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.

Sébastien Lemire

$598,008.00