Government Business No. 35—Extension of Sitting Hours and Conduct of Extended Proceedings  Mr. Speaker, I find it comical when I come in here and hear my Conservative colleague talk about people working hard, like my colleague from Saanich—Gulf Islands, for whom it takes 12 and a half hours, as it does for me, and three flights, on average, to get here. Members know we will be here tonight in late Adjournment Proceedings, dragging the Speaker and the government here.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I am going to raise it again. The ArriveCAN scandal fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. We have watched companies like Deloitte go from $11 million to $275 million a year. These are highly paid consulting firms, and the NDP put forward a motion to expand the investigation to look at all outsourcing, including these big corporations.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, again, under the Conservative government, the outsourcing to highly paid consulting firms doubled. Under the Liberal government, it has gone up fourfold. The ArriveCAN fiasco is just the tip of the iceberg. We have been calling for the government, and for the government operations committee, to investigate the big six consulting firms.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I hear the Liberals continue to talk about the surge from COVID. The reality is that the Liberals had $8.4 billion in outsourcing the first year they were in government that they inherited from the Conservatives. Now they are at $21.4 billion. In terms of the big six consulting firms, the government had $119 million, pre-COVID; now it is $470 million just to the big six.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, we need a mechanism and tool to do a full investigation. Right now, the Conservatives are focused on ArriveCAN because it is a “gotcha” campaign. They are not actually trying to fix the overall problem with outsourcing. My colleague talked about an increase in outsourcing, but like I said, Deloitte went from $11 million in 2015 to $275 million, and I can assure my colleague that there is no New Democrat government in this country that has seen such an outrageous increase.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, I will say it. They are hypocrites. Let us face it. Conservatives started the outsourcing and the out-of-control situation that we are in. They cut public service. They outsourced IT. They started the Phoenix debacle that was supposed to save $80 million but cost us $3.5 billion.

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, what is embarrassing is that I just outlined that the Conservatives are making sure that we are not putting their former—

Business of Supply  Madam Speaker, as I was going to say, what is embarrassing is that the Conservatives continue to protect their friends at Deloitte, including their former leadership candidate, Peter MacKay, and, just like the Liberals, they do not want to talk about it. They are both corporate-controlled parties.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, it is an honour and a privilege to rise in support of this motion today. I am going to speak to the broader issue of outsourcing and what New Democrats have been trying to do from the beginning in terms of revealing and bringing an end to the rampant outsourcing to highly paid, external, for-profit consulting firms that are making money hand over fist.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, we know that what is happening with ArriveCAN and at CBSA is just the tip of the iceberg. At the government operations committee, I put forward a motion to expand the study to include the big six highly paid consulting firms. When I put forward that motion, members should have seen the room.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, while we are hearing Conservatives and Liberals fight over who started with which highly paid consultant and who spent more, we actually need to get to fixing the problem and have that conversation. This is just the tip of the iceberg, in terms of what is going on at CBSA and ArriveCAN.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, we saw outsourcing to highly paid consultants double under the Conservatives, including GC Strategies owners, who were formerly operating under another company. We saw the Conservatives bring in the Phoenix pay system. It was supposed to save $80 million, but it has cost $3.5 billion.

Business of Supply  Mr. Speaker, I want to start with this: It was actually the Conservative government that cut IT staff in the public service. We saw outsourcing go up with the big six companies; it doubled under the Conservatives. We saw it quadruple under the current Liberal government. It has become unequivocally clear that the corporate-controlled parties, both Liberal and Conservative, are continuing to go to the highly paid private sector to give it taxpayer dollars to provide services that could be provided by the public service.

Petitions  Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to present this petition today. It is supported by the Canadian Farmers' Markets association. I also want to thank all farmers and farmers' markets from coast to coast to coast. The petitioners who have signed this petition are calling on the Government of Canada to support Motion No. 66 and initiate a national program for all provincial farmers' market nutrition coupon programs.

Fisheries and Oceans  Mr. Speaker, for almost three years, the Liberals have let a ship-breaking company in Union Bay bend the rules, and it is putting locals at risk. A boat filled with asbestos is being broken apart in sensitive fish and shellfish habitats, which could cause irrevocable harm and cost 500 people their jobs.