Mr. Speaker, as always, I appreciate the opportunity to rise in this House. This is my first time of any length to offer my sincere appreciation and thanks to my friends and neighbours across our region, the riding of Portage—Lisgar, for once again placing their trust in me to be their representative here in Ottawa. It is an incredibly humbling experience. It does not matter the party; when members walk into this chamber, we know the weight that that holds. We know the value and the importance of that trust that has been placed in us, so I want to thank them.
I also want to thank my beautiful bride, Cailey, and our wonderful 17-month-old daughter, Maeve. This is a difficult work environment at times. It is demanding, and their sacrifice is vital, just like all of our families are. I want to thank my immediate family, as well as my parents and Cailey's parents for the support they have offered us throughout this process, including the odd better part of the experience, which is taking care of their granddaughter.
I want to thank the family affair that was my campaign: my Aunt June, who ran our office in Winkler; my mom, who ran the office in Portage; and my dad, who led the charge for signs. I want to thank Karen, Martin and Val; Jordan, our EDA president; and all of the EDA members who were involved in the process. I want to thank my core campaign team of Drew, Michael and Don, the guys who were there with me day in, day out on the campaign trail. I want to thank Kenny and Tom, and all of the donors they had to deal with as the finance guys on my EDA and through the campaign. I also want to thank the countless volunteers, whom I wish I could name, and all of those who put up signs. It is a humbling experience.
I will be splitting my time with the member from Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.
Now, on to the relevance of today's topic, which is a relatively good motion and, in particular, for a new government, one that is easily supportable. It offers two important ideas that we all, in this chamber, should support. It has been identified by the Auditor General, and by this House, which brought Kristian Firth to the bar to admonish him for the fraud he perpetrated upon Canadian taxpayers, a “once in 100 years" event, we will call it.
Taxpayers deserve their money back. It is not that complicated. GC Strategies took $64 million from Canadian taxpayers to deliver little to no proof of any of the projects, while failing to deliver security clearances for most of their subcontractors. This is a two-person shop in a basement. It is a good gig. I almost want to applaud them for finding a flaw in the system. That flaw is what has been highlighted, appropriately and correctly, by the Auditor General. It is appalling.
What is frustrating to me is that our Liberal colleagues across the way just do not seem to care about that and think it does not really matter because “we are a new government.” I talked to a colleague recently, and he mentioned that my generation seems numb to the scandals, and that is well earned because of the last 10 years of scandals under the Liberal government. We seem numb to $64 million just being blown, with no recourse. We hear, “We understand. We are going to learn. We are going to be better in the future,” but that is not good enough.
Many people are, rightly, appalled at the scam by GC Strategies, including the ad scam app, this $80,000 app that turned into a $60 million boondoggle, that held up people at the border, that forced them into quarantine for two weeks because the app did not function correctly. It was the overpaid, expensive app that did not fulfill its purpose and cost far too much.
There are too many scammers like this. One of the highlights from the AG report is that the owners of GC Strategies are not alone. They figured out a racket, but there are others doing it, too. The rules in place have not been applied, and they need to be applied. I am not willing to let this so-called new Liberal government just walk past that.
We have CRA, which will happily go after a small business owner who is a bit late on a small tax or a dispute. If a little old lady is getting jammed up on her taxes, it will go after her. For the Canadians we were sent here to represent, our Parliament should have the will to push back to get them their money back.
The second part of this very reasonable motion is to ban the owners of GC Strategies from ever being involved in any government contract ever again. The government talks about how it placed a seven-year ban on them, but they could re-form. They are going to work the system, because that is what these guys are good at. They have figured out how to game the system. We should ban them for life.
Both elements of our motion today are entirely reasonable: work to get the money back; and ban the guys who caused the problem. There is no reason to vote against this motion.
Now, I want to highlight one thing. I will tell a story. I have heard a lot today about this being a new government. We have heard that over the last few months, often said by the same people who were here six months ago or five, ten years ago. The same people are saying that the government is new, that they learned their lesson and have changed.
The other day, my daughter Maeve, that beautiful little girl, filled her diaper. When I went to change her, I changed her shirt. I was tired. My wife asked me why I would change her shirt and not her diaper. I said I did not know. That is what it feels like we have changed here. Nothing has changed with the new government. It is the same people and the same advisers. It is the same government claiming it has learned a new lesson, it has learned from the AG report and it is not going to do the same thing anymore. I do not believe it. The problem is that Canadians do not believe it either. They have become numb to it. They have become numb to the scandals and the wasted money, but that does not make it okay.
The easiest thing we can do as parliamentarians today, and the right thing, is to support this very reasonable motion: work to get the money back and ban the people who ran a scam on Canadian taxpayers. When it is time to vote, I encourage all my colleagues to support this very reasonable motion.
Canadians may have forgotten that that is to be expected of us and of government. Let us work to repair that numbness that has been caused by scandal after scandal, waste after waste. We can do better. It starts with a simple motion like this. I want to work collaboratively, just as my Liberal colleagues repeatedly say, with the so-called new government, so let us do it. Here is the opportunity.