Today's article on the ArriveCan Scam ---- there has to be something very smelly with this for the Liberals and NDP to be pulling so many blocking moves. Good on Kelly McCauley for pushing this forward in all manners possible.
MP works overtime to expose truth of ArriveCan scandal
Edmonton Sun28 Feb 2024LORNE GUNTER
[email protected] @sunlornegunter
Thank God Edmonton West Conservative MP Kelly McCauley knows a thing or two about parliamentary rules.
His knowledge (and some quick thinking) may yet help Canadians get to the bottom of the ArriveCan scandal.
For months now, the Liberals and their toadies in the New Democratic Party have been using procedural trickery to shut down committee investigations into how development of the ArriveCan app during the pandemic resulted in obscene cost overruns.
The simple smartphone app should have cost between $80,000 and $200,000 but ended up costing taxpayers closer to $60 million.
How did that happen and who benefited? While no one has been charged with any criminal wrongdoing, it is hard to fathom how any project, even one from a federal government as notoriously wasteful as the current one, could go off the rails that much with someone pocketing a little loose change.
Since last fall, the Liberals have been doing their level best to keep a lid on this scandal.
Last October, Calgary Midnapore Conservative MP Stephanie Kusie insisted there was credible evidence that “identity theft, forged resumés, contractual theft, fraudulent billing, price-fixing and collusion” were rampant within the ArriveCan project. Yet she accused the Liberals of using their control of parliamentary committees to keep opposition MPs from hearing testimony by whistleblowers and by the senior civil servants in charge.
Early this year, the Liberals tried to vote down an investigation by the federal auditor general.
When that attempt failed, just before the auditor general released her scathing report earlier this month, the Liberals (with their buddies in the NDP and Bloc Quebecois) voted to shut down a committee investigation into the scandal.
Their excuse? A “scary” report from Canada Border Services Agency investigator, Michel Lafleur.
The three parties voting to obstruct the committee’s work lamely explained they didn’t want parliamentary hearings to jeopardize possible criminal investigations by the RCMP, which Liberal MP Charles Sousa later admitted “may or may not be” occurring.
That’s how not committed the Liberals are to finding the truth.
The RCMP may or may not be looking at criminal charges for some people involved in ArriveCan, but just in case they are, the Liberals think it’s best to shut down parliamentary investigations.
Since the auditor’s report, the Liberals have filibustered committee attempts to call the two principles of GS Strategies to testify.
GS Strategies is the two-person IT firm that was the main contractor for the ArriveCan app.
Which brings us all the way back to McCauley.
McCauley knew the government operations committee had filed a report that called on the House to issue an order compelling GS Strategies partners, Kristian Firth and Darren Anthony, to appear before the committee. Since such orders have the same force as court orders, Firth and Anthony would have to appear or be taken into custody.
Late on Monday afternoon, McCauley seized on the fact the chamber was half empty to call on the House to adopt the committee report.
Members did so unanimously, which also meant they invoked the order for the GS Strategies pair to appear within 21 days or be detained by the Sergeant-at-Arms.
The Liberals may still find a way around McCauley’s manoeuvre.
The order says that, if after 21 days the two have not surrendered themselves, “if the chair of the committee informs the Speaker and Sergeantat-Arms in writing,” the Sergeant-atArms shall take the pair into custody.
McCauley is the committee chair, so he can be counted on. But the Speaker is the overtly Liberal MP Greg Fergus.
Speakers have tremendous power over Commons business and it is not inconceivable that Fergus will attempt to protect the government by quashing McCauley’s order.
For the sake of getting at the truth, let’s hope McCauley prevails.
Article Name:MP works overtime to expose truth of ArriveCan scandal
Publication:Edmonton Sun
Author:LORNE GUNTER
[email protected] @sunlornegunter
Start Page:5
End Page:5