General do her job, she did a very good job. We appreciate the work she did and will draw from it. It will help us continue implementing the measures we need, even in times of crisis when situations are extremely complicated for everyone, including Canadians, and when quick action is essential.

In these times of crisis, like all other times of crisis, the basic rules of sound management of the public service still hold.