moved:
That, given that the Auditor General found that ArriveCAN contractor, GCStrategies Inc., was paid $64 million from the Liberal government, and in many cases, there was no proof that any work was completed, the House call on the government to:
(a) get taxpayers their money back, within 100 days of the adoption of this motion; and
(b) impose a lifetime contracting ban on GCStrategies Inc., any of its subsidiaries, its founders Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, and any other entities with which those individuals are affiliated.
Mr. Speaker, it is a pleasure to rise and address this important matter for Canadians, following the report by Canada's Auditor General.
Before I get into the substantive portion of my remarks and making a case for the imperative of getting Canadians their money back and having a lifetime ban for the contractors involved and the principals of the contracting firm in question, I want to inform the Chair that I will be splitting my time with the hon. member for Edmonton West.
It is a privilege to split my time with this member. We often talk about His Majesty's loyal opposition being a government in waiting, and interestingly, there was an exchange recently between the right hon. Prime Minister, who is new to this place, and the member for Edmonton West, who is an experienced parliamentarian. The Prime Minister, perhaps in jest but certainly exposing his lack of familiarity with members of the official opposition, said that the member for Edmonton West did not understand how things worked in this place and did not know the difference between a budget and estimates. I want to offer a bit of history to the Prime Minister, because it is really important the Prime Minister understands who is holding him to account.
The member for Edmonton West has an office complement that is the same size as those of all members in this House. Ministers, of course, get much larger offices. They get politically exempt staff, and they get access to full departments.
The member for Edmonton West has a couple people who work in his office, just as the rest of us do. I do not know how many people work at the Department of Finance, but there are a lot; there are thousands of them. In 2018, a budget was tabled in the House, and the member for Edmonton West, on his own, in doing his due diligence reviewing the budget, found that the minister of finance and the ministry made an error of about $150 million. The hon. member was able to correct the homework of the government, the minister, their staff and the entire ministry when they laid that budget on the table.
When we bring things before this House, it is because we have done our due diligence and because we are going to do what we have always done, which is punch above our weight. As the Liberals have the weight of the entire public service and have all the extra resources that come with serving in government, there are incredible responsibilities to get things right, to make sure they get value for taxpayers and to make sure that when mistakes are made, they are corrected, and that when value is not received, it is corrected.
What we saw in the Auditor General's reports this week confirms what Canada's Conservatives had raised the alarm bell about in the previous Parliament. On a range of issues the Auditor General looked at, she found that there were massive cost overruns and in fact negligence by the Liberal government, specifically in the use of the contractor GC Strategies, which was the preferred contractor in what is now known as the arrive scam scandal. This was the app the government originally pegged at costing $80,000. It ultimately cost many orders of magnitude more than that, in excess of $64 million. Value for money just was not there.
For context and for new members to this place, it is important to note that when the official opposition initially raised concerns about the ArriveCAN app, the Liberals said that the app worked great, that it worked as intended and that they received value for money and had no regrets. They paraded people through committee over and over again with that refrain, but it turns out that simply was not the case.
The then leader of the opposition, Mr. Poilievre, called for an Auditor General investigation, and there was a vote in the House. The Liberals and the cabinet, which is the executive responsible for this project, this massive boondoggle, voted against having the Auditor General take a look at it. Why would they not want the investigation if they were so proud of the project and it had worked as intended? Of course, they knew that it was a corrupt process, and they did not want it to come to light, but we did our work in holding the government to account, checking its homework, and we found the errors. We found the grift that had occurred.
It is not just about the nearly $100 million in contracts that GC Strategies was awarded, as a company owned by Mr. Kristian Firth and Mr. Darren Anthony; it is about the procurement processes that were not followed. Let us take for example the imperative of security clearances. The contracts this company was awarded required security clearances. I use the term “company” loosely as these were a couple of guys working in their basement, getting multi-million dollar IT contracts from the Government of Canada, but they were not IT experts. Some of the departments they worked for included public safety, CBSA and national defence. The Auditor General found that in 50% of contracts requiring security clearances, departments cannot prove that these workers, subcontractors for GC Strategies, had the security clearance, and in over 20% of contracts, workers were actively on the job without a valid security clearance. The Liberal government is not one that takes security seriously if this is what it deems an acceptable procurement practice.
Anyone who has ever had a project done at home, if they get a deck built at their house and they put a deposit down and the work is complete and satisfactory, they pay the contractor and thank them for their hard work. What is going to be shocking for Canadians is what we saw here; in 46% of the contracts, there was no proof of work delivered, but the government paid in 100% of the cases. It is unacceptable, and we know it is because no household would do it, no small business would do it and certainly the Government of Canada should not have done it.
What we are asking for is reasonable, but it is also the minimum expectation that Canadians have of us, as Parliament: Within 100 days of the passage of this motion, the government would get Canadians their money back and not simply let it stand that the company involved in this fraud not be allowed to bid on government contracts for seven years; rather, the company, its principals and subsidiaries would have a lifetime ban from doing work for the Government of Canada on behalf of Canadians. This is what Canadians expect of us.
We will hear the rise of all kinds of partisan hackles over the course of today, but this is a great opportunity. We are going to hear that it is a new Liberal government. If it is, then it is time for the Liberals to let us smell that new-car smell, that new-government smell; rise above the partisanship, the instinct to oppose this for the sake of opposing it; and vote for this common-sense motion.
Let us get Canadians their money back, get accountability by banning these contractors. Let us show Canadians that when we tax them a dollar, it is going to go as far as it can, and if someone takes advantage of the Government of Canada and Canadians, we will not let it stand.