Mr. Speaker, I understand I have about 16 minutes left in my remarks, which is a great opportunity to be able to litigate the opposition day motion that has been put before this House.
A lot of Conservative members have stayed around, and I look forward to engaging with them in my round of questions. It is always fun to barb back and forth and to engage in this House.
I think this is important. Every one of us as parliamentarians has support systems at home, the people who support us in our constituency office and help allow us to get to this place. There are two members who may or may not be in and around the capital region or around this House who I want to recognize and get their names into the Hansard: Burnell Lyons, a long-time volunteer in the Annapolis Valley who joined my office about a year ago; and Kaleb Boates, who is a summer student. They are two fine gentlemen who do great work. It has really been nice to have them up around the Ottawa region. I want to make sure that their names forever live in the Hansard and that their work for the good people of Kings—Hants is recognized.
Turning to the important element of why we are here today, I want to get back to where I was before question period, which is the separation between the political actors of government. We are never permanent here; we are elected to come to this place. Ministers are nominated to cabinet to serve king and country. However, it is the civil service that actually delivers the programs. When we listen to the Conservatives on the benches, and I noticed it during question period, they blur the lines between the political representation of the government and the civil servants who actually conduct the work on behalf of government.
What has not been litigated during this opposition day debate, and for which the Conservatives have blurred the line, is that when the political representation in the ministries became aware of the allegations and the bad behaviour that was demonstrated, the government took action right away. The political representation responded. This government has been very clear that what happened in the contracting around the ArriveCAN app and GC Strategies, which spanned, by the way, the Harper government and also the last Liberal administration, was absolutely problematic. We have to separate those two things. We have to recognize that the government has responded to the Auditor General's report, has condemned the way in which this procurement happened and is taking active steps.
I continue to hear the Conservatives ask when taxpayers will recover the money they feel, of course, and the House recognizes, was problematic in this procurement process. What they seem to forget is that this is a country of law and order. There is due process. What has been very clear from the Minister of Government Transformation in question period is that there is an ongoing legal process. The government has provided the information to the RCMP in relation to whether or not there could be criminal charges moved forward on the individuals who were involved with GC Strategies. The minister acknowledged to this entire House that the government, through the Department of Justice, is actually going through a court process to recover the money that has been fraudulently taken or misappropriated as part of that procurement process.
It is important for Conservative members to recognize that. Their job is to hold a government to account. Their job is to raise these things. I understand that, as do the members on this side. However, their job is not to blur the lines, take 30-second clips, send them home without any context and suggest that somehow the political representation of this government was involved in any way in the malfeasance that we have seen from the procurement process within the Government of Canada. I would expect my hon. colleagues to conduct themselves in this place with the level of respect and integrity I think is befitting and is the responsibility of parliamentarians and make sure that line is corrected and shown nuance. Of course, they should push and ask the government what steps are being taken, but it is important to recognize that the Auditor General, in her second report, provided no further recommendation other than to continue and that the government is taking the steps in the first Auditor General's report.
Let us get a few things clear for everyone at home. The government is taking GC Strategies, its membership and its directors to court to recover the money the government ought to be able to recover. It is not just by decree that should happen; there is actually a legal judicial process for that to happen and move forward, and the government is following that.
In relation to the seven-year ban on anyone involved with GC Strategies, there is an organization called the office of supplier integrity and compliance. This is built within government processes so that government itself does not determine what that ban should be. Therefore, an independent, arm's-length review process of government has determined that it be seven years.
We can all have a view on whether that should be higher or lower. I think many of us would say at least that, if not more. My personal view is that, yes, it should go higher. Again, there is an independent process for the government to absolutely weigh in. The Conservatives are not showing that level of nuance in their argument here today. It is important to be able to distinguish between those things.
Back to law and order, again, the Conservative Party, for the longest time, would have put law and order as one of the foundational cores of what the party stands for. We were here on Parliament Hill a few years ago when we got into the challenge around the trucker convoy and people who were frustrated with government policy. I have no problem, by the way, with people who are frustrated with government policy, but when law enforcement authorities are asking people to clear streets, as we saw in Ottawa, and the Conservative Party, instead of standing up for the rule of law and saying it understands that people are frustrated with government policy, and that it understands that people want to move forward—
