Public Accounts Committee on May 21st, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It's back to you, Mr. Nater.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

It's always unfortunate when Mrs. Shanahan feels the need to interrupt everyone at this committee. She does that regularly, but—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I hear points of order from both sides. I'm happy to do so.

Mr. Nater, I'll ask you to return to the amendment to the motion, please.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

Very briefly, the impact of this amendment is to ensure that we don't hear from this witness and that we will be long delayed from the pertinence of this matter by the time we would see the RCMP before this committee, so I do not support the amendment. We'll be voting against it.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Mr. Desjarlais, before I go to Ms. Ferreri, was your hand up or were you kind of just waving for a vote?

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

I'm just calling for a vote.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Okay, that's fine.

I do have you down, Ms. Khalid, but I saw Mr. Desjarlais and I thought he might be looking to move things along.

Ms. Ferreri, you have the floor, please.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you, Chair, and thanks for having me at public accounts.

It's obviously my first time here. I'm just chiming in as I see this. I sit on two other committees, and one of the big issues, obviously, is ArriveCAN with the ongoing investigation and the historic appearance before the bar of GC Strategies' CEO.

I don't understand the perspective of the Liberals today. I hear their reasoning, but it doesn't really make sense. If we're here to work for the people, why wouldn't we want to have an update from the RCMP? This is probably one of the biggest scandals that's ever happened certainly in my time. An app that was supposed to cost $80,000 cost $60 million. It was the first time in over 110 years where somebody was called before the bar. This obviously is something that is very important to Canadians. I can't see why we wouldn't want this to happen.

That would be my two cents, as somebody who's just coming from the outside. This is probably one of the biggest issues that we've seen in Canadian history. It just doesn't make any sense to me why you wouldn't want the RCMP to give an update to people and see where it's at.

The other piece to this that I think is really important is it is taxpayers' money. That's a really big issue when you have a cost of living crisis. People can't afford to live. They're using food banks. They have nowhere to live. There are tent cities and all of those things.

That app did things to people psychologically. They went to hotel quarantines. It caused a lot of psychological stress and division in our country and among people. They're still healing.

It just seems it is really important to the people watching at home, whom we work for and who elected us. I would like this motion to pass and see the RCMP come before the summer so that we get that update.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Thank you.

Ms. Khalid, you have the floor.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

I'll address this very quickly. A number of points have been raised by my colleagues.

First and foremost, nobody is saying that the RCMP should not come to this committee to be held accountable and help us understand how this investigation has been going. What we're trying to say with this amendment is that the RCMP sent us a letter, and we are respecting their jurisdiction and limitations.

If our committee genuinely wants answers rather than grandstanding, then we need to delay when they come in. If we have them in within this week while the investigation is still ongoing, we are not going to get the answers that members of this committee want. To me, on a practical basis, it makes no sense whatsoever for us to haul them in only to have them say again and again that they can't answer the questions because there is an active, ongoing investigation, which we all want to be concluded. None of us should be wanting to politicize an independent investigation by the RCMP. That is why we are introducing this amendment.

I'm really hoping that we can go to a vote, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

We can.

Clerk, call the vote on the amendment to the motion, please.

It is a tie. The chair votes no.

(Amendment negatived: nays 6; yeas 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The amendment is defeated.

We now return to the motion at hand, as tabled by Madame Sinclair-Desgagné.

(Motion agreed to: yeas 6; nays 5 [See Minutes of Proceedings])

The motion is passed.

Mrs. Shanahan, you have the floor.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I'm glad that we're able to get back to the motion that I wish to propose here.

Members heard my preamble and the concern that I have about this flagrant disregard for public funds exercised by Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party. These members of Parliament like to talk a good talk, but when it comes to walking the walk, it's a different story.

I move the following motion: “That the committee immediately conduct a study into the flagrant disregard for public funds exercised by Pierre Poilievre's Conservative Party of Canada members of Parliament, who expensed their travel costs, hotels, and per diems to travel to Quebec City for the Conservative Party of Canada partisan convention in September 2023, as a matter of public interest, and report its findings to the House.”

I also have the French version. There are copies for everyone.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That's very good.

Mrs. Shanahan, we have copies. Thank you very much. They've been distributed.

Did you send it electronically? If you didn't, that's fine.

[Brenda Shanahan, Liberal, Châteauguay—Lacolle, QC]

I have not.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

If you did, we'd send it out. I'm asking just so we're not looking for it. As I said, I am the ref of the European football league.

I have a speaking list already. Everyone has the motion, so we're going to get going here.

Ms. Ferreri, you have the floor, please.

[Michelle Ferreri, Conservative, Peterborough—Kawartha, ON]

Thank you so much.

There's a motion put forward. Again, I'm new to public accounts, so it is interesting to me that a motion was put forward by a Liberal member worried about taxpayers' money. It's interesting, to put it mildly, after we were just trying to get the RCMP to testify here—and the Liberals did not want that before committee—about an app that we know cost at least $60 million, but there's more. There is this motion “That the committee immediately conduct a study into the flagrant disregard for public funds exercised by Conservative Party of Canada member of Parliament”.

If this member is really serious here—because she said “talk the talk, walk the walk”—I hope we can add a couple of amendments, obviously, about the Prime Minister's $6,000-a-night stay in London, as well as his very extravagant trip to Jamaica, which cost taxpayers.... I'm not sure how much that was. However, if we're going to walk the walk and we're going to talk about being very mindful of taxpayers' money, I think we should add that into this study, and Tofino. Thank you so much to my NDP colleague here. I think that we should add a few things if we're going to do this, because I think that would only be fair if we're going to talk about spending taxpayers' money.

I think there's also a green slush fund, if we want to do that on taxpayers' money. There's that $4.5-billion mental health transfer that never happened, and then there was the money that was spent to reduce chronic homelessness, which hasn't been spent. Should we go on here, Chair, in terms of misuse of taxpayers' money?

Right now, we're spending more on servicing the debt in this country, because of the Prime Minister's mismanagement of taxpayers' money, than we are on health care. If the Liberal member is truly serious about this, that would be a really great thing, because I think, absolutely, that we as elected members of Parliament want to ensure that the money is accounted for and is being fiscally spent. There are a lot of things we can add to this motion, and I'm curious to see if the member opposite is open to that, if she really wants to walk the walk.

Obviously, let's throw in arrive scam because, again, $60 million—that's being low—is what is expected, when it was supposed to cost $80,000.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

I have quite a long speaking list.

Mr. Nater, you have the floor, please.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

Thank you, Chair.

It is a very curious motion, I might say, and somewhat surprising, because just last week the Liberals filibustered a meeting on arrive scam, for about 45 minutes to an hour, to avoid hearing from witnesses, all for the supposed intent of working out a work plan, a work plan that this committee agreed to and that the chair agreed to and that put things into play. It's rather curious—or comical, if it weren't so serious—that now, all of a sudden, Ms. Shanahan, the Liberal national caucus chair, has decided to put forward a motion about another opposition party's attendance at a national caucus meeting.

It's especially interesting that Ms. Shanahan—

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Order, please.

[John Nater, Conservative, Perth—Wellington, ON]

—the Liberal caucus chair, moved this motion. It's interesting, given her $5,149.02-expense for regional or national caucus meetings in Whitehorse—so that was $5,149—and there was another $1,257 for Rocky Harbour, Newfoundland....

I see that Ms. Shanahan is....

It seems I'm being heckled, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Order.

Just hold on one second, Mr. Nater.

Again, we have a nice long list, and I will add people to it.

You have the floor again, Mr. Nater.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I do have a point of order, Chair.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Oh, pardon me. I thought you were....

Go ahead, Madam Khalid.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Thank you.

I encourage our members to talk with relevance. In fact, members on the Conservative side have listed out things that have been litigated in committees, front, back and centre—all of it. What this specific motion is asking for is brand spanking new. It is something that has not been discussed, and I think that members should stick to this, because at the end of the day, all parliamentarians are accountable.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

That is true.

I'm going to turn things over to Mr. Nater. You seem to be objecting to his tying it to a national caucus. I'm sure Mr. Nater is going to get to the point that there was a national caucus and meeting in Quebec.

Do you have a point of order, Mr. Desjarlais?