Debates of June 12th, 2025

Opposition Motion—GC Strategies Inc.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Mr. Speaker, after seven years, GC Strategies will not automatically become an eligible supplier again. The registrar will carefully review the situation and, because they are an independent entity, they will have to do the work suggested by the hon. member for Drummond to see if there are any links to other individuals besides this company. It should be noted that, in the case of GC Strategies' suspension, this process is independent and completely free of political interference.

[Glen Motz, Conservative, Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, AB]

Mr. Speaker, this bureaucracy that is being set up is just another example of the smoke and mirrors. There is no need for democracy if the corruption was not existing in the Liberal government right from the very beginning.

My question is very simple. We can have all the bureaucracies we want. What steps are this parliamentary secretary, the Minister of Public Safety and the government taking, specifically, to get the taxpayers' money back that GC Strategies stole from the taxpayers?

Like I said, the bureaucracy does not get money back. You set up all these rules so it does not happen anymore. Well, it should not have been happening in the first place. Canadian taxpayers want to know where their money is, so what steps are you taking?

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

Questions go through the Chair.

The hon. parliamentary secretary has the floor.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we live under the rule of law. The government provided the Royal Canadian Mounted Police with all the information in its possession so that the RCMP could determine whether there were grounds for legal action. That is fine, because we expect governments not to interfere in the management of wrongdoing.

We have passed on the information to the RCMP, and should charges be laid, we will act in an exemplary manner to ensure that the individuals and companies concerned repay the money owed to the government.

[Elizabeth May, Green, Saanich—Gulf Islands, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I completely support this motion. It is very clear, and I put it to the member, that we need to start a law proceeding, based not, as the hon. secretary of state suggested, on fraud but on breach of contract, and it should not stop with GC Strategies. We should go back and also sue IBM for damages for the failed Phoenix pay system, which cost this country billions. Does the member agree?

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Mr. Speaker, our government has put in place tools that will help us take swift action from now on when there are signs of wrongdoing or non-compliance with contracts. That is what we are focused on, and we want to move forward. We believe that situations like this will never happen again because of the framework we have adopted.

[Rhéal Fortin, Bloc, Rivière-du-Nord, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the question has already been asked of my colleague across the way, but unfortunately, I do not think he understood it. I will repeat it slowly.

Will the government take steps to recover the money stolen from Quebeckers and Canadians?

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I may not have understood the question, but it seems the hon. member did not understand the answer either.

We have forwarded all the information to the RCMP, and we have set up an office that will be responsible for verifying compliance and determining whether additional action should be taken. We cannot do more, because any further action would be political interference.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I was kind of shocked by one of the comments my colleague made in his speech. He said that from now on, regarding procurement, we will uphold high standards of integrity and follow the rules.

I am wondering, does that imply, then, that for the last 10 years in the government, there was no requirement to act with integrity or follow the rules with purchasing? That appears to be the case with GC Strategies and many other issues.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we are doing everything we can to strengthen our approach to detecting fraud and other wrongdoing. Several potential cases of fraudulent billing have been detected. Let us be clear. That is unacceptable.

We will suspend the security clearance of the subcontractors involved and turn the files over to the RCMP as soon as there is sufficient evidence to justify doing so, so that it can conduct a thorough and independent investigation. Recommendations may then be made to the Attorney General of Canada to initiate proceedings to recover the money.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think this should provide assurances to individuals who are following the debate. When we take a look at the 2024 Auditor General's report, eight recommendations came out of it. Seven of the eight have been completed, and one is still in process. Then we have this report that is not forwarding any additional recommendations. I think that speaks well, that the civil servants are, in fact, responding positively to the 2024 recommendations.

I am wondering if my colleague can provide his thoughts on the civil service responding to the 2024 report.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague is absolutely right. There are no new recommendations in this year's report. The Auditor General simply asked us to continue to diligently apply the recommendations that have already been implemented.

There is just one more recommendation left to implement, and that is to obtain more detailed billing for projects and contracts in terms of the hours and type of work provided, and the CBSA is on track to address that recommendation.

That is a score of 7.9 out of 8.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague from La Prairie—Atateken said this was unacceptable. What is unacceptable is the fact that the government did not even verify 50% of the contracts awarded, worth a total of $64 million, to see if the work had been done. What is more, these contracts were awarded untendered to people who did not even have the technical expertise. Our system includes something called ministerial accountability.

Who was the minister responsible for ensuring that the contracts were fulfilled? Is the parliamentary secretary willing to admit that his government dropped the ball and that this was a failure? No, he is blaming it on the civil service. What kind of message does that send to Canadians? It is never the government's fault. They did not even verify 50% of public contracts to see whether—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

I must allow a few seconds for the hon. parliamentary secretary to respond.

The hon. parliamentary secretary.

[Jacques Ramsay, Liberal, La Prairie—Atateken, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we have a responsibility to oversee the work done by our public servants. We take that responsibility seriously. We will do it.

The member for Rimouski—La Matapédia may have forgotten that when the ArriveCAN contract was awarded, there was a bit of a pandemic that—

[The Assistant Deputy Speaker, John Nater]

The hon. member for Laurentides—Labelle.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, for those who missed the last few seconds, there is a major accountability issue. Honestly, I really wish we had a full hour to discuss this scandal, which is going from bad to worse.

I have two amazing colleagues who are no longer here in the House. One of them was my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou, who sat on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, and the other was the member for Terrebonne, who sat on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I salute them for the tremendous amount of work they did. I am going to pick up where they left off as a member of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.

I have nine minutes left, and I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.

I will sum things up. To begin with, of course, there are two parts to the Conservative motion. The first is to get back the money that was stolen, money that was paid for work that was not done. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Bloc Québécois is very much in favour of that. The second is to impose a lifetime contracting ban on GC Strategies so that none of its subsidiaries can ever do anything again. That makes perfect sense because they defrauded taxpayers.

I have one small point to make before I get into more detail on the 100 days to get the money back. Is 100 days realistic? When we make goals in life, we have to think about whether they are necessary and realistic. One hundred days is unprecedented. It would be quite the feat for the government to be able to that. That being said, it is essential that we recover that money.

We obviously support the Conservatives' motion, but I would like to get to the bottom of things. In the last Parliament, it was quite shocking to see one of the co-owners at the bar trying to defend himself. Ultimately, and I say this to new members, we were a laughingstock. We were a laughingstock because we were shown how easy it is to get around our safety nets, to thwart our efforts to be diligent and to properly manage taxpayers' money. The door is wide open. The oversight is not there.

As the Auditor General reiterated, she did not say that nothing happened. She said that there were so many problems she could not count or corroborate them all, that she had not been able to review the contracts to see what work should have been done. Furthermore, the pandemic was a catch-all excuse. In life, when something as major as that happens, people do what it takes to come up with an effective plan. I am tired of hearing that word. I want to hear about remediation instead.

Today, I want to raise two points. First, we have a new government with powerful aspirations. Whether they materialize is a matter of seeing is believing. That said, we have just been informed that we have an incoming clerk of the Privy Council. I sincerely hope he will listen to all Bloc Québécois members. If there is one party in this House that truly works to ensure accountability and the sound management of public funds, it is the Bloc Québécois. I know what I am talking about. I have filled out my share of grant applications and I have helped people fill out endless reports just to get a few thousands of dollars.

I hope that Mr. Sabia hears this message, because we will be meeting with him at the Standing Committee on Government Operations, where we will have the opportunity to tell him about all the measures that should be put in place. When I hear the new government members saying that they do not want this to happen again, I feel like saying, “Let us talk about this again in a decade.” However, I am a positive person who wants to make a difference. Mr. Sabia has a good track record as an agent of change. The Prime Minister wants to make changes in Canada to make it a country worthy of its name, worthy of the wealth of a G7 country.

We need to begin by closing the loopholes, implementing meaningful accountability measures and recognizing our 350,000 public servants. They are the ones I am talking to. I know many of them. These people are telling me that the government is neglecting them, that it does not recognize their value and that it is always sending them subcontractors who get paid double what they do, when they are perfectly capable of doing the work. They are saying that the government may even be taking them for fools. People have lost confidence in the quality of services. We have people calling us every week. Yesterday, I spoke to a woman who received a letter regarding her guaranteed income supplement. She did not get that money. Six months later, she was told that it was not the right amount. I know that, for individuals, we are talking about maybe a few hundred dollars, but in the case before us today, we are talking about millions of dollars in taxpayer money.

Let us start by cleaning house. Then we can put measures in place to ensure proper oversight. Honestly, when I see the official opposition always looking to tear down and destroy what the government is trying to build and when I see the government doing everything it can to deny, hide and withhold information that Quebeckers and Canadians need to know, I can say that, every time, the Bloc Québécois is the one that manages to get to the bottom of what is happening here, to get to the bottom of the government's corruption and collusion.

I am a businesswoman. I have worked in the community sector, and I have also been a public servant. Networking, referrals, mutual support and awarding contracts among friends are all standard practice, but let us look at the context. When I am doing business, it is my money we are talking about. I am the one who negotiates with contractors and suppliers, and I do so using my own money. What happened in this case is that private sector strategies were used to award contracts paid for with taxpayers' money. That is completely unacceptable. With every action the government takes, with every measure it implements, it has to bear in mind that 40 million Canadians have contributed to the pot.

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

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister, the former governor of the Bank of Canada, understands the importance of procurement and transparency and has emphasized how important it is that we build strength in the system. One of those strengths would be to ensure that civil servants do what has been suggested by the Auditor General.

Would the member not agree with the assessment I just put on the record?

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I do hope things turn around. I hope that when we come back in September, the clerk will have had time to get to the bottom of this and recover the stolen money.

It would be nice if we could put some measures in place to ensure that there are calls for tender rather than endless subcontracts. It would also be nice to be able to restore the reputation of public servants and recognize the excellent work they do by reviewing their processes. They are our brain power. These individuals have a great deal of expertise, and we have been neglecting them for decades.

[Eric Melillo, Conservative, Kenora—Kiiwetinoong, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I do not want to take away specifically from the importance of this issue with GC Strategies. Obviously, it is a huge scandal. However, I am wondering if the member has any comments about how this is really part of a long list of scandals with the Liberal government and its misuse of taxpayer dollars, whether it is SNC-Lavalin or the WE Charity, and the list goes on. We have really seen this culture of well-connected Liberal insiders and the misuse of taxpayer funds with the Liberal government.

I am just wondering if my colleague has any further comments on that.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, WE Charity was my initiation. As new members, we spent the entire summer probing a contract that had been awarded. It is normal to move quickly. It is normal to take action when there is an emergency. However, there are two ways of going about it. We can try to put out a forest fire with a small pail or, on the contrary, we can look at what is happening and make sure we have the right equipment to get the situation under control.

We saw the scope of the machinery of government. The pandemic was not the reason for the swift reaction. This is systemic. The government is proving that the system is dysfunctional. Right now I am thinking of the taxpayers' money and I am calling for change on their behalf.

[Maxime Blanchette-Joncas, Bloc, Rimouski—La Matapédia, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I commend my colleague and congratulate her on her speech.

In her report, the Auditor General of Canada mentioned that more than half the $64 million in contracts were paid without the government checking whether the work had been done or produced.

My colleague mentioned that she was a businesswoman. When people manage money, do they pay bills without checking whether they received the product or service? I would like my colleague to answer that simple question.

[Marie-Hélène Gaudreau, Bloc, Laurentides—Labelle, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I appreciate this question because people need to have this information. Some of those who are watching at home will be looking for a few dollars, either for summer jobs or through the New Horizons for Seniors program. If there is one sentence missing from their financial report or if their budget is not balanced, then they will not get their $1,000 in support.

I just took a conflict of interest and ethics course. Any time that I am unsure of whether I have been offered a gift and what I should do, I pass the information on to the Ethics Commissioner.

I agree with my colleague: How is it that the government is not even capable of doing what is required of us, as members of Parliament and citizens?

[Sébastien Lemire, Bloc, Abitibi—Témiscamingue, QC]

Mr. Speaker, this week, the Auditor General of Canada released four important reports. It is too bad that these facts are only coming to light today, after the election campaign. I think it would have been in the public interest for Canadians to have access to this information sooner. It might have changed they way they viewed this old Liberal government. After all, this is exactly what we need to fight political cynicism.

Today's Conservative motion focuses primarily on the revelations made by the Auditor General of Canada in her report on professional services contracts with GC Strategies. Her report is devastating to this government. It reflects a culture that fails to prioritize accountability.

First, it is important to review the facts. This company was awarded contracts to create the ArriveCAN app, which was developed in 2020. The total cost of this app, which two Canadian firms managed to recreate in a single weekend, was $64.5 million. This cost was clearly excessive.

I would remind the House that the update was initially supposed to cost only $80,000. What is more, GC Strategies employed only two people and did not provide any IT services. Paying over $60 million to two people with an idea so they could recruit qualified people is not what I would call efficient management of resources. I hope the Liberal government will agree with me on that.

Let us go back to the Auditor General's report on all the other contracts examined. For contracts under $40,000, the government can dispense with a call for bids. If we want things to change, we need to give that some thought. These are contracts that are deemed non-competitive. However, federal organizations are required to assess whether there would be benefits to calling for bids. Two-thirds of the $200,000 awarded to GC Strategies for this type of contract was not subject to this critical assessment. Who is accountable for that? It should be the Liberal government.

Let us go further. Thirty-three of the contracts awarded to GC Strategies required a security clearance. I want to emphasize the word “security”. For 50% of these contracts, the federal government cannot even show that the necessary authorizations were granted. For 21% of the contracts with security requirements, people worked on projects without ever getting their security clearance. That is more than one in five people.

The report mentions a contract awarded by National Defence. If there is one area where subcontractors should have their security clearances, it is that one. There is more. The Auditor General tells us that, for 33% of contracts, federal organizations were not even able to demonstrate that the people had the required experience or qualifications. They either forgot or did not bother to check.

There is also the whole issue of oversight. When people argued that federal employees had to go back to working in the office again, Ottawa agreed and started waging a battle against civil servants. However, when it comes to awarding contracts, Ottawa simply receives a time sheet and that is that. Someone looks at it one, two, three or maybe five times, and then it gets approved.

Poorly documented descriptions of the work performed? No big deal. No time sheet? No problem. In the case of one $3.3‑million contract with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada, the department provided time sheets for only one out of 25 contract resources. What did the government do? It put the cheque in the mail. This is our money. When GC Strategies was hired, Ottawa had no idea if the fees paid exceeded market rates. Due diligence is not the Liberals' strong suit.

That is not all. I saved the best for last. In about half of the contracts, the government had little to no evidence that the work had been performed, but the cheque was sent out anyway. Basically, the government hired people without determining whether they were qualified or had the necessary security clearances. Now it does not know if the work was actually performed. That is where things stand. Wow.

One thing that puzzles me is that, for all of the contracts that the Office of the Auditor General of Canada analyzed, the federal organizations justified their use of subcontractors by giving reasons like acquiring specialized expertise, managing unexpected increases in workload or filling in for public servants during temporary absences. Correct me if I am wrong, but would it not make sense to make better use of our public service? Why can public servants not work overtime if there is an unexpected increase in workload or if some employees are absent? If we need specialized expertise, would it not make sense to develop that expertise in-house? It is all the more odd that the government was using subcontractors, with the consequences that we have seen, at a time when it was hiring huge numbers of public servants.

That brings me to the central and possibly the most important point of this report. Since 2015, more than $18 billion has been spent on informatics services. The bill went from $1.3 billion a year to $2.8 billion a year. The thing that amazes me is that this is not the first IT project that went off the rails. There was Phoenix, the Canadian Firearms Registry and the Canada Border Services Agency assessment and revenue management system. This is not the first time public money has been wasted on IT.

In Quebec, there was SAAQclic, which cost $500 million. The government is holding a public inquiry into that. The federal government should follow its example. It may be time for Canada to set limits, considering we know that Ottawa has spent $1.5 billion every year since 2015. That is $18 billion more. The annual bill is now $2.8 billion. There must be quite a few SAAQclics in the federal government apparatus.

It is 2025. Information technology is a huge part of our lives, our remote work as parliamentarians and the lives of the people of Abitibi-Témiscamingue, Quebec and Canada. How can this government develop apps if it does not respect the public service's ability to develop in-house expertise? We live in a technological world. The government should be focused on developing in-house expertise. What has using outside consultants done for us? What real contribution do these firms make? How do they improve our constituents' lives? Instead of rewarding innovation and praising people for developing new ways of doing things internally, people who know the field and the federal machinery, people who are aware of the realities of their department, their community, and how to meet their needs, the government decides that their opinion is not important and it spends millions and billions of dollars elsewhere to obtain these products, without any oversight, as we now know.

That is not all. To put things in perspective, the spending on GC Strategies accounts for only 0.37% of the total amount of government contracts. If we take what we learned from the Auditor General in this report, what percentage of the $2.8 billion in additional spending per year was audited? Were the security clearances and contract resources approved? Were the 94% of the contracts that used time sheets audited? What experience and qualifications were required? Is the government paying its contractors without evidence showing that the deliverables were received? It may be time to take a more comprehensive look at external consultants. I would even say that it is time to follow Quebec's example and have a public inquiry.

This is not the only report in which the Governor General revealed things that would have been nice to know before giving a fresh vote of confidence to a government that claims to be new. However, its way of doing business is deeply ingrained.

The housing report in particular talks about inaction. Since time is limited, I would like to talk about indigenous people. There are very significant delays in the registration process for indigenous people. It can take almost two years. Indigenous people cannot get their Indian status verified, which means they are postponing their studies and putting off getting health care. What impact does that have on individuals and communities? That is extremely unfortunate.

I am also thinking of the skyrocketing costs of the F‑35A. I think that is how we will ultimately reach 2% for military spending. That sounds a bit cynical, but the way the Liberals have managed things is just as cynical under the circumstances.

In closing, I support this motion, and I want to say that if no work was done, then the money paid by Quebeckers must be recovered. Doing nothing is essentially declaring that taxpayers' pockets are an all-you-can-eat buffet. Enough is enough.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering if the member would, at the very least, acknowledge that, through this whole process, we now have a new Prime Minister with a new government. In the 2024 report, there was a series of eight recommendations. Of those eight recommendations, seven have been fulfilled, and the last one is well under way. If we fast-forward to the report that just recently came out, there are no new recommendations.

I am wondering if the member would not agree that we should be, at least in part, recognizing the important role our civil servants play in ensuring there is that sense of fairness and accountability. We have a new Prime Minister who is committed to ensuring more transparency and accountability in the whole process of procurement.