Mr. Speaker, for those who missed the last few seconds, there is a major accountability issue. Honestly, I really wish we had a full hour to discuss this scandal, which is going from bad to worse.
I have two amazing colleagues who are no longer here in the House. One of them was my colleague from Beauport—Limoilou, who sat on the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates, and the other was the member for Terrebonne, who sat on the Standing Committee on Public Accounts. I salute them for the tremendous amount of work they did. I am going to pick up where they left off as a member of the Standing Committee on Government Operations and Estimates.
I have nine minutes left, and I would like to say that I will be sharing my time with my esteemed colleague from Abitibi—Témiscamingue.
I will sum things up. To begin with, of course, there are two parts to the Conservative motion. The first is to get back the money that was stolen, money that was paid for work that was not done. It should come as no surprise to anyone that the Bloc Québécois is very much in favour of that. The second is to impose a lifetime contracting ban on GC Strategies so that none of its subsidiaries can ever do anything again. That makes perfect sense because they defrauded taxpayers.
I have one small point to make before I get into more detail on the 100 days to get the money back. Is 100 days realistic? When we make goals in life, we have to think about whether they are necessary and realistic. One hundred days is unprecedented. It would be quite the feat for the government to be able to that. That being said, it is essential that we recover that money.
We obviously support the Conservatives' motion, but I would like to get to the bottom of things. In the last Parliament, it was quite shocking to see one of the co-owners at the bar trying to defend himself. Ultimately, and I say this to new members, we were a laughingstock. We were a laughingstock because we were shown how easy it is to get around our safety nets, to thwart our efforts to be diligent and to properly manage taxpayers' money. The door is wide open. The oversight is not there.
As the Auditor General reiterated, she did not say that nothing happened. She said that there were so many problems she could not count or corroborate them all, that she had not been able to review the contracts to see what work should have been done. Furthermore, the pandemic was a catch-all excuse. In life, when something as major as that happens, people do what it takes to come up with an effective plan. I am tired of hearing that word. I want to hear about remediation instead.
Today, I want to raise two points. First, we have a new government with powerful aspirations. Whether they materialize is a matter of seeing is believing. That said, we have just been informed that we have an incoming clerk of the Privy Council. I sincerely hope he will listen to all Bloc Québécois members. If there is one party in this House that truly works to ensure accountability and the sound management of public funds, it is the Bloc Québécois. I know what I am talking about. I have filled out my share of grant applications and I have helped people fill out endless reports just to get a few thousands of dollars.
I hope that Mr. Sabia hears this message, because we will be meeting with him at the Standing Committee on Government Operations, where we will have the opportunity to tell him about all the measures that should be put in place. When I hear the new government members saying that they do not want this to happen again, I feel like saying, “Let us talk about this again in a decade.” However, I am a positive person who wants to make a difference. Mr. Sabia has a good track record as an agent of change. The Prime Minister wants to make changes in Canada to make it a country worthy of its name, worthy of the wealth of a G7 country.
We need to begin by closing the loopholes, implementing meaningful accountability measures and recognizing our 350,000 public servants. They are the ones I am talking to. I know many of them. These people are telling me that the government is neglecting them, that it does not recognize their value and that it is always sending them subcontractors who get paid double what they do, when they are perfectly capable of doing the work. They are saying that the government may even be taking them for fools. People have lost confidence in the quality of services. We have people calling us every week. Yesterday, I spoke to a woman who received a letter regarding her guaranteed income supplement. She did not get that money. Six months later, she was told that it was not the right amount. I know that, for individuals, we are talking about maybe a few hundred dollars, but in the case before us today, we are talking about millions of dollars in taxpayer money.
Let us start by cleaning house. Then we can put measures in place to ensure proper oversight. Honestly, when I see the official opposition always looking to tear down and destroy what the government is trying to build and when I see the government doing everything it can to deny, hide and withhold information that Quebeckers and Canadians need to know, I can say that, every time, the Bloc Québécois is the one that manages to get to the bottom of what is happening here, to get to the bottom of the government's corruption and collusion.
I am a businesswoman. I have worked in the community sector, and I have also been a public servant. Networking, referrals, mutual support and awarding contracts among friends are all standard practice, but let us look at the context. When I am doing business, it is my money we are talking about. I am the one who negotiates with contractors and suppliers, and I do so using my own money. What happened in this case is that private sector strategies were used to award contracts paid for with taxpayers' money. That is completely unacceptable. With every action the government takes, with every measure it implements, it has to bear in mind that 40 million Canadians have contributed to the pot.