Debates of April 8th, 2024

Government Responses to Order Paper Questions

[Dan Albas, Conservative, Central Okanagan—Similkameen—Nicola, BC]

Mr. Speaker, before I get into my question of privilege today, I just wanted to pass my condolences on to the family of the honourable John Fraser, a former Speaker of the House and B.C. member of Parliament who served honourably for both the Clark and Mulroney governments. I send my best to his family and friends.

I rise on a question of privilege to address what I believe is a matter of fundamental importance to every member in this place. I respect all members' time as valuable, so I will cut to the chase and get to the facts of this matter and why I believe they are of vital importance to all members.

I believe every person in this place understands the importance of Order Paper questions. At some level, we need a mechanism whereby democratically elected members of Parliament can get the truth from our government about its actions. My Order Paper question was not a complicated or a trivial one.

I will summarize my Order Paper question as this: I asked the government how many times it has asked social media companies to censor and remove posted online content. Obviously, my question was very detailed, and it requested specific information, but that is the basic summary of what I asked.

What do members think the answer was that I received? Do members think I got a list of specific requests detailing what departments were involved and the reasons censorship removal was requested and to whom? I did not.

The answer I received from our current Speaker, then in his former capacity as a parliamentary secretary, was the following: “Since January 1, 2016, the Privy Council Office has not made any requests to censor information.” Having heard that, I believe we all can agree that the Privy Council Office was crystal clear: It had never done anything like that.

Here is the problem: Late last week, on Friday, April 5, Allen Sutherland, who is an assistant secretary to the cabinet at the Privy Council Office, testified at the public inquiry on foreign interference. What did Mr. Sutherland say? He told us that, in 2019, the Privy Council Office had requested Facebook to remove a posting about the Prime Minister that appeared on The Buffalo Chronicle. Mr. Sutherland further disclosed that Facebook complied with the request from the Privy Council Office, and the content was subsequently removed from Facebook.

As some members may know, the Privy Council Office believed this post was disinformation that could harm the integrity of the 2019 election. It was also testified that the Privy Council Office was aware of misinformation targeting Conservative candidates. However, in that situation, the Privy Council took no action. It did nothing.

To be clear, I am not raising privilege here to revisit this discrepancy in action. My reason for raising privilege is that the Privy Council Office has fully admitted that, yes, it did ask Facebook to remove and censor a post. The facts show this. Likewise, the facts will also show that Facebook did indeed remove the post after the request from the Privy Council Office. These facts are not in dispute.

I ask every member of this place the obvious question: If the Privy Council Office, by its own admission, asked Facebook to remove a post from social media, how is it possible that, in the answer to my Order Paper question, it could state that it had not made any requests to censor information since January 1, 2016?

One of these things is not true, so which is false? We all know the answer to that question. The Privy Council was dishonest in its answer to the Order Paper question, and the dishonesty was fully signed off on by the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister, who is now the Speaker.

I am going to ask everyone present this: Does any other MP here care? If this can happen to me, it can happen to anyone in this place. If the government can be wilfully dishonest, without accountability, and we, as members of Parliament, do nothing about it, how can we expect to maintain the trust and integrity of the people we serve?

Let us never forget that we elect the Speaker to represent us in this place. It is the Speaker's job to ensure that we, as parliamentarians, have the tools we need to execute our duties as elected members to this place. The Speaker is not elected to shield the government from accountability or to help the government advance its agenda. The Speaker is elected to collectively represent all members of this place and to ensure that this place is accountable to the members and the Canadians we represent by being here. That is how the House of Commons is meant to and intended to work.

Order Paper questions were intended to be a tool for members to hold the government accountable. Order Paper questions were never intended to allow the government to deceive and mislead, which is precisely what happened to me here. Now, the Speaker will have two choices. The Speaker can set a new precedent, take action and say that enough is enough, or he can look the other way and say it is not his job to determine whether the contents the documents tabled in the House are accurate. Sadly, I suspect the Speaker will do the latter and not the former.

This is why Canadians are growing so incredibly frustrated. Even when it is proven that the government has been dishonest with them, those who are responsible will say that it is not their job. However, as a parliamentarian, it is my job to raise the issue of privilege. If we, as members of this House, are unwilling to stand up when our rights to the truth from the government are taken away from us, and if we say nothing, we will only see more of the same. I submit that it is completely and totally unacceptable.

Before I close, I would like to leave members with this thought: We have a government that desires the power to police the Internet and appoint people who would declare what hate speech is and what the punishment for it should be. That would be an extremely powerful and dangerous tool. I am not here to enter into debate. That is not what raising privilege is.

What is not up for debate is that the government, by its own admission, requested a social media site to remove posted online content. Again, I am not here to debate that action. Afterward, the government denied ever having done that in a document intended to provide truthful accountability of its own conduct to elected MPs. The government failed that one simple but critically important task: to disclose the truth of its actions. That point is not up for debate. It is an issue of fundamental importance that should matter to all members of this place.

I humbly conclude my comments and ask that the Speaker approach this situation with the seriousness it deserves and send a powerful message to the government. He can send the message that, in our Canadian democracy, all elected members deserve the truth from their government.

If you rule in favour of my question of privilege, Mr. Speaker, I would be ready to move the appropriate motion.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to review the member's comments and get back to you.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

That seems to be the procedure we have accepted over the last little bit, if not the normal procedure. We will wait for other members to make interventions on this issue, if that is a requirement. We will look at this fully in due time.

The House resumed consideration of the motion, and of the amendment.

Witness Responses at Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates

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

Mr. Speaker, it is absolutely shocking to be standing here in this place and bearing witness to events that, in and of themselves, are difficult to believe. However, when one stacks them all up together, this situation reeks of the Liberal cronyism, corruption and incompetence that we have become all too familiar with under the Prime Minister and his government.

Although my colleagues have so ably made the case throughout the day for why it is important that this motion passes, I am grateful to rise and speak to it and to be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague, the member for Brantford—Brant.

This motion relates to the study of the ArriveCAN app taking place at the government operations and estimates committee. This study, I might add, started in October 2022. I have been a member of this committee since the beginning of the study, and I have seen the government repeatedly try to obstruct investigations of the app, and, I should say, the government members.

Members in this chamber will surely recall how the government voted against the Conservative motion to have the Auditor General audit the ArriveCAN app. Now that the Auditor General’s report has been released, we know why.

The NDP-Liberal coalition tried to minimize the issue, stall the study and filibuster, but this only served to confirm to Conservatives on the committee that we needed to continue pressing for the truth. We have seen a number of instances of the Liberals on the committee covering up issues, usually supported by their NDP coalition partners.

We can take, for example, the committee’s study on the government’s explosion in contracting with McKinsey, a company that drove the opioid crisis. During that study, the NDP-Liberal coalition members blocked Conservatives from getting these documents at committee for several months. To this day, a year and a half later, we have not received a single one of the unredacted documents we requested. They also blocked a motion to force the disclosure of the documents from coming to the House, essentially killing the study on the outrageous level of outsourcing by the Liberal government.

Despite the many attempts by the Liberals to cover up their arrive scam, Conservatives have pushed forward on the investigation and pressured their NDP coalition partners to hold the government to account. With at least a dozen investigations into the $60-million arrive scam, it is obvious that there is much more to this issue than simply another ineffective, money-wasting government program. The government spent at least $60 million on an app that started with a price tag of just $80,000.

From the beginning of this study, it was obvious that there were far more problems than the outrageous government overspending. During testimony at committee, we have heard allegations of corruption, fraud, forgery, bid rigging, reprisals, destruction of evidence and a large-scale cover-up. The cover-up extends beyond members in this chamber trying to shut down investigations into the scandal, with public servants and owners of companies being involved in the ArriveCAN contracting.

On several occasions, the committee has been forced to issue summonses for witnesses to appear at committee after they refused to attend. After they refused to comply with those summons, we have been forced to invoke powers that have rarely been used since Confederation to force witnesses to show up and testify under threat of arrest. We still have another witness who continues to fail to show up.

The disdain for the powers of Parliament, particularly parliamentary committees, is born, I believe, out of an attitude pushed by the NDP-Liberal coalition. It denies accountability and allows the powers of standing committees to be subverted and outright denied in order to cover up for its failings.

Currently, a dozen investigations have been launched into the arrive scam. We have already had two major reports, published by the Auditor General and the procurement ombudsman. They have found widespread incompetence and several instances of misconduct and potential criminality, which have been referred to the RCMP.

The Auditor General found a distressing lack of documentation across the three departments involved, making it difficult to determine who made the decisions, how much the app actually cost and where all the money went, or, rather, who got rich.

She also found that Kristian Firth's company, GC Strategies, sat at the table to draft the requirements for a $25-million contract that was later awarded to GC Strategies under the guise of a competitive process. She also found that public servants at the CBSA directed KPMG, one of the largest international consulting firms, to work with GC Strategies. This inexplicable decision cost the government more money and gave GC Strategies a larger profit.

Despite being at the heart of this scandal, Kristian Firth continued to refuse to answer questions at the committee after being directed to do so. He also gave testimony on the amount he claims was paid to his company for the development of the ArriveCAN app, but his number differs from the amounts on the invoices that he provided to the committee. As a result, we have had difficulty getting to the truth regarding Mr. Firth's and his company's actions, as he has both misled and lied to the committee, on top of admitting to submitting fraudulent résumés to a federal department in order to have one of his clients qualify for a contract.

To summarize, this witness has refused several summonses to appear at a parliamentary committee, and after being forced to attend under threat of arrest, has both refused to answer questions and given misleading testimony to committee members. This impedes the committee's ability to conduct its study on the arrive scam and must be dealt with directly and swiftly to ensure that this behaviour is not allowed to become commonplace. If we value the privileges of Parliamentary standing committees to send for documents, call for witnesses and expect truthful and fulsome testimony, we must shut down any attempts to infringe on the rights of Parliament. This is an opportunity for all members in this place to stand up for the sanctity of the institution of Parliament.

I understand my colleagues on the government benches will have a knee-jerk reaction to protect Liberal insiders and cover up for their friends, but this motion must be passed in order to protect the integrity of Parliament and its ability to fulfill its duties. The powers of Parliament are clear, and they are necessary for the functioning of Parliament and our ability to do our jobs. The powers granted to committees are particularly necessary when opposition parties must hold an ethically challenged government to account, such as this NDP-Liberal coalition has shown itself to be with its repeated ethics violations.

I encourage every member in this place to vote in favour of this motion. It is of extreme importance that this motion pass and that we demonstrate that there are consequences for attempting to defy Parliament and the powers granted to Parliament and its committees. Future parliamentarians deserve no less from us.

Conservatives will stand up for the rights and privileges of members and hold to account all those who defy them. I will be voting in favour of this motion and I hope to see my colleagues join me.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Before I go to questions and comments, I have a point of order.

The hon. official opposition House leader.

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

Madam Speaker, if you were to seek it, I believe you would find unanimous consent for the following motion.

I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order, Special Order or usual practice of the House,

(a) at the ordinary hour of daily adjournment later this day or when no Member rises to speak, whichever is earlier, the motion on the question of privilege standing in the name of the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes regarding summoning Kristian Firth to the bar of the House and the amendment standing in the name of the member for Kingston and the Islands, be deemed withdrawn, and

(b) the House, having considered the unanimous views of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, expressed in its 17th report, find Kristian Firth to be in contempt for his refusal to answer certain questions and for prevaricating in his answers to other questions and, accordingly, order him to attend at the bar of this House, at the expiry of the time provided for Oral Questions on Wednesday, April 17, 2024, for the purposes of:

(i) receiving an admonishment delivered by the Speaker;

(ii) providing responses to the questions referred to in the 17th report;

(iii) responding to supplementary questions arising from his responses to the questions referred to in the 17th report;

provided that

(iv) during Mr. Firth's attendance at the bar for the purpose of responding to questions, which shall be asked by Members, with questions and answers being addressed through the Speaker,

(A) ten minutes be allocated to each recognized party for the first and second rounds in the following order: Liberal Party, Conservative Party, Bloc Québécois and New Democratic Party,

(B) during the third round, five minutes be allocated to each of the recognized parties with an additional five-minute period for the Green Party,

(C) within each 10- or five-minute period of questioning, each party may allocate time to one or more of its members,

(D) in the case of questions and answers, Mr. Firth's answers shall approximately reflect the time taken by the question,

(v) at the expiry of time provided herein, and after Mr. Firth has been excused from further attendance, the House shall resume consideration of the usual business of the House for a Wednesday,

(vi) it be an instruction to the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates to consider Mr. Firth's testimony at the bar of the House and, if necessary, recommend further action.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

It is agreed.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

(Motion agreed to)

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, the motion we just passed unanimously in the House reinforces what I have been saying all day, which is that the Government of Canada very much wants to see accountability on this issue. It is one of the reasons that we wanted Mr. Firth to come before the bar. I have literally been saying that all day.

I also question the motivation factor of the official opposition on the issue, as its members tend to be far more partisan in trying to pin political blame as opposed to getting a better understanding of what has taken place and taking actions to prevent it from happening in the future.

My question to the member is this: Does she agree there is far more value to be had if we take an approach to improve the system?

The system is what needs to be improved. I could go back to when her leader was the parliamentary secretary and there was a $400-million scandal, but I will not go into detail on that. I would ask her whether or not she agrees with my thoughts.

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

Madam Speaker, I am glad to hear from the member that he supports the unanimous decision by the committee to call Mr. Firth to the bar.

What I can also share with the House is that it has taken us a long time to get here. This study has been going on for 18 months, and what we observed time and time again as we were trying to get to the bottom of the arrive scam scandal was members of his caucus who serve on that committee continuing to try to stall this study, filibuster and keep us from getting the answers that we believe Canadians deserve.

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

Madam Speaker, it seems to me that we are seeing more and more of this kind of attitude, with half answers, evasive comments, a lot of nonsense and a general lack of seriousness.

Does my colleague think that we are starting to see a pattern of refusing to answer questions at committee?

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

Madam Speaker, I think what we continue to see is that the Liberal government refuses to take responsibility for its own failures.

The Liberals try to distract and misdirect so that no one will actually focus on their abysmal record. The Liberals and their mountain of scandals are setting records for ethics violations, and that is what they really want to try to distract Canadians from paying attention to. The government members have continually shown disdain for the rule of Parliament by not answering questions and stalling studies in committee and have tried to subvert any attempt to hold them accountable.

[Martin Shields, Conservative, Bow River, AB]

Madam Speaker, with regard to the importance of bringing someone to the bar who has not answered questions before and bringing him to the House of Commons, before all Canadians, in a televised format, with the media paying attention, what is the value this might bring to dealing with this situation?

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

Madam Speaker, it has taken us a long time to get to this point. We have exhausted every avenue we have had as a committee to use the tools we have to get to the bottom of this scandal, and time and time again we have been stalled. Witnesses have refused to answer questions and have refused to show up to committee. It is time for the government to be held accountable for its role in this and it is time for Mr. Firth to be held accountable for his role in this. We have had to impose this mechanism because we have been forced to.

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

Madam Speaker, it appears as if I am the last Conservative speaker on this particular privilege debate. I think it is fitting that I be given the last opportunity.

The wind has sort of been taken out of my sails in light of the unanimous consent motion that has been passed by the House. I am not going to spend a lot of time trying to justify why the House should have passed the original motion of privilege as presented by my colleague, the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, but rather I would impress upon the House the importance of the supremacy of Parliament, which I think is at the heart of this debate. I am probably going to allow my colleagues the opportunity to ask further questions of me and make commentary beyond the five-minute allowance.

At the heart of this particular motion is the directing partner of GC Strategies and, notwithstanding a number of interventions from Liberal members at various committees that I have attended studying this particular issue, the arrive scam issue that has dominated the news for close to 18 months.

Whenever I rephrase the name GC Strategies, I am often met with opposition from the Liberal benches on a point of privilege suggesting that I am misleading the committee in some way and that “GC” does not necessarily stand for “Government of Canada”. I would use that phrase, “Government of Canada Strategies” deliberately, but not because I cleverly thought of that. I know that some political pundits use that particular phrase often in their media interviews. I have heard some political pundits using the phrase, “get cash”. It would appear as if that is essentially what GC Strategies does.

On the issue of “Government of Canada”, these are the words used by Kristian Firth at committee. He was asked what “GC” stood for. He very proudly identified GC Strategies as “Government of Canada Strategies”. When we look at the bigger picture of what GC Strategies has been able to do, Government of Canada Strategies, over the course of some several years, coincidentally, since the Prime Minister took government, has made close to $60 million, 60 million taxpayer dollars for being nothing more than a conduit between government ministries and IT professionals.

Why is this important? At the time the Prime Minister formed government in 2015, he promised transparency, he promised accountability, he promised responsible government and he promised, more importantly, to reduce the number of external consultants. Did he live up to that promise? Did he live up to the litany of promises we have heard from the Prime Minister since 2015? Absolutely not. What he has done is that he has exceeded the amount, year after year, spent on external consultants. This is notwithstanding the fact that the Prime Minister and his government have increased the size of our professional federal public service by 40%.

We have heard at various committees from union heads representing that professional public service that they were never consulted. They were never asked whether or not we had federal public servants who could have performed the role that GC did, which was simply picking up the phone, sending an email, sending a text and connecting government with the professionals.

However, no, the corrupt, inept Liberal-NDP government did not want to rely upon their professional public service. They had to hire “Government of Canada Strategies”, which, very proudly, has taken anywhere from 15% to 30% of that $60 million in government contracts. We can appreciate, which clearly the government does not, why there was such an interest in getting to the heart of this matter. There is not one but several committees studying how this was allowed to happen. At the heart of this, there is a smug, arrogant individual by the name of Kristian Firth who thinks that he is in control, that he is paramount and that he can dictate the terms under which he will respond to questions by using the spectre of an RCMP investigation.

The only thing that Canadians have been able to learn about this is a confirmation from an RCMP spokesperson that they have expanded the study. Following the release of the Auditor General's report, they have expanded the study to now look at the arrive scam scandal. That does not necessarily translate into the RCMP actively investigating the number of criminal charges recently identified by my colleague: the frauds, the forgeries, the government fraud, the obstruction, the deletion of emails. We do not know what they are investigating or if they are investigating that, but it allowed Kristian Firth an opportunity to deflect and impede Parliament's privileges in seeking the truth as to what really transpired.

If he did not use that as an excuse, he used the excuse of solicitor-client privilege. I am not going to spend any time reciting the authorities to refute that particular claim by a witness. Solicitor-client privilege does not apply at committee. People are still compelled to answer questions, but the questions put to Mr. Firth, in the Conservatives' respectful opinion, would be very damning to the government, particularly in light of the glowing references on the website of “Government of Canada Strategies” and all the glowing accolades from senior government officials.

Most recently, last week, there was a really damning admission by two professionals at KPMG, an international tax advisory consultant company with over 10,000 employees in Canada alone. They told the committee that in terms of the work that they performed on the arrive scam, which was just over $400,000, instead of working with the federal public service, which the government is so proud of and talks about its pride in how professional the public service is, which I agree with, it bypassed that and directed that KPMG should at all times work with GC Strategies, not the government itself, not the ministry itself and not the professionals but GC Strategies. In my opinion, it really gives new meaning to the whole concept of really being aligned closely, professionally and in a friendly way with the Government of Canada, the Prime Minister and his minister.

I could speak for hours on the issue, but, for all of those reasons, Conservatives have impressed upon the entire House the importance of compelling Kristian Firth to come to the House to answer the questions that not only parliamentarians are demanding answers to but that Canadians deserve to know the truth about.

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

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would love to hear the member for Brantford—Brant speak for another 20 minutes, so I am seeking the unanimous consent of the House to allow him to do that.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

I already hear a no, so there is no unanimous consent.

I do want to remind members that, if they are looking for unanimous consent, they should be collaborating with other parties to make sure they have it before they come to the floor.

On another point of order, the hon. member for Calgary Forest Lawn.

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am rising today to inform the House that the finance committee will be debating a motion to have Canada's premiers testify on the Prime Minister's 23% carbon tax increase. Eight provincial premiers are now opposed to the Prime Minister's carbon tax. I hope all parties will vote yes to allow premiers to testify on the Prime Minister's carbon tax scam.

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

Can the hon. member make a connection to the Standing Orders on that?

[Jasraj Singh Hallan, Conservative, Calgary Forest Lawn, AB]

Madam Speaker, it is 53(3).

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

If members want to rise on a point of order or want to speak to one of the Standing Orders, they should be referencing that standing order. Also, members can raise during debate the information they want to bring forward and make it related to that point of debate.

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, as I indicated earlier, we just had a unanimous consent motion that in essence shows very clearly how the government demonstrates accountability and transparency, even on this particular file of wanting Mr. Firth to come before the bar. This is nothing new. We have been consistent with regard to accountability and transparency, no matter how the member opposite, in particular, tries to mislead Canadians with certain types of assertions.

Would the member not agree that it would be most beneficial for Canadians if we approached this issue in terms of how we can better prevent these types of things from taking place in the future as opposed to playing the blatant partisan politics that we see coming from the Conservative Party? I think Canadians deserve an honest answer to that.

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

Madam Speaker, what I think Canadians really deserve, particularly from my colleague, is a little bit of remorse: “Yes, we are sorry as a government that we have allowed this to happen, that we have allowed a two-person company working out of a basement doing no IT work to collect upwards of $60 million in contracts.” That is not a partisan point; that is a fact. It is a fact that the Liberals should be embarrassed about, and it is a fact, quite frankly, that they should be apologizing to Canadians for. They need to show that they are doing better.

To answer the member's initial question about—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, NDP, Carol Hughes]

The hon. member will have to add his comment somewhere else. However, I do want to remind the hon. parliamentary secretary, who tended to be heckling during that time, to wait until questions and comments if he has anything to add.

Questions and comments, the hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou.

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

Madam Speaker, we have been working on ArriveCan for several months. I am looking at this not from a partisan angle, but for the long term. For the long term, we seem to have a process that does not work. If we do not fix it, it will not work any better, no matter which party forms government.

Does my colleague believe that the purpose of everything we are doing right now is to improve the process and also to ensure that taxpayer dollars are used wisely and responsibly?