Linda Duncan

[Navigable Waters Protection Act, April 22nd, 2013]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-496, an act to amend the Navigable Waters Protection Act (Kicking Horse River and Clearwater River)

Mr. Speaker, it is also my pleasure, along with my colleagues, to stand on this Earth Day and table a bill calling for the reinstatement of protections for two key rivers in Saskatchewan, Alberta and British Columbia. Those two rivers are the Kicking Horse River, which flows into British Columbia, and the Clearwater River, which is a highly unusual river. It is the only river in the Prairies that actually flows from east to west. It flows from east to west into the oil sands, the largest industrial complex in Canada. Yet that river has managed to maintain a pristine state. Why is that? The Government of Saskatchewan stepped up to the plate and protected the area.

Unfortunately, similar measures have not yet been taken by Alberta. Therefore, it is absolutely critical that both of these rivers, which have high recreational value, are very important fisheries, are critical to first nations peoples, and have great historic value because of our fur trade, be protected again by the Navigable Waters Protection Act. It is absolutely critical that this action be taken to protect our heritage for future Canadians.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

[Parliamentary Budget Officer, April 22nd, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, today Justice Harrington of the Federal Court affirmed the Parliamentary Budget Officer's powers under the Federal Accountability Act. The court held that the government did not have to enact legislation to create the position of Parliamentary Budget Officer, but having prescribed the mandate in law, it can only be unmade by Parliament. This contradicts what the unelected Senate has argued and what Conservatives have argued in and out of court.

Can the chair of the public accounts committee tell us what this means for fiscal accountability?

[Public Works and Government Services, April 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, it is my recollection that I raised additional questions on this matter a couple of days ago. I got exactly the same response today I got two days ago. I am giving the government another chance to address my particular concerns.

The court this week held against the Government of Canada, not against the contractor. That is $30 million of taxpayers' money. What measures are there in addition to a code that by and large is supposed to hold contractors accountable, but not the subcontractors? What new measures are in place to make sure that the government is finally delivering on its watchdog function? How is the government ensuring that the process is going to become more open and transparent? We have heard huge concerns from the contractors that because the process is no longer transparent, they do not know if it will be a fair process.

[Public Works and Government Services, April 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, on December 5, I put a question to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services asking if her new anti-corruption measures would address any subcontracting problems or illegalities, including those related to a half-billion dollar contract with SNC-Lavalin to manage 300-plus federal buildings. The contract involved numerous subcontractors. It may be noted that she advised that these concerns about this general contractor were brought to her attention by the media, not by her own officials.

My question was whether the new improved measures would be made retroactive to existing contracts and subcontracts and whether they are being applied and enforced by the government or by contractors. I still await an answer to those questions.

This scenario also raises the question of how well the government is delivering its own watchdog responsibilities. It is fine to strengthen the code of conduct, but if not closely monitored and stringently enforced, it has little deterrence, let alone punishment, value.

The minister reiterated that her government's contractual obligations are with only the general contractor—in other words, not with the subcontractors.

The minister also responded that following specific allegations about the bidding process, officials brought in a private forensic auditing company, PricewaterhouseCoopers. What did this cost? Are there no compliance or audit officials within Public Works and Government Services?

The audit called for increased frequency of audits of contracts and improved documentation of expenditures, including providing time sheets. These are pretty basic duties one would have expected to already be in place for a contract to spend half a billion dollars of taxpayers' money. These are pretty basic accounting and audit functions for any contract. A great concern is that these functions were not already being addressed. Are they now being better addressed in light of staff reductions?

Problems with procurement can also be found within Public Works and Government Services itself. We have the case of the two-decade long dispute over federally contracted relocation services for military, RCMP and public servants. It ended in a 15-month trial, with a finding against the government. The case centred on conflict of interest allegations about Public Works and Government Services, then under a Liberal government. The contract was awarded, cancelled, re-tendered, re-awarded to the same company, reviewed by an international trade tribunal, then by a parliamentary committee, and then the Auditor General, before finally being referred to the courts. The report of the Auditor General is scathing. The case centred around yet another public works procurement pilot case to address rising costs of relocation.

This month, the court found the federal government at fault with a $30-million cost award. The case is noteworthy, as the government is apparently yet again receiving complaints about its latest pilot relocation procurement process from potential bidders and federal employees.

I am advised that the latest reform may shortchange both the small moving companies and the families of service men and women. Concerns raised about the latest new, improved procurement process for relocation mirrors many of the exact concerns raised in the successful ongoing court action. This includes failure to fully disclose information necessary to submit a well documented bid. As noted by a former senior official, the government needs to understand that the key role of Public Works and Government Services is to protect the integrity of the bidding process.

Of concern, the judge in the Envoy case noted that the problems in the procurement process were not detected until the audit by the Auditor General. These were not findings of kickbacks, bribes, or political meddling under the code of practice. The root of the problem appeared to be the lack of scrutiny or fairness in the overall procurement process.

I ask the government this: What measures have they taken to address these failings, with the resulting monumental costs to taxpayers, beyond a revised code? What reassurance is there that the same failed processes will not be repeated in the 2014 renewal?

[Family Homes on Reserves and Matrimonial Interests or Rights Act, April 17th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for the position he is taking on this bill. It is completely in keeping with what I have been told by the aboriginal community where I come from.

What deeply concerns me is the superficiality of the action taken by the government, and we see this over and over again. It is one thing to pass a bill in theory that gives a right to an aboriginal woman to go to court. However, how many of those women are living in isolated communities where there is a dearth of safe housing for anyone, including men, women and children? They cannot afford the bus fare, let alone have an available bus to go to town to hire a lawyer, let alone have the resources to hire a lawyer to fight these matters in court. Can the member speak to that and elaborate on the fact that the offer of the extension of the right is an extremely superficial one?

[Employment, April 16th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, the minister has refused to address the issue of unfairness to temporary foreign workers.

The Conservatives are also failing young Canadians who they say should consider a skilled trade job. Skilled trades and construction workers say that the government needs a wake-up call. The real barrier to skilled workers is a lack of paid apprenticeships. The Canadian Apprenticeship Forum reports that less than 50% of employers that hire skilled workers are taking on apprentices.

When will the Conservatives take real action for real training opportunities for young Canadians?

[Public Works and Government Services, April 15th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I would like to thank the parliamentary secretary for his response. Regrettably, I have not had any response to these issues that Canadian businesses are raising with me. For example, I am told that the government is moving toward a one-size-fits-all for all contracting processes and limiting the opportunity for local businesses to be engaged in the supply of business and services to the Government of Canada.

For example, in the case of the relocation contract, it used to be the case where major contractors sat down with Public Works and Government Services, talked about what the needs were and then would go off and prepare their bids. Now it is divide and conquer. One comes in at a time and there is no genuine consultation. There is deep concern that the subcontractors who relocate people from small communities are going to miss out because of the way they are moving in the bidding.

I am wondering if the member could advise what new measures are in place to watchdog the subcontractors also, because that appears to have been the major problem determined by the auditors.

[Public Works and Government Services, April 15th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, last December I and my colleague, the hon. member for Louis-Hébert, put a number of questions to the Minister of Public Works and Government Services. Those questions had to do with the need for a more transparent and more accountable regime for government procurement. Both my colleague and I have been receiving successive calls from business sectors across this country about the way procurement is now being governed by the current government.

By way of example, last December we had raised the matter of the contract with SNC-Lavalin to manage 323 federal buildings for almost half a billion dollars a year. The contract allowed for significant subcontracting, and that appears to be the case on most occasions in contracting with this federal government. Increasingly, there are centralized one-person-only or one-corporation contracts and considerable subcontracting. That raises a lot of issues, which I will go into.

It had been revealed that a number of the subcontractors under the SNC-Lavalin contract had billed the government for outrageously overpriced costs, yet even though this is public money, we are advised that the subcontracts are considered private. This policy opens the door to potential abuse, as was discovered when the government finally contracted an audit: it found this abuse.

We called on the Minister of Public Works and Government Services to conduct an audit to ensure that taxpayers are getting their money's worth in terms of both building management and the awarding of subcontracts.

The minister's response was that contractual obligations were limited to the general contractor. She also limited her duty, apparently, to ensuring the lowest bid from the general contractor, but there was no obligation to ensure the same to be the case with the subcontractors, the presumption being that ensured savings would flow to the taxpayer if they simply took the lowest bid as the primary factor in issuing contracts.

There was no mention of any need to ensure lowest bid for the many subcontractors, yet an audit contracted by the Minister of Public Works and Government Services in 2011 reported numerous absurdly overpriced billings, including $1,000 to install a doorbell and $2,000 for two plants. The minister advised that all the recommendations by PricewaterhouseCoopers, the audit company, have been implemented, including increased oversight and monitoring of this contract, and ordered in late 2010 a reprocurement of the contract. Of note, the contract was again issued to SNC-Lavalin.

Parties seeking subcontracts under the SNC-Lavalin half-billion-dollar per year federal building contract have continued to raise concerns. They relate to fairness, transparency and efficacy in the bidding process. The minister provided reassurances that the integrity of this contract is governed by a new integrity framework. She offered a briefing to me on the new, improved system. I am looking forward to finally receiving this briefing at the end of May.

In the interim, I have unfortunately continued to receive pleas from numerous Canadian business sectors, ranging from companies providing and servicing shredders to the government to companies relocating RCMP, military and federal workers. All of these companies have complained about the new one-size-fits-all contracting process. All have raised concerns about the centralization of contracts and reduced opportunities for local suppliers. All complain of the lack of transparency. All are concerned that there is no longer genuine consultation, and they are concerned about the RFPs.

[Health, March 28th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, a report from physicians, the Lung Association, the Asthma Society and Pembina reveals significant health and economic costs from emissions from coal-fired power plants. Alberta's annual coal-fired emissions are forecast to result in a shocking $300 million in medical costs, 100 premature deaths, 4,800 lost work and school days, and 700 emergency visits each year.

The federal Minister of Health has a mandatory duty, when this information comes to her attention, to act, so why is the Minister of Health turning a blind eye to the health impacts of coal-fired power?

[The Budget, March 27th, 2013]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the hon. member for her first speech on the federal budget.

When I hear about the commitment of the government to the environment and to a clean energy future, I practically choke. It has come to my attention just this week that even the Alberta minister of the environment had to go to the Canadian Council of Ministers of the Environment and beg the federal government not to downgrade the standards for coal-fired power plants.

As the member is from Calgary, she well knows that the oil and gas sector has spoken out very loudly in favour of the federal government coming on board with a Canadian energy strategy. The premier of our province has called for the support of the federal government to the Canadian energy strategy. We see nothing in this budget even recognizing the fact that Canadians want that and nothing for the program that all Canadians have asked to come back, as the member claimed that she was consulting her constituents, on the eco-energy home retrofit program.

I am wondering if the member could again stand up and defend the great commitment of the government to the desire of Canadians for a clean energy future.