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Adjournment Proceedings

2026-05-05 Sitting 117 Showing 1–4 of 4

In a debate, the Conservatives criticized the Liberal government's handling of an IT project for seniors' benefits, which went over-budget and caused delays. The Liberals acknowledged some issues but claimed they were addressing them. Much of the discussion involved partisan arguing rather than concrete solutions.

Official Hansard ↗

Kelly Block

Conservative 6:45 p.m.

“The government's IT projects keep going over budget and getting delayed. I want an independent inquiry to find out why these projects cost way more than planned, and why consultants are getting paid but nobody is held accountable. The Phoenix payroll system, the ArriveCAN app, and now the Cúram software for old age security payments are all massive cost overruns. Seniors are having trouble getting their benefits. The Liberals deny any problem and accuse us of playing politics when we ask questions. I want the minister to explain why these projects always cost way more, and why seniors have to pay for the Liberals' screw-ups.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the Liberal government's Cúram software platform has become the newest IT project to make the list of over-budget, chronically delayed programs it delivers to Canadians. The program was launched in 2017, just two years after the Liberals took office. The Auditor General found that, by 2022, the program had run into delays and into cost overruns that increased by 43% before a single benefit had been processed by the system. Reports from Le Journal de Montréal estimate that the once $1.75‑billion IT project meant to modernize old age security payments will cost up to $6.6 billion. I wish I could say that this project was the first of its kind. Unfortunately it is the latest in the long list of Liberal-managed IT projects where costs ballooned, and connected consultants got paid. Members of the House voted to launch an independent inquiry into these projects, such as Phoenix, the arrive scam scandal and now Cúram, to find out how the same pattern of delay is followed by cost overruns and by a big bill for taxpayers to pay, while the people overseeing the projects are not held accountable, and why the middlemen involved walk away, getting paid every time. During the arrive scam scandal, connected consultants working out of a basement apartment took millions of dollars without performing any work. They engineered a bid to build the ArriveCAN app, and they contracted out all the work to others while pocketing the difference. The project was originally projected to cost just $80,000 but ended up costing $64.5 million. The connected insiders kept millions of dollars, and Canadians were left footing the bill for an app that the Auditor General found did not provide value for money. Cúram may not simply cost upwards of $6 billion. Reports from March indicate that tens of thousands of seniors were having issues with their benefits, and delays had reached up to 85,000 people. Members of the Liberal government stood up in the House, after taking questions, and first denied anything was wrong, but then they told members to reach out personally and to not make the issue political. Since when has question period, a time when opposition members ensure accountability by asking questions of the government, become a time when the Liberals continually demonstrate arrogance by suggesting that by pointing out that the Liberals failed to deliver the Cúram program on time or on budget, or that nearly 85,000 seniors could not access their benefits, political opponents are playing politics? That attitude is beneath members of this place. I will ask the minister the question again: Why do Liberal programs always massively exceed their projected costs, and why are seniors forced to pay the price for the Liberals' incompetence?

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Karim Bardeesy

Liberal 6:50 p.m.

“I want to respond to your questions about our IT project. It is old and complicated. Cybersecurity threats are getting worse. That is why the project is going over budget. We are committed to fixing the estimates. We are spending more than $6 billion to modernize old age security, employment insurance, and the Canada pension plan by 2031. The new system is already sending out billions in payments to millions of seniors. We awarded all contracts fairly. I want to thank the hard working public servants for making this happen.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the hon. member for Carlton Trail—Eagle Creek for her concern and her engagement on this, and I want to convey, on behalf of the government, that we do take those questions seriously. I want to address how the system is working at ESDC and issues around the accuracy of payments. I also want to clear up some misinformation surrounding program costs. Let us start at the beginning of this journey. In 2010, the Auditor General noted there was a high risk that in time, the IT infrastructure would not be able to support the delivery of core programs like OAS, EI and CPP, based on systems that were decades old. We knew an upgrade was essential. Since 2017, we have been investing in benefits delivery modernization because Canadians deserve functional, responsive and dependable services. We knew that any interruption to accurate and on-time payments could significantly affect recipients' ability to meet their daily needs, such as buying food or paying rent, needs that are addressed significantly by those supplements and benefits. We also knew that this would be an incredibly complicated task and that doing the job correctly would require significant investment. Between 2017 and March 31 of this year, the federal government spent $1.8 billion on the benefits delivery modernization program. The recently completed old age security on benefits delivery modernization project was delivered as planned and under budget. The total cost, however, has evolved, and that is due to what we now understand and what we are learning about some of the evolving threats and changes in the information technology space. Current estimates have evolved over time as we have gained a greater understanding of the complexity of unravelling 60-year-old systems. The 2023 Office of the Auditor General report acknowledged the department's commitment to revising estimates, as I think is appropriate. The program's long-term estimate of $6.6 billion now covers the completion of four main projects by 2031: the full transformation of benefits delivery for all old age security, employment insurance and Canada pension plan payments, as well as modernizing all of ESDC's call centres. What is different from when the estimates were first generated? Well, the cybersecurity landscape in 2017 was much less complex than it is today. Fraud and cyber-threats have been increasing in speed, scale and sophistication. This impacts the complexity and cost of the modernization. In other words, the threat environment raises the cost of keeping Canadians secure, and we are responding proactively, ultimately to protect the financial health of the program and the interests of Canadian taxpayers. Of the $473.4 million announced in the 2026 spring economic update, $176 million over two years will be used to increase OAS processing capacity and for OAS system maintenance and support. In terms of some of the questions the member has raised regarding the selection of proponents, we are fully transparent and we follow standard practices. Every contract includes clear deliverables. All contracts are competitively awarded and proactively disclosed in accordance with the rules in place. In terms of the beneficiaries, of who is benefiting from this transformation and the hard work that has been done by hard-working public servants and others, 7.4 million old age security clients were migrated to the new platform last year. Each one continued to receive payments as planned. The new system is currently providing 7.7 million seniors with pension benefits every month, many of whom rely on OAS as their primary or only source of income. The system is operating correctly, and 89.6 million payments have been issued with a value of nearly $84.7 billion. The number of clients waiting beyond their first month for payment has declined, and the department continues to ensure that these cases are processed and that clients have access to the benefits to which they are entitled.

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Kelly Block

Conservative 6:55 p.m.

“That's bad. I don't like that. I think its very bad. It cost too much. It didn't help people. Liberals are to blame. They always find someone else to blame. Liberals spend too much. Consultants get paid. Canadians pay the bill.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, the Auditor General did find we needed a new system. That much is true. However, she did not advise the Liberals to manage the program so poorly that 85,000 seniors could not get their benefits in a timely way. The Auditor General certainly did not tell the Liberals to manage the program so poorly that it cost an extra $5 billion. The Liberals want to pretend these failures of Cúram are not their fault. Cúram is yet another example of how Liberal overspending and underdelivering affects everyday Canadians. There is always someone else at fault, and no one is held to account. The pattern is clear, and Canadians see it. Under the Liberals, connected, costly consultants get paid while projects fall further and further behind, running over budget by the billions, and Canadians are left paying the bill.

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Karim Bardeesy

Liberal 6:55 p.m.

“That's too bad some people didn't get payments. We're trying to make it faster. Doing nothing would be even worse. The system was bad before. We're being responsible now. We're fixing it step by step.”

Official Hansard

Mr. Speaker, I want to address the issue of missed payments. Some seniors have waited longer than they should. These delays were operational issues for files largely involving new applications or changes to payments. The department has worked to improve processing times with an OAS action plan implemented to improve service delivery, which has led to a 41% decrease in the inventory of new OAS applications. It is important to compare the question that the hon. member asks with the cost of not acting quickly. If we had not acted quickly, millions of OAS, EI and CPP recipients would have been stuck with an old system that would have potentially led to much worse outcomes for them. We are very proud of the transformation that is happening, which is taking place in a responsible and transparent manner, in a series of well-planned and prudent phases within the appropriated budget.

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