Debates of Feb. 27th, 2024

Opposition Motion—ArriveCAN App

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Madam Speaker, one time in the not-too-distant past, we put forward a motion in the House to have the Auditor General study the ArriveCAN fiasco. With respect, the member voted against having the Auditor General do that work. I wonder if the member now regrets taking that position and, if she had it back, whether she would vote for the Auditor General to do that study.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Madam Speaker, I recall that, during the pandemic, there was a series of votes that came to the House about audits for small businesses and the various things we were spending on while the pandemic was under way. I recall that there were a number of times that I did not vote for those audits to take place, and the reason was that we were still heavily into the pandemic and we needed to make sure that we were focusing our resources on ensuring that we were supporting Canadians, from a health care perspective and from an economic perspective.

There are limited resources within our bureaucracy, so we had to focus our resources. It was never meant that there should ever not be proper oversight or proper spending of our public resources.

[René Villemure, Bloc, Trois-Rivières, QC]

Madam Speaker, we have been talking about procurement and ArriveCAN. There were plenty of disasters before ArriveCAN. When we look at the government's real capacity to manage passports, borders, when we look at WE Charity or employment insurance, Canada Life, we realize one thing: the government is incapable of carrying out its fundamental duty, which is to provide services to the public.

I have seen my colleague and his colleagues show some contrition many times. They say they are sorry, that this will never happen again, that the investigations are under way. In reality, these incidents occur on a regular basis.

Earlier my colleague talked about ethics. I would like to know what she thinks, ethically speaking, about these endless scandals.

[Julie Dzerowicz, Liberal, Davenport, ON]

Madam Speaker, misconduct of any kind in our procurement processes is never acceptable. For about 10 minutes, I gave a speech about all the things we have in place that will protect processes. They do everything they can to inform our bureaucracy and our government officials, who act on behalf of our government, to ensure that they have processes in place such that we are doing our best to spend our public money ethically. When things go wrong, we have a number of mechanisms that allow us to look at what went wrong and how we can do better the next time around.

I started my whole speech by giving some context. We went through a huge pandemic that had huge economic consequences on our lives and in the world today. Surely there were going to be some mistakes made, and it is right for us to be looking at that right now. We will make some corrections and do better as we move forward.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

Order. It is my duty, pursuant to Standing Order 38, to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Public Services and Procurement; the hon. member for Kitchener Centre, Foreign Affairs; and the hon. member for South Okanagan—West Kootenay, Agriculture and Agri-Food.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Madam Speaker, our government takes its responsibility for the stewardship of public funds very seriously, and we are committed to ensuring that government spending stands up to the highest levels of scrutiny. Contracting for goods and services is a routine part of business in any government. It enables us to deliver the services and programs that Canadians need and expect, and we have important guardrails in place to maintain the integrity of the process.

Government procurement is carried out in accordance with a number of regulations, trade agreements, policies, procedures and guidelines. This is the governing framework when it comes to federal procurement that public servants are expected to follow. Even in a time of crisis, such as what we faced during the global pandemic, basic rules must be followed to ensure that we are getting value for money while meeting the needs of Canadians, as urgent as those needs may be. Clearly, that did not happen in the case of ArriveCAN.

The revelations brought forth by the Auditor General and the procurement ombudsman are deeply troubling, to say the least. I think we can all agree with that. We know that there are other investigations under way, which we fully support, so we can get to the bottom of this issue. I can assure the House that any wrongdoing will be addressed. In the meantime, we owe it to Canadians to immediately act upon the recommendations of the Auditor General and the procurement ombudsman, and that is precisely what our government is doing.

Public Services and Procurement Canada, or PSPC, as it is commonly known, plays an important role in these matters. When it comes to deciding whether to contract out certain projects, the government takes many factors into consideration. It starts with the proposition that contractors are there to support the good work of our world-class public servants. Where it is determined that there is need for professional services, PSPC then works as the federal government's central purchasing agent with departments to procure those services in an open, fair and transparent fashion. PSPC procures on behalf of other departments and agencies when requirements are beyond their own contracting authority and advises on the steps needed to ensure that money is well spent.

With regard to ArriveCAN, we know that it was put in place urgently to track and trace travellers as they crossed the border and limit the spread of COVID-19 within Canada. Public servants acted with extreme urgency on a number of fronts during the early days of the pandemic to keep Canadians safe, and the ArriveCAN app was a critical tool at that time. I want to be clear that the issues with ArriveCAN should not reflect on the public service's overall response to the pandemic. It should be proud of its work to procure vital supplies, as well as the vaccines, that ultimately helped lift Canada out of crisis.

However, unlike those other urgent procurements at the time, it is clear now that the way procurement was done in support of the creation and maintenance of the ArriveCAN app was unacceptable. Indeed, there are many questions surrounding the management and integrity of the government's procurement processes for IT services associated with ArriveCAN.

For its part, PSPC is already taking action to ensure that lessons learned are turned into concrete action. That means going beyond addressing the specific issues related to any one specific contractor, as important as it is to hold them to account, and fixing the broader issues that have allowed this mismanagement to happen in the first place. In November, PSPC temporarily suspended all delegated authorities, including the authorities of the Canada Border Services Agency, to authorize professional services based on task authorizations. The department also provided direction to its procurement officers to ensure that all task authorizations include a focus on clear tasks and deliverables. We are glad to see that the Auditor General agreed with the actions we have taken.

All federal departments must now formally agree to a new set of terms and conditions to obtain access to select professional service methods of supply. PSPC is also updating its guidance to aid departments in procuring effectively and responsibly when using PSPC's procurement instruments under their own authorities.

Of course, adhering to procurement policies, directives and guidelines is a shared responsibility across government departments and agencies. In the case of ArriveCAN, it is quite clear that a handful of public servants failed on that front. Our government is committed to fixing the system so that cannot happen again.

Let me be clear, when it comes to holding suppliers accountable, PSPC is looking at ways to improve its integrity regime, including with regards to fraud, which will help us take swift action against bad actors for their misconduct. I will note that, on an ongoing basis and as part of the regular business, PSPC proactively seeks to uncover improper conduct and investigates potential wrongdoings in its contracts. Should an investigation reveal wrongdoing, PSPC informs law enforcement for possible criminal investigation. The department also seeks to recover funds when wrongdoing is found.

However, members opposite want to push lies. They say that “Well, we're focused on finding the truth and making sure that those responsible are held accountable—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Madam Speaker, on a point of order, I thought I heard the member say that the members opposite want to push lies. I heard him say that, and he just nodded in the affirmative. I want to ask if that is parliamentary language.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I do not know, I was not paying attention and did not hear it, and so we will have to go back to the Hansard to confirm.

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Madam Speaker, he said that the opposition was pushing lies.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

He did not call anyone a liar, which is a difference.

I will ask the hon. member to answer to the point of order.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Madam Speaker, I will say this: The members opposite push mistruths, if I can say it that way.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

The member cannot say indirectly what cannot be said directly, and so I would invite the member to be more prudent and perhaps apologize to the other members.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Madam Speaker, we on this side of the House are focused on finding the truth and making sure that those responsible are held accountable—

[Marty Morantz, Conservative, Charleswood—St. James—Assiniboia—Headingley, MB]

Madam Speaker, on the same point of order, with respect, you just asked the member to apologize and he did not; he went on with his speech. He called us liars. He needs to apologize or he needs to be removed from the chamber.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès), Liberal, Alexandra Mendes]

I would invite the hon. member to apologize so that we can move on.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Madam Speaker, my apologies, I am not suggesting that people lie in this House. However, I am suggesting that we are focused on finding the truth and making sure that those responsible are held accountable.

Because the truth is of the utmost importance, I want to set the record straight about some of the less clear messages being spread by the Conservatives. I will give those members across the way the benefit of the doubt for that matter as maybe they confuse the comment sections of their Facebook livestreams with reality.

The truth is that the Office of the Auditor General does not investigate elected officials, it investigates public servants. The findings in the Auditor General's report were unacceptable, which is why the CBSA has referred allegations to the RCMP as well as launched an independent investigation.

Another theory that has been spread is that somehow an app that was designed as a response to the COVID-19 crisis that served Canadians across multiple digital platforms and systems while addressing privacy, security and linguistic requirements would only cost $80,000. I hope the Conservative colleagues use this opportunity to retract those statements, that is unless they are making a conscious decision to somehow mislead Canadians, because everyone knows that this application never would have cost that amount.

In closing, we are taking action. We know that there is more do. We accept all recommendations of the procurement ombudsman and the Auditor General, and we share with Canadians their concern. There is no doubt that the ArriveCAN app was a useful tool in keep Canadians safe, but the allegations related to the procurement of professional services for this app are simply unacceptable. As I have outlined, the government is making important changes to avoid this ever happening again, and we are actively exploring other ways to further strengthen our procurement process.

Before I close, I will reiterate that members of the public service should be proud of the way they supported Canadians during the pandemic, particularly with regards to the urgent procurement of critical supplies and life-saving vaccines. The revelations we are discussing today relate to individuals involved in the procurement of services for a portion of the ArriveCAN app, which should not be a reflection of the hard work of public servants during that time of crisis. We owe it to them, to all Canadians, to make this right by safeguarding the integrity of the federal procurement process, and we are committed to doing just that.

Notice of Closure Motion

[Steven MacKinnon, Liberal, Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I wish to give notice that, with respect to consideration of Government Business No. 35, at the next sitting of the House, a minister of the Crown shall move, pursuant to Standing Order 57, that debate be not further adjourned.

The House resumed consideration of the motion.

Opposition Motion—ArriveCAN App

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I spend a fair amount of time with that colleague on OGGO on the issue. I appreciate his comments and I take him at his word on his sincerity to address the procurement issues. One of the things that came up from the procurement ombudsman's report is what it calls a bait and switch, where services are proposed but actual services delivered to the government are less than what was in the contract. I wonder if the member can fill us in on what PSPC is doing across the breadth of government to address the bait and switch issues that have been brought forward by the ombudsman.

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement]

Madam Speaker, that is a good point. We actually did deliberate that during our committee sessions. We also noted that this practice is constant throughout procurement in industry and various other governments, and certainly it was the case in the Conservative government previously. For the portion of the contract that was provided, oftentimes the employer will determine other relevant activities that are occurring, things change and then they are used for other functions, but that is not a common practice.

In this particular case, because things were being done so quickly and urgently, I think the ombudsman made it clear that there was quite a lot of that switching that was taking place during that moment of crisis. We need to be careful about ensuring that the work that was prescribed and the reasons they were contracted is what they will ultimately do. That is the case in a contract and subcontract basis, which, as I said, is a very common practice throughout the industry.

We are sensitive to the degree of skills and abilities within our civil service to do that work, and when it is not able to, we prescribe outside to do so, and that is what has occurred here.

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, working with my colleagues on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, commonly called the mighty OGGO, is a pleasure.

We have ArriveCAN, where there seems to have been some slip-up. I understand that the situation required fast action, but at some point, the slip-ups keep happening. We have ArriveCAN. Before that it was passports. Before that it was the WE Charity. Before that, it keeps going, it was Phoenix. The reason is always the same: We have to move fast, we have to work, we have to get going.

At some point, do we not need to stop, look around, shift the focus to people's qualifications and put down the rubber stamp?

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Madam Speaker, I know the Chair is watching us intently and very much likes to address us as “the mighty OGGO”. It is certainly mighty indeed, and the member from the Bloc also does a tremendous and excellent job, and I apologize for not responding to her in French. I wish I could. I am taking lessons, but that speaks to skills. The skill set that you are asking for, and hope the civil service can have, needs to be improved upon. I recognize that I should speak through the Speaker. Maybe she can translate on my behalf to the third official language of the country, as it should be.

The member has commented on the degree of competency, integrity and skill sets within the civil service to do the work, and had that been available to us during the ArriveCAN application, we may have been able to expedite things even more quickly, but that did not exist. The resources were not available to us, we had to procure them and go through a contract system and a subcontract system, similar to what has been done in the past, but we have recognized the ability. We should be improving our internal service for that reason.

[Bonita Zarrillo, NDP, Port Moody—Coquitlam, BC]

Madam Speaker, I really want to talk about the fact that small business has suffered. Over the time that the Liberal government was opening the doors to their friends and their insiders to dole out contracts in a way that was not following protocol, small businesses were left without government contracts. We know right now that the PPE providers who were told by the government that it would purchase that PPE did not get the orders that they were expecting. Right now in my community, one of those PPE suppliers suffered financial losses from the Liberal government not following through with its promises on Canadian-made PPE.

Why is it that the government continues to hand out money to its insiders and leave small businesses, like the ones in my community, without purchase orders?

[Charles Sousa, Liberal, Mississauga—Lakeshore, ON]

Madam Speaker, I recognize the importance of trying to buy more Canadian and provide more Canadian supplier incentives. Certainly, that is something we are trying to address. I believe that part of the framework, when it comes to selections, especially for the new ones to make them suppliers for our procurement, is something that is being looked at. I appreciate that and we will certainly continue to do our best to improve upon the tens of thousands of procurement contracts that exist in this government every year.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I will be sharing my time with my colleague from OGGO, the member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan. I think if we have three OGGOs in a row we will have an OGGO hat trick.

I rise to speak on ArriveCAN. As it has consumed my life for the last year, why not continue to speak about it today on our opposition day motion?

ArriveCAN to me seems to be a symbol of our government's inability to do procurement right and how the procurement practices of the government have descended into chaos. ArriveCAN we know is a hot mess. We have heard of tens of thousands of emails having been deleted and records lost or perhaps not even kept in the first place. We do not know the final cost of ArriveCAN and there are too many opinions out there as to what it actually cost, whether it was $80,000, $6 million, $60 million or, as the Auditor General has said, we do not have the records to actually say what the final cost is.

We have heard of many updates to the program. There were 177. At the same time, we have also heard from the Auditor General and PHAC that the updates were not tested before being rolled out to the public. Of course, we heard of the 10,000 people who were sent into quarantine in error because it apparently was not tested. Whatever the cost was, $6 million, $60 million, one would think it would have been tested. At the same time, we also heard from bureaucrats in the CBSA who said that everything was tested, so we have a problem here. We cannot get a straight answer on what went on with ArriveCAN.

I will note that the head of PHAC, when asked about the testing, commented that it was too busy to test it. I can see Air Canada doing that without testing, but can members imagine any other company coming out with an important update that affects the lives of people without testing it? Apparently, the government did not. Again, the problem is that we have not received a straight answer.

Getting back to the ArriveCAN set-up, we heard that there were 177 updates. We knew things were changing during the pandemic, but we did not have 177 changes to help people who were coming across the borders, or 177 different ways to identify whether they had been vaccinated or not. It seems to be that the problem was with the procurement process for all of these changes, each one costing more money, willy-nilly done by PHAC or an order in council from the government without any thought to the consequences.

As I mentioned in a previous question to my colleague, the parliamentary secretary for public works, we heard the procurement ombudsman talk about bait and switch. If people want to know what bait and switch is, the easiest way for me to explain it is this. Basically, companies promise a higher level of services to the government and then substitute a lower level. Perhaps it would be like someone going to a speaker's service to hire a speaker for an event. The service promises to have the Leader of the Opposition come and therefore will charge a certain amount, but perhaps the member for Edmonton West shows up. Even if the speech is not as good, the client would still have to pay the full amount. That is what is happening and the procurement ombudsman has stated that this bait and switch program is systemic throughout the government.

We also heard how it started as a program within the Public Health Agency of Canada and then transferred over eventually to the CBSA. The program transferred over the work, but it did not seem to transfer over the accountability. All we get is finger-pointing. We have seen people blaming GC Strategies for bidding on and receiving the work. We have blamed Dalian and Coradix for getting the work. When I say “we”, I mean the system, the government. We have blamed directors general within the CBSA saying that they were responsible for procurement even though that was not their role, and that they were responsible for the contracts even though it is the chief financial officers who signed. We heard today that the system is to blame.

Do members know that we have not heard from the government who is to blame. What about the ministers? I have to ask: Where was the Minister of Health in all of this when PHAC was spinning out of control and flashing money at the system without any thought to the taxpayers?

Where was the Minister of Public Safety when all these problems were going on with CBSA? Where was the Treasury Board president when, through the supplementary estimates process, money was added? The Treasury Board would have had to approve that submission to begin with. Where was the Treasury Board president to ask where the government was to take responsibility, instead of blaming the contractors or the people within the public service?

I want to read a quote from pm.gc.ca, PM meaning the Prime Minister. This is from the website:

Open and Accountable Government sets out core principles regarding the roles and responsibilities of Ministers in Canada’s system of responsible...government. This includes the central tenet of ministerial responsibility...individual and collective....

This is right from the Prime Minister's website. Anyone can google it right now. It is about ministerial responsibility, yet we have none with this. We have $60 million, perhaps more, perhaps less, spent without a single minister asking once why we were spending so much money, or why we were not testing this program. We should have had several ministers step up when 10,000 Canadians were sent into quarantine in error. They should have followed up and asked why we were not testing it before it was rolled out. Not a single minister stepped up and apologized. Instead, we have public servants being scapegoated, contractors being blamed and a system being blamed, but there is nothing from the ministers.

We also heard how PSPC, in its role as procurement officers for the country, pushed back against CBSA for some excessive things in this program. When CBSA thanked them for the advice but still went ahead with that misguided process, PSPC just shrugged and said that it was nice and that it did its part. Doing its part by simply saying it does not like something and walking away shows that PSPC is not taking its role seriously.

This brings me back to a similar issue with CBSA and PSPC a couple of years ago with the Nuctech scandal. Nuctech is basically the Chinese screening version of Huawei. Worldwide, it provides screeners controlled by the PRC, and CBSA decided it was going to put those machines in every single one of our embassies around the entire country. They are machines that, once they had screened people, would send that information to the Chinese government.

PSPC actually stepped in and said that it was a security concern and that it should not be done. CBSA plowed ahead and did it anyway. Again, we have to ask PSPC what its purpose was if it was not going to stop them and enforce these rules. Funny enough, when it came up at OGGO, when we stepped in and brought this to light, the government's response was to hire Deloitte to do a contract to study the Nuctech issue.

There was $250,000 outsourced to a management contractor, and it came up with a 24-page fluff report basically stating not to buy sensitive security tech equipment from despotic regimes. Thank heaven for Deloitte, and thank heaven for that $250,000. Think of how many contracts could have gone to Putin or to Kim Jong-un without the Liberals' and Deloitte's $250,000 to say not to buy sensitive security equipment from despotic regimes.

It is clear that the Liberal government does not care about taxpayers' money. It is clear that PSPC, CBSA and the ministers are not doing their jobs to follow the rules, to protect taxpayers' money, to ensure that the rules are followed and that we actually have value for money.

The Conservative government will fix this. We will ensure the rules are followed. We will axe the tax. We will build homes. We will fix the budget. We will stop crime. We will fix procurement in this country.