Discussion · Government Orders
Cheryl Gallant Conservative
“I oppose this budget bill. It creates a new defence agency that makes no sense and lets a minister buy company stocks and hand out contracts without competition. This causes major conflicts of interest. The government should be fixing military supply problems, not spending tax dollars on insider deals and growing the bureaucracy.”
“Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces serving at Garrison Petawawa to speak to Bill C-31, the Liberals’ omnibus budget legislation. This bill would establish the Defence Investment Agency as a stand-alone agency. Now, for Canadians following at home, this is a different bill than Bill C-40, which turns the Defence Investment Agency from a stand-alone agency into a Crown corporation. If Bill C-40 passes, then the entire section of Bill C-31 on the Defence Production Act would be repealed. If this seems confusing to Canadians, it is just because the Liberal government is making things up as it goes along. The Prime Minister campaigned on a promise to build at a pace not seen since World War II. Since the election, it has been a non-stop parade of announcements to create the appearance of action. Rather than undertaking the hard work to reform how the government procures anything, the Prime Minister took the easy path and announced a new bureaucracy. He convinced his personal friend to lead this new bureaucracy and then made his friend the highest-paid government worker in the country. Now, when the Prime Minister’s friend got started, he discovered how hamstrung he was by the government’s broken procurement system, so the Liberals cooked up the legislation we are debating today to create a stand-alone agency. When the Prime Minister’s buddy learned how, even as a stand-alone agency, he would still be mired in the Liberals broken procurement system, he threatened to quit. Desperately, the Liberals scrambled for a solution. Having a close personal friend of the Prime Minister quit after one year would call into question the competency of the Prime Minister. Having built his entire brand around being the competent technocrat, the Liberal Party’s greatest fear is that Canadians will come to see the Prime Minister as just another finance bro pushing a self-interest investment scheme. Canadians were hoping for a Winston Churchill. They got the wolf of Wall Street instead, and only prime minister Brookfield can turn defence procurement legislation into an investment portfolio. This legislation would allow the designated minister to issue sole-sourced contracts. It would allow the minister to purchase stock in companies. It would allow the minister to issue sole-source contracts to companies he bought stock in. When the government becomes the owner, the regulator and the customer, it goes beyond conflicts of interest. It is a conflict of purpose. Conflicts of purpose are the reason our defence procurement system is so broken under Liberal rule. The defence minister’s purpose is to equip the Canadian Armed Forces with the equipment, the weapons and the ammunition they need to train and fight. The procurement minister’s purpose is to get the best value for taxpayers. The industry minister’s purpose is to divert the contracts to Liberal ridings. During the debate on Bill C-40, the Liberal members were literally bragging about how much money was going to their ridings. What these members always forget is that this is where the tax dollars came from in the first place. This bill and Bill C-40 would combine the worst aspects of Liberal defence procurement into one unaccountable Crown corporation. We have already seen how the Liberal government operates. Last March the government announced it had issued a sole-source contract for a concrete slab in Canso, Nova Scotia. The so-called spaceport contract is worth $200 million. Worst of all, the government backdated the lease, meaning we paid rent for a full year before even deciding to lease the slab. No rockets were ever retroactively launched. The taxpayers received no value whatsoever. That cannot be explained away. After the Liberals issued the press release announcing the sweetheart deal, the company’s stocks surged. The largest shareholder of the so-called spaceport sold some of his stock and then used government cash to exercise his stock options. He pocketed over $1 million, kept all his shares and taxpayers had to foot the bill. We cannot get more Liberal insider than a spaceport company with a former Liberal premier on the board, while prime minister Brookfield is taking $200 million out of the defence department for his spaceport friends and cutting the CAF’s operational budget by 10%. After Bill C-40 passes, we can expect more of the same with even less accountability. Unfortunately for the Liberals, the Auditor General’s latest report touching on defence procurement drives home the point why nothing in this bill would change defence procurement in Canada. The Auditor General looked at the defence department’s management of ammunition. The report found that ammunition for regular use in training was not aligned with current demand while the strategic stockpile was severely depleted. This passage from the report is very revealing: The Government of Canada, through Public Services and Procurement Canada, had 4 strategic source agreements with Canadian companies to produce ammunition and/or explosives that are available through the Munitions Supply Program. These agreements are to be reviewed and renewed at least every 5 years. We found that 2 of the 4 agreements had expired over 3 years ago. Public Services and Procurement Canada officials told us that a lack of staff contributed to the delay in reviewing and renewing the agreements. The Liberal government has bloated the bureaucracy faster than any Canadian government. It grew at a pace not seen since World War II. In fact, it added more bureaucrats in the last 11 years than had worked for the government during World War II.”
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to rise on behalf of the women and men of the Canadian Armed Forces serving at Garrison Petawawa to speak to Bill C-31, the Liberals’ omnibus budget legislation. This bill would establish the Defence Investment Agency as a stand-alone agency. Now, for Canadians following at home, this is a different bill than Bill C-40, which turns the Defence Investment Agency from a stand-alone agency into a Crown corporation. If Bill C-40 passes, then the entire section of Bill C-31 on the Defence Production Act would be repealed. If this seems confusing to Canadians, it is just because the Liberal government is making things up as it goes along. The Prime Minister campaigned on a promise to build at a pace not seen since World War II. Since the election, it has been a non-stop parade of announcements to create the appearance of action. Rather than undertaking the hard work to reform how the government procures anything, the Prime Minister took the easy path and announced a new bureaucracy. He convinced his personal friend to lead this new bureaucracy and then made his friend the highest-paid government worker in the country. Now, when the Prime Minister’s friend got started, he discovered how hamstrung he was by the government’s broken procurement system, so the Liberals cooked up the legislation we are debating today to create a stand-alone agency. When the Prime Minister’s buddy learned how, even as a stand-alone agency, he would still be mired in the Liberals broken procurement system, he threatened to quit. Desperately, the Liberals scrambled for a solution. Having a close personal friend of the Prime Minister quit after one year would call into question the competency of the Prime Minister. Having built his entire brand around being the competent technocrat, the Liberal Party’s greatest fear is that Canadians will come to see the Prime Minister as just another finance bro pushing a self-interest investment scheme. Canadians were hoping for a Winston Churchill. They got the wolf of Wall Street instead, and only prime minister Brookfield can turn defence procurement legislation into an investment portfolio. This legislation would allow the designated minister to issue sole-sourced contracts. It would allow the minister to purchase stock in companies. It would allow the minister to issue sole-source contracts to companies he bought stock in. When the government becomes the owner, the regulator and the customer, it goes beyond conflicts of interest. It is a conflict of purpose. Conflicts of purpose are the reason our defence procurement system is so broken under Liberal rule. The defence minister’s purpose is to equip the Canadian Armed Forces with the equipment, the weapons and the ammunition they need to train and fight. The procurement minister’s purpose is to get the best value for taxpayers. The industry minister’s purpose is to divert the contracts to Liberal ridings. During the debate on Bill C-40, the Liberal members were literally bragging about how much money was going to their ridings. What these members always forget is that this is where the tax dollars came from in the first place. This bill and Bill C-40 would combine the worst aspects of Liberal defence procurement into one unaccountable Crown corporation. We have already seen how the Liberal government operates. Last March the government announced it had issued a sole-source contract for a concrete slab in Canso, Nova Scotia. The so-called spaceport contract is worth $200 million. Worst of all, the government backdated the lease, meaning we paid rent for a full year before even deciding to lease the slab. No rockets were ever retroactively launched. The taxpayers received no value whatsoever. That cannot be explained away. After the Liberals issued the press release announcing the sweetheart deal, the company’s stocks surged. The largest shareholder of the so-called spaceport sold some of his stock and then used government cash to exercise his stock options. He pocketed over $1 million, kept all his shares and taxpayers had to foot the bill. We cannot get more Liberal insider than a spaceport company with a former Liberal premier on the board, while prime minister Brookfield is taking $200 million out of the defence department for his spaceport friends and cutting the CAF’s operational budget by 10%. After Bill C-40 passes, we can expect more of the same with even less accountability. Unfortunately for the Liberals, the Auditor General’s latest report touching on defence procurement drives home the point why nothing in this bill would change defence procurement in Canada. The Auditor General looked at the defence department’s management of ammunition. The report found that ammunition for regular use in training was not aligned with current demand while the strategic stockpile was severely depleted. This passage from the report is very revealing: The Government of Canada, through Public Services and Procurement Canada, had 4 strategic source agreements with Canadian companies to produce ammunition and/or explosives that are available through the Munitions Supply Program. These agreements are to be reviewed and renewed at least every 5 years. We found that 2 of the 4 agreements had expired over 3 years ago. Public Services and Procurement Canada officials told us that a lack of staff contributed to the delay in reviewing and renewing the agreements. The Liberal government has bloated the bureaucracy faster than any Canadian government. It grew at a pace not seen since World War II. In fact, it added more bureaucrats in the last 11 years than had worked for the government during World War II.