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44th PARLIAMENT, 1st SESSION
EDITED HANSARD • No. 355
CONTENTS
Monday, October 21, 2024
House of Commons Debates
Volume 151
No. 355
1st SESSION
44th PARLIAMENT
OFFICIAL REPORT (HANSARD)
Monday, October 21, 2024
Speaker: The Honourable Greg Fergus
The House met at 11 a.m.
Prayer
[English]
Innovation, Science and Industry
Pursuant to order made on Monday, June 10, it is my duty to table, in both official languages, a letter that I have received from the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel regarding the order for the production of documents from the government, Sustainable Development Technology Canada and the Auditor General of Canada.
Orders of the Day
[Privilege]
[English]
Privilege
Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs
The House resumed from October 11 consideration of the motion, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.
Mr. Speaker, on the Friday before Thanksgiving, I talked about the culture of secrecy and the corruption in the form of conflicts of interest that was obvious right from the very beginning of the Liberal government. In the time I have left, I will talk about the situation we are in right now.
Parliament is paralyzed because the government has refused an order for the production of documents, which was passed by the House some time ago. That is why we are here. The Conservatives are not interested in simply letting debate on this motion collapse so the House can fob this off to a parliamentary committee, where the government and its NDP partners can buy more time, maybe delay a final report or maybe avoid a further vote finding the government once again in contempt of Parliament. The Conservatives want the government to comply with the order. The Conservatives want the government to produce the documents that the House voted for.
The Liberals are stuck in the old debate, which the House has already settled. That debate was whether the House should order that documents be turned over to the RCMP, but that ship has sailed. That question is academic. The House has already voted on that question. The House voted to produce documents, so the government's refusal to do so now is a contempt of Parliament. You, Mr. Speaker, have ruled that this refusal is prima facie evidence of contempt of Parliament, which is why this question is being debated to the exclusion of all business of the House.
I would like to address the two main points the government House Leader and her parliamentary secretary keep making over and over again during debate in the House, to the media outside the House and during question period.
First, government members have repeatedly claimed that the government's contempt for Parliament is somehow justified because the order for the production of documents threatens the charter rights of accused persons and prosecutorial independence, while of course ignoring that it is violating section 3 of the Charter of Rights and Freedoms, which is the guarantor of democracy. This argument is one of the dumbest things I have ever heard in the House of Commons, and in nine years in the House, I have heard some pretty dumb things come from the government. Before addressing that argument, it has to be pointed out that Vice-Admiral Mark Norman and Jody Wilson-Raybould might have something to say about the government's track record on prosecutorial independence, but I do not have time to go into the old scandals. I will deal with the argument that government members have made.
Ordering the production of documents that belong to the Crown in order to give them to another agency of the Crown, the RCMP, has nothing to do with directing prosecutions. Saying so is just plain dumb. Does the order the House has voted for say that the House instructs the RCMP to arrest a particular Liberal insider who took the public's money and gave it to themselves? No, the order does not say that. Does the order direct Crown prosecution services to prosecute somebody in particular, one of the Liberal insiders who, again, took the public's money and voted to give it to themselves? No, it does not direct anybody to do any such thing.
There is nothing in this production order that compels anyone to do anything besides release the documents and provide them to members of the RCMP so they can have evidence that may be potentially relevant to a case that they acknowledge they are already investigating. That is all this order does. It does not say anything about directing law enforcement or Crown prosecutors to do anything, so this bizarre charter argument is complete and total nonsense.
The vigour and enthusiasm with which the government House Leader and her parliamentary secretary advance this argument can only be explained by blind faith in insipid talking points or by functional civic illiteracy. The House of Commons is the embodiment of Canadian democracy, Canada's grand inquisitive body that, on behalf of the people of Canada, who elect members, holds the executive branch, the most powerful people in Canada, to account. It is the will of elected members of Parliament, the will of Canadians, that must be respected.
The second main argument that I have heard from the government, and I am now starting to hear it creep into the other opposition parties propping up the government, is that continuing debate on this motion when all parties have said they will support it is paralyzing the House and preventing it from moving on to other business. However, this argument is a bit too clever. It is victim blaming and it is gaslighting. The Liberals are trying to say of elected members of Parliament that it is their fault for debating the government's corruption, and not the government's fault for refusing an order of the House. When they say this, they are missing the point altogether. Instead of studying contempt of Parliament at a parliamentary committee, the government could end its contempt of Parliament by releasing the documents. It could solve the problem rather than study the problem, and that is why we will continue to debate this motion until the documents are released.
As for the other business of the House, I have no interest in moving on from dealing with this corruption just so the government can introduce more bills and laws that are going to harm Canadians. I am not interested in allowing the government to get over the debate so it can introduce the long-anticipated ways and means motions on a capital gains tax increase that will punish thousands of small business owners in my riding, with few companies receiving the exemption being carved out for other Canadians. I am not interested in that.
I do not want to give the Liberals a chance to increase taxes on Canadians, to further sap the productivity of Canada and to further decrease per capita GDP, as we have observed under the Liberals. I am not interested in the rest of their agenda either. For example, a bill they may want to debate, Bill C-63, would create a new, big bureaucracy without doing anything to address online harms, and would give them a new group of insiders they could appoint to that board.
The only reservation I have about the time that has gone into this debate is that there is another urgent matter. We need to address the other contempt problem we have with the government, wherein the minister from Edmonton was engaging in private business while a minister of the Crown. The evidence could not be more clear on that. His business associate, who was involved in, among other things, shady pandemic profiteering, claimed that there was some other guy named “Randy”, who we are supposed to believe is not the Minister of Employment. We need to get to the bottom of that as well.
There is another solution available: The government, if it thinks that Parliament is paralyzed, that we have other business we need to get to and that Parliament has become dysfunctional, has a remedy. The Liberals could call an election immediately. That is the solution. When Parliament is paralyzed, if they think Parliament is not functioning, they can call an election. That is the beauty of the parliamentary system. The government always has recourse directly to the voters of Canada.
If the Liberals really think the opposition is irresponsible, that other things are more important, that critical parliamentary business is being stymied and that Canadians are on their side with the refusal to comply with an order of elected members of Parliament, they can call an election and let the people of Canada decide.
Mr. Speaker, I want to pick up on the member's reference to the word “dumb”. I will tell him about one of the dumbest things I have heard coming from the leader of the Conservative Party of Canada. This is the leader who refuses to get a security clearance so he can be made aware of foreign interference. We know about the many allegations in regard to his leadership, not to mention what we hear about Conservative parliamentarians, yet the leader of the Conservatives is saying, “So what if I am leader? I do not need a security clearance; I prefer to be dumb.” That is what he is saying about this issue.
Why is the member's leader scared to get a security clearance? Is it because he has something to hide?
Colleagues, I will move on to the answer from the hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge, but I encourage all members not to call into question the courage of members. It is an important aspect of maintaining parliamentary politeness in this place.
The hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge has the floor.
Mr. Speaker, I thank you for that correction and also for correcting that member's unparliamentary behaviour. It was a nice deflection by the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader, which was entirely unrelated to the present debate. He may want to ask himself about the Prime Minister, whom he supports, using a judicial inquiry to make a partisan broadside against the Leader of the Opposition, which is disgraceful.
If the Liberals have nothing to hide, why will they not release the names on that issue and why will they not release the documents on this issue?
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, our Conservative colleagues talk a lot about corruption. One way to combat corruption in politics is to have a system where political parties receive a per-vote subsidy. The Conservatives are the ones who did away with that system.
I would like to hear my colleague's thoughts on that.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am going to stick to questions that are related to the speech I made. That question is not relevant to my debate.
Mr. Speaker, I listened intently to the first part of my colleague's speech the week before last and then his finishing up today. He did a great job summing up the corruption we have seen from across the way. I would like to give the member a little more time to talk about what his constituents are saying when he is out door knocking and about what he has seen in his nine years of being a member of Parliament in the House.
Mr. Speaker, the most common thing I hear when I am door knocking in Calgary is, “When is the election coming, and how soon can it be here so we can get rid of this government so it can stop bringing in policies that harm Canadians, especially western Canadians?”
Mr. Speaker, the member said my question was not necessarily relevant because he did not like it. He feels a little uncomfortable. However, when we are talking about accountability, he is talking about paper production. We are talking about information that the leader of the Conservative Party does not want to hear.
The leader of the Conservative Party wants to be prime minister of a G8 country, yet he does not want to get the security clearance. Canadians have a right to know why he is so scared of getting the security clearance. Does he have something to hide?
Mr. Speaker, the member could perhaps check with the Table and get the orders of the day to understand what we are debating here today, or he could have listened to my speech, and then he could debate the actual motion before the House. It is a tactic, a deflection, and he is very good at that, but I will take the bait and say that the issue he is so fixated on could be solved easily: release the names.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I appreciated your intervention earlier. I felt like we were off to a rough start for a Monday morning. With all due respect, I think that it is soon going to take more than a warning when members get out of hand like that and start saying that others are dumb. This is not the place for that. I needed to say that.
Here is my question for the member about his speech. I find it rather odd that the member told my colleague from La Pointe-de-l'Île that his question was not relevant. We are talking about corruption and about influence on governments. My colleague brought up public funding of political parties. Public funding of political parties is another example of how Quebec is a good 10 to 15 years ahead of everyone else. The Government of Quebec reformed party financing in 2012. Now, contributions are limited. Rationally speaking, who really thinks that ordinary citizens are giving $1,700 to a political party, even if they do get a tax refund? The system needs to be reformed. A per-vote subsidy is a reasonable way to ensure respect for democracy and to limit outside influence.
I would like my colleague to answer the question.
Before moving on to the member's answer, I want to respond to the member for Berthier—Maskinongé.
I appreciate his comments about using parliamentary language. While that word is not forbidden, it is borderline. I heard it from both sides of the House, which is why I wanted to call everyone to order.
The hon. member for Calgary Rocky Ridge.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I am quite certain that my remarks on the record were in order. I do not know if you heard something from other parts of the chamber that was not on the record. You would be the first to tell me if there was anything out of line in that speech. I gave a pretty clear description and debate about the motion at hand in the House of Commons.
It is disappointing that so many other members want to talk about anything other than what we are debating, which is the government's refusal to comply with an order of the House of Commons. If government members want to talk about election financing models, they could use an opposition day in the future for that, if they wish, or we could have some other debate about that, but I am not going to be distracted from this motion by engaging in that issue.
Mr. Speaker, I want to ask my hon. colleague about the seriousness of how, in fact, the Auditor General found over 180 incidents of conflict of interest with the board members at SDTC. The total was $400 million for approximately half of the actual contracts given out by the organization, so it could potentially be even more.
I wonder if the member could speak to the actual seriousness of what we are discussing here today.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Kelowna—Lake Country for what is actually a really intelligent question about the matter at hand. We have had comments about all kinds of other things but that was right to the point.
The House voted for the production of documents because of an Auditor General report, as well as whistle-blower testimony about severe corruption at SDTC, where Liberal insiders voted to give themselves and their companies, which they control and own, the public's money improperly. This is well documented. It is under investigation by the RCMP. That is why this is so serious and that is the reason for the extraordinary step of a production order that was made by the House.
Mr. Speaker, I am disappointed by the member's lack of recognition, so I will ask him for his personal opinion. Does he believe the leader of the Conservative Party should be getting a security clearance, given the fact that every other leader in the House of Commons will? If he does not believe that, will he tell Canadians why the leader of the Conservative Party is scared to get that security clearance?
Mr. Speaker, I am on the record from my time at the defence committee about the need for parliamentarians to have clearances, so that is not the question nor the point here. I do not agree with the member, as the opposition leader has been very clear on this all the way along.
However, every time the member rises in this debate, he is engaging in filibuster. He is filling time to extend the government's words and not advance debate.
Mr. Speaker, I rise today to add my voice to the conversation we are having around the government's breach of privilege and scandal, which is just the latest in a long line of scandals under the Liberal government.
I have a number of points to make in this debate, but I will first say it is unfortunate that we are having to have this debate. It is an important one because the government needs to be held accountable, but it is unfortunate that it is necessary when there are many things the House could and should be dealing with. We have a government that refuses to be accountable, and without accountability, accountability first to this House but, more importantly, as an extension, to Canadians, we do not have a democracy.
Right now, the government refuses to be held accountable. There are a number of examples, and I will raise a few of them in the course of my speech today. This is just the latest in a long line of them and it is incredibly unfortunate that we are having to be here today to try to hold a government accountable on something so basic, without the need for a debate like this one to highlight such a situation.
What we are talking about today relates to what has become known as the green slush fund. The Auditor General of Canada has found that the Liberal government turned what was known as Sustainable Development Technology Canada into a slush fund for Liberal insiders. The board that was set up to hand out these grants gave itself almost 400 million dollars' worth of contracts inappropriately. That was $400 million of Canadian taxpayers' money.
I will pause for just a second. That is a lot of money, $400 million from Canadians who have worked hard. They have packed their lunch, put on their work boots, gone to work and worked hard. Some people back home in my province of Alberta work really long hours. It is back-breaking work, in some cases. These people go to work, in many cases, away from their families because they have to travel up north or to other places to work. They do that because they need to feed and put a roof over the heads of their families. They need to ensure their children have opportunities to be involved in sports or to succeed as they grow, mature and become adults themselves. This $400 million has not gone to feed Canadians' families, to put a roof over their heads, to make sure their kids go to summer camp, play a sport, take dance lessons or art lessons or any of that. The $400 million has gone, in this one case, to make Liberal insiders rich.
I do not think anyone who gets out of bed early in the morning and leaves their family to go to work would say they would not mind a bit of that, or in fact, a whole lot of it in this case, going to Liberal insiders because the Liberal Party wants to buy favour with people and hopefully keep itself in power. I do not think anybody in this country would say they get out of bed in the morning to send their tax dollars to Ottawa so this kind of thing can go on.
That is the kind of accountability we are talking about right now. We are talking about holding a government accountable for the $400 million of hard-earned Canadian taxpayer dollars that are sent to Ottawa so that those guys over there, the Liberal government, can send them out to their friends and make them rich. That is what we are talking about today, and that is pretty sad. We would never even be needing to have a conversation like this if that government had just a bit of basic accountability, but this is not something people have come to expect from the Liberal government. It is why it is time for the government to go. It is why it is time for it to be replaced.
An hon. member: Time's up.
Mr. Blake Richards: Exactly, the time is up for those guys, and Canadians know it.
Mr. Speaker, the only thing that is standing in the way of that is an election. As soon as that happens, the Liberal government will be gone, because the Liberals have failed to show any basic accountability.
This is almost $400 million of hard-earned Canadian taxpayer dollars. The Auditor General had a look at all of this and found that $58 million went to 10 different projects that were completely ineligible. There was no ability on any of those occasions to demonstrate any environmental benefit or any development of green technology, and it was supposed about that.
Let us think about that for a second: 10 different projects received $58 million but did not meet the criteria for which the money was intended. They did not provide any environmental benefit. They did not develop any green technology. One would say that it almost looks like that money was stolen. There was no benefit based on the criteria of the program; for all intents and purposes, $58 million of Canadian taxpayer money stolen.
Then there were 186 projects, worth about $334 million, where at least one of the board members had a conflict of interest.
An hon. member: What, 186? Shocking.
Mr. Blake Richards: There were 186 projects where there was a conflict of interest by one of the board members.
Mr. Speaker, another $58 million went to projects where the board did not ensure the contribution agreement terms were met. Let me put it this way. This is either the most egregious case of incompetence we have ever seen or it is the complete theft of taxpayer money. It might be both, in fact. However, it is staggering to imagine the magnitude of this and the number of instances where there are conflicts of interest or outright complete ignorance of the rules. It is staggering. The amount of money is also staggering.
The Auditor General has made it very clear that the blame lies with the Liberal government, particularly with the industry minister, because they did not monitor this. Either they did not monitor it, or maybe they were okay with what was happening. I do not know. I suppose that is part of what we need to determine.
At the end of the day, this money, this nearly $400 million of Canadian taxpayer money, was given to Liberal insiders. In order to try to get to the bottom of all of this, there is a need for the information being requested to be provided to the RCMP. For some reason, and I think we can all imagine what that reason might be, the Liberal government does not want to provide that information.
I can imagine the Liberal government does not like being held accountable, and we have many examples of that. I will get into a few of those examples, because this is a pattern, and I want to show and establish that pattern. This is a government that tends to do these kinds of things. It interferes or allows things like this to occur, and its friends get rich. This is a pattern. Then when there is any effort at trying to hold it accountable for what has gone on, it does everything it can to prevent being held accountable.
Let me speak to a couple of examples where we can see this pattern, and this is the latest example in that pattern. The most well-known of those examples was the SNC-Lavalin affair. Everyone in Canada is aware of that one. They are all aware of what happened with Jody Wilson-Raybould, when the Prime Minister tried to pressure her to be inappropriately involved in her role as the attorney general.
She stood on her principle and refused to do that, despite immense pressure from the Prime Minister . What did he do? He fired her because she refused to interfere inappropriately in an investigation. She knew it was wrong and the Prime Minister did not care. He wanted her to do it anyway. Essentially that is what happened. She refused, despite all the pressure she received from the Prime Minister of our country. For that, she lost her job.
To give a little more context, a Liberal-connected firm faced charges of fraud and corruption related to payments made to Libyan officials. In this situation, again, the Prime Minister interfered to help out his friends. It was found, in this case, that he violated the Conflict of Interest Act, which is not the only time this happened. Where this becomes really germane, is that we discovered later on, I believe it was last year, that the reason the RCMP was unable to pursue a criminal investigation was because the Prime Minister refused to provide the information that was necessary.
We see this pattern of a government that refuses, when it is caught red-handed, to provide the accountability, the documents, in this case, that are needed to properly investigate it.
I can give another example of that type of scenario, and there are many of them. In fact, almost every week there seems to be a new one. There is the scandal around the Winnipeg national microbiology lab. The situation was so bad that the government was ordered to provide documents and a former Speaker was sued by his own government because it was trying to find a way to not provide that information.
It sounds so ridiculous that it is almost hard to believe it is true, but that is the kind of thing we are seeing. That is one of those examples. The government wanted so badly to hide this information that it sued the Speaker of the House of Commons, one of its own members of Parliament. It is astounding.
I want to focus a little more on one, with respect to these examples, because it is one of the files I am tasked with shadowing the government on, and that is Veterans Affairs. There are many examples like this one, but it is one I am very intimately familiar with because of how much effort I and other Conservative members of the Veterans Affairs committee have put into trying to see addressed. It is the controversy and scandal around the national monument to the mission in Afghanistan.
Let me give a bit of context on this. This was obviously a monument to a mission that ended more than a decade ago. The previous Conservative government announced that it would be built. In the nine years since the Liberal government has been in power, it has somehow found a way to ensure that this has not been built.
In my opinion, and, I think, in the opinion of many Canadians, it is an incredible slap in the face to those who served in that mission, those who gave their lives serving our country in that mission and the families of those fallen. It is another extreme example of the government: first, showing complete incompetence; and, second, trying to avoid accountability. Essentially, what happened was it set up a jury to determine what the monument design should be. This was after taking years to get to that point. I do not know how something so important could not be a priority for a government, for any government, frankly, but it was not, for whatever reason, and the government will have to answer to veterans for that.
The government did set up this jury process. This is an internationally recognized process. The jury selected the monument that it believed best fit the criteria. In about a year-and-a-half period after that, we had enough information that the Prime Minister and his office interfered in the process to try to change the result. Eventually, it culminated in an announcement of a different design than what was agreed to by the jury. This is the first time that anyone can recall in the history of these types of processes across the world, that the selection has been disregarded by a government.
No real explanation was given. To this day, we still do not know why the Prime Minister interfered in this. The reason why this is so relevant is because it is another example where, over the course of months, the veterans affairs committee has been trying to get the release of documentation that would indicate what exactly occurred in that year and a half when the Prime Minister was interfering. Why did he interfere? The fact that the government will not tell us that there was a good reason probably indicates that it is not something good and that it is trying its best to cover that up. That is the only thing we can conclude from all of that.
It is another example of a government that is doing everything it possibly can to avoid releasing some documents that would allow it to be held accountable for its actions; in this case, actions that dishonour the memory of Canadians who gave their lives in service to our country. It is bad enough that $400 million of hard-earned taxpayer money was given away to Liberal insiders, but it is far worse that the Liberal government has dishonoured the memory of Canadians who gave their lives in service to our country. Imagine how their families must feel, knowing that it has done that. That is just insult to injury. To then try to be not held accountable for that kind of action is really disgraceful.
This is a pattern, and I could go on and on because there are so many other examples of a government that just does not want to be held accountable. When we have a government that refuses to be accountable, we know the situation. We know that this is a government that has reached a point where it is almost corruption, and I think that all Canadians would agree. It is not “almost”; it is corruption, frankly. Canadians want to see it held accountable and they want to see an election so they can do just that.
Mr. Speaker, the only prime minister in Canada's history, let alone that of the British Commonwealth, to be held in contempt of Parliament was Stephen Harper. The greatest advocate for Stephen Harper at that time was none other than the leader of the Conservative Party. Is there any surprise there?
The leader of the Conservative Party now says that he does not need to have security clearance and that, at the end of the day, he would prefer to be naive about foreign interference as opposed to understanding the issue. What is in the past history of the current leader of the Conservative Party that disallows him from being able to get his security clearance?
Can the member opposite share with Canadians what Pierre Poilievre, or the Conservative leader, is hiding that prevents him from getting security clearance?
I see that the member quickly caught himself. I remind all members to be very careful. When there is a current member of the House, out of respect, we use their riding name or title they hold.
The hon. member for Banff—Airdrie.
Mr. Speaker, as is most of what the member says in the House, that is complete hogwash. The Leader of the Opposition has security clearance. He is a member of the Privy Council of Canada. He has had security clearance since he was sworn in as a minister of the Crown.
Having said that, as the Leader of the Opposition, his job is to hold the government to account. In this situation, the government is trying to find a way to silence him. That is why it wants him to have a briefing where he cannot disclose the information. The Conservative leader has said very clearly that the government should release the names of anyone involved; however, as always, the government refuses to be accountable and to do just that. I say shame on the government.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
I know all members have had the opportunity to have a restful break and come back to the House with lots of enthusiasm, but I am going to ask the hon. member for Waterloo not to take the floor unless recognized by the Speaker, so there is not a back and forth between members.
[Translation]
The hon. member for Rivière‑des‑Mille‑Îles.
Mr. Speaker, there is clearly a lot to unravel in the SDTC file. There is likely some fraud, embezzlement and so on involved, but I would like to ask our Conservative colleague a question.
Some people have resigned, including a prestigious business leader, Annette Verschuren. Her companies received a lot of money and, interestingly enough, she was Stephen Harper's economic adviser from 2008 to 2015.
It is easy to blame the government. The Conservatives are right and we are correct to blame the government for this situation. However, can our Conservative friends do a little navel-gazing and give us some background on Ms. Verschuren?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, today, we are talking about a situation in which there was a green slush fund. It looks as though it was probably created for that purpose. We had an issue with almost $400 million in taxpayers' money. As I indicated during my speech, 10 of the projects were completely ineligible. In another 186 cases, there were conflicts of interest with members on the board, and that is what we are talking about. We have $400 million in Canadian taxpayers' money that went to Liberal insiders inappropriately, and that is something that we are trying to hold the government to account for. All members of the House should be trying to drive toward that today.
Mr. Speaker, we have been sitting here listening to the member for Winnipeg North spread misinformation relating to whether the leader of the official opposition should have security clearance. The reality is that information in this country is overclassified, and things that should be declassified should be made—
Mr. Speaker, the member is very clearly, according to Beauchesne's, impugning my motives by saying that I am spreading misinformation. Everything I said was factual.
I thank the hon. member for raising this point. There is a lot of lively debate going on in the House, and the Chair will monitor it very carefully. I would encourage all members to be judicious in their choice of words.
The hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.
Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg North continually stands up and filibusters for the government. This comes down to the information we are debating, which is the release of documents. The government refuses to hand them over to the House and the RCMP to ensure that Canadians can see exactly what is going on. We also know that he keeps raising this false pretense that the member for Nepean has all the information they need.
I would say this: The information is overclassified. Why does the government not declassify it? What are the Liberals trying to hide?
Mr. Speaker, that is a great question. There is no doubt about that.
The answer is a bit more difficult. The reason it is so difficult is that, as with many of the examples I gave during my speech, we have a government that refuses to be held to account. It refuses to provide basic information that would allow it to be accountable for its actions, in this case, for giving out $400 million in Canadian taxpayer money to the government members' friends. I suspect the only reason the members do not want to release the names and the information is that they know it would be damning to the government. It would be held to account, and its members would be fired in the next election.
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour and a privilege to rise on behalf of the constituents of the riding of Waterloo, especially when it comes to the important information we are hearing.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Speaker, when you hear clear heckles and know who they are from, you will not call them out by name according to their ridings; you have no problem naming me by my riding, because there is such a shortage of women in this place. That is a double standard of this place that has always been alive and well, so I appreciate that it continues.
My question, though it might be difficult for the member, is a genuine question. It is on the question of privilege—
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to point to the comment that the Liberal member opposite was making about heckling. I have been sitting here listening to her heckle continually for the last 15 minutes. About every 20 seconds, she decides to heckle something. Here she is supposedly calling out members when she is the biggest offender this morning.
Mr. Speaker, we can see who is in the House and will not say who is not in the House, because we do not do that. However, I think it was quite clear when I received the floor as you provided it to me, Mr. Speaker, that we heard other people trying to take space and that you knew who it was. That was the point I was making.
Mr. Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The member opposite made reference to people not being in this chamber, particularly women. I believe that, if we did a count, which we will not, we would have just as many if not more women than men in the chamber.
I am just going to stop the hon. member there.
The hon. member for Waterloo very carefully and artfully pointed out the people who are present. She made a specific point of not referring to people who are absent.
I am going to let the hon. member for Waterloo briefly pose her question.
Mr. Speaker, I am sure the time was paused during the points of order.
In the member's speech, he referred to former members, including a former minister of justice. I recall, when I was the government House leader, how disrespectful the official opposition was towards that member. During that time, we also had another indigenous MP who served in this place and who spoke quite eloquently, when they were leaving this chamber, as to why they were leaving, because it was so isolating. Today, the member speaks to the government's responsibility but does not want to take any responsibility as part of an official opposition that was quite disrespectful.
I believe everyone supports this question of privilege. Does the member know of any member or any party that is opposed to it? Why not call the question so that we could actually get to the work that this question of privilege is asking for?
Mr. Speaker, this is much like the heckles that the member imagined. She imagines a lot of things.
At the end of the day, we are talking about $400 million of Canadian taxpayers' hard-earned money that was essentially stolen. Canadian taxpayers worked hard to earn this money, and it was taken and given to Liberal insiders. We are trying to hold the government to account.
I actually do not know what the member was referring to. However, to try to deflect and take attention away from that issue by raising something else is to be complicit in that corruption.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I am going to stray from the formula that has been playing out for the last few minutes and ask a question that has to do with the subject at hand. Actually, I will take up the question asked by my colleague opposite, which was indeed relevant, but I will add a few details.
This is not the first Liberal scandal we have seen. We all remember WE Charity. We remember ArriveCAN. It seems to be a common technique. Everyone in the House agrees that these documents should be produced.
Could my colleague tell us when we will be ready to vote on this to force the government to produce these documents?
Mr. Speaker, I agree with the member that the Liberal government has far too often shirked its obligation to be accountable to Canadian taxpayers for money that so many Canadians have worked so hard for. The government is not accountable.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise on behalf of my constituents in Calgary Confederation, and I would like to speak to the matter before the House.
As many are already aware, we find ourselves debating an issue of great concern as you, Mr. Speaker, have found this Liberal government in contempt of the House for its failure to produce documents, specifically unredacted documents related to the Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC, fund, which is a program widely known as the green slush fund. The Liberals' failure to produce unredacted documents is because of this Liberal government's mismanagement.
The green slush fund has been accused of giving grants to start-up businesses and developing accelerators with strong ties to senior management in this Liberal government, in violation of ethical behaviour. This is very concerning to us on the Conservative side of the House and obviously needs to be investigated to determine the facts and the appropriate course of action.
Of course, we are deeply concerned to hear about the damning facts from the Auditor General that would lead us all to believe that there may be some Liberal insiders who are lining their pockets with taxpayer dollars, while Canadians across this country are struggling to make ends meet. As I mentioned, the green slush fund management has been accused of giving questionable business grants to those with ties to senior management in the Liberal government. I stress, once again, that this needs to be properly investigated.
The Prime Minister's hand-picked chair of the green tech slush fund, Annette Verschuren, a long-time friend of the PM, siphoned $217,000 of taxpayer dollars from this green slush fund into her own company. The Ethics Commissioner also found that Ms. Verschuren broke the law by her actions of improperly furthering her private interests, and the interests of other companies she is associated with, by failing to recuse herself from the board's funding decisions. Ultimately, she ended up resigning. As members know, she resigned last year after she became the subject of this ethics investigation. On top of this, another Prime Minister-appointed green slush fund board member also broke ethics laws.
Now, Canadians deserve to have these green slush fund documents properly and thoroughly examined to determine who committed the wrongdoings and at whose direction. We know from the Auditor General that the wrongdoing discovered has not been appropriately addressed by this Liberal government; we know, because officials confirmed that there has been no action taken after proven gross mismanagement and conflicts of interest were found at the hands of this Liberal billion-dollar green slush fund.
I have listened to the Liberals over the past weeks on this issue trying to whitewash what is going on here. Instead of transparency and clarity, we have been met with silence, deflection and refusal to release all of the findings. What are they hiding?
It is important to remind Canadians of what we know, and what we know comes directly from the Auditor General. Canadians have deep respect for the independent Office of the Auditor General and the work it does daily to uncover mismanagement in this Liberal government.
I used to serve on the Standing Committee of Public Accounts, and the Auditor General, Karen Hogan, would regularly come to the meetings to report on the many files that her office forensically investigated. Each and every time, she provided valuable, objective, fact-based information and she gave expert advice on the findings.
The office is incredibly thorough in the audit work that it does to uncover any irregularities in the accounting and procedural practices of government programs. I was always highly impressed with the quality of work that she and her staff did while I served on the public accounts committee.
The Auditor General did look into the green slush fund and her findings were shocking. She and her office found the fund violated its conflict of interest policies 90 times. The fund awarded $59 million to 10 projects that were ineligible and the managers of these projects frequently overstated the required environmental benefits of their projects. The report from the Auditor General says things like, “Overall, we found significant lapses in Sustainable Development Technology Canada’s governance and stewardship of public funds.” The report also said that “ Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada did not sufficiently monitor the compliance with the contribution agreements between the foundation and the Government of Canada.” There is more from the Auditor General. The report also said, “We found that the foundation awarded funding to projects that were ineligible, that conflicts of interest existed in some instances, and that certain requirements in the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act were not met.”
It does not stop there. The report also says, “We found that the foundation awarded funding to 10 ineligible projects of 58 we examined. These 10 projects were awarded $59 million even though they did not meet key requirements set out in the contribution agreements between the government and the foundation.” There were 10 projects of the 58 that the Auditor General examined. We can imagine what would have been uncovered if all 58 projects had been examined by the Auditor General.
The Auditor General dropped another bombshell when she said in the report, “In addition, we estimated that 1 in 10 of the remaining Start‑up and Scale‑up projects approved during our audit period were also ineligible.” It is unbelievable that 10% of the projects were estimated to be ineligible. Who is lining whose pockets with this type of behaviour? We have good reason to be suspicious of those involved at the highest level because of what the Auditor General has discovered.
Let me go on with the report. It also said in the report, “...we found 90 cases that were connected to approval decisions, representing nearly $76 million in funding awarded to projects, where the foundation’s conflict-of-interest policies were not followed.” Therefore, it is no wonder that the Liberals are not keen to have anyone review these documents.
We also know from the Auditor General that attempts were made to keep the dirty circle of secrets as small as possible. The AG revealed that “The act requires that the foundation have a member council of 15 members.” That is 15 members to play an important role in representing Canadian taxpayers to oversee the ethical functioning of the foundation, while the green slush fund board of directors supported reducing that number from 15 down to two members. Why would directors of a $1-billion slush fund want to keep their circle so small, down to two members? Inquiring minds want to know. It is likely because they know it would be easier to get away with their dirty secrets if fewer people knew. We will only know if the proper investigation takes place and that is why the RCMP needs to have access to all the documents in an unredacted form.
I want to also mention a few other key findings from the Auditor General. The report states the fund's board approved 226 start-up, scale-up and ecosystem projects to receive $836 million. Of those projects, eight, totalling $51 million, did not meet eligibility criteria. For example, some projects “did not support the development or demonstration of a new technology, or their projected environmental benefits were unreasonable.”
It also says in the AG report that the AG estimated that one in 10 of the remaining 168 start-up and scale-up projects approved during the audit period, or 16 projects in total, were ineligible. Totalling $8 million, two ecosystem projects were ineligible, because “they did not fund or support the development or demonstration of a new technology”, and the board approved $20 million for seed projects without completing screening and assessments required by the contribution agreements with the government.
This is unbelievable, yet it is true. How can these Liberal members opposite find the gall to stand up here daily and suggest that this matter is not worthy of a full investigation? How can they look at themselves in the mirror and say that? This is troubling. The lack of transparency, accountability and integrity from the Liberal government is an issue that strikes at the very core of how we as Canadians expect our government to operate.
What was the incentive to break so many rules and who benefited? Who provided the direction to allow for so much of this mismanagement? We know that when people break rules, it is always for their personal gain at the expense of the greater good. Why would we expect this case to be any different and where has the Liberal Minister of Innovation, Science and Industry been all along? I can say he has likely been sleeping on the job here, and he must follow his green slush fund chairperson, Ms. Verschuren, in her steps and resign.
Canadians will remember the corruption of this Liberal government come the next election. I guarantee it. This Liberal government members are in full damage control right now in a desperate attempt to save their parliamentary jobs. It is no wonder the Liberals do not want to let Canadians anywhere near ballot box, because they know Canadians are itching to get rid of them. This is why we need an election now to let Canadians decide.
Canadians are paying attention to this. While they are struggling, this Liberal government ignores their plight. The real income of Canadians has plummeted to a level not seen in almost a decade. Paycheques are just not as powerful as they used to be. Canadians are falling behind as the cost of living increases faster than the ability of their paycheques to keep up. The dependency of Canadians on food banks is growing exponentially and shows no sign of slowing down. It is frankly shocking and deeply unsettling that people who have decent jobs are unable to put enough food on the table in a country like Canada.
We know housing in Canada is out of reach for basically anyone who does not already have a home. The price of housing, including rent, continues to outpace wages. Folks work harder and fall further behind. How is that right in a country like Canada? Canada's fastest-growing housing type is a tent. Tent cities, a phenomenon not really ever seen in Canada, are now a part of every city and even many towns. People just cannot afford to eat, heat or house themselves in Canada today. How desperate must life be, when one lives in a tent in the winter here in Canada? That is why Canadians are so concerned and why they are so angered when they hear of Liberals lining their pockets.
Canadians know that the government is beyond repair and that it is time for an election. However, any election should not and will not eliminate our calls for accountability when it comes to the slush fund. We will get to the truth of the matter. We owe it to Canadians to pursue the facts and to hold the people responsible for the mismanagement accountable. If there is criminality, we owe it to Canadians to pursue charges against the people involved.
Millions of Canadians are struggling to pay rent, pay their mortgage, put food on their table and put gas in their car. Nonetheless, they go to work every day and they pay their taxes. We need to make sure we treat those hard-working Canadians with utmost respect. Every tax dollar is a missed meal, a missed night out, a new pair of jeans or a visit to a sick relative. Taxes are essential for our society, but they come with a cost to the individual. We need to ensure that if we are going to deprive Canadians of a home of their own, a haircut or a new book, we do it with the utmost necessity and spend the money as if it were our own.
I can assure the House that not a single member opposite mismanages their personal finances at a level that the Liberals do when it comes to our money, the money of Canadian taxpayers. I am just astounded that the Liberal MPs opposite continue to defend and support their party leader and the disgusting behaviour of their governance. What will their children and grandchildren think of them when the truth finally gets out? It will get out.
The Speaker, of all people, knows how important it is that Canadians have faith in and respect for our institutions. That faith and respect come when people see that our institutions are functioning as intended, rules are being followed and individuals are not personally enriching themselves with tax dollars.
To restore faith in Parliament, faith in government, we need to ensure that a proper investigation is done, which is possible only when the RCMP has everything it needs to do a proper review. Therefore the Liberal government must release the documents now.
Moving forward, there are steps to rebuilding trust and accountability. The Auditor General's report is not just criticism but also a call to action. We need to take the following steps to address the issue. First of all, the minister needs to resign. Second, the new minister needs to implement four things. They need to strengthen the oversight mechanism; this is essential. We need clear, robust guidelines for the allocation of funds, with a transparent review process to ensure that projects that meet strict environmental criteria receive support. We also need regular audits by the Auditor General to monitor how funds are being used. We need a commitment to true sustainability; we must focus on the original purpose of the fund's investing in projects that generally contribute to a cleaner, greener future. We need public engagement; the public deserves to know how its money is being spent.
In conclusion, the green slush fund was intended to be a catalyst for positive environmental change; instead, it has been a disappointing fiasco. It is imperative that we address the issues head-on and reaffirm our commitment to transparency, accountability and sustainability.
Mr. Speaker, when I look at the issue we are debating today and reflect on it a bit, I would suggest that the Conservative Party needs to go back and look at the only prime minister to date to have been held in contempt of Parliament, who is Stephen Harper. Guess who the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister was at the time. It was none other than the leader of the Conservative Party today, the great defender of that contempt of Parliament.
Now the leader of the Conservative Party feels that he does not need to get a security clearance so he can be informed on foreign international interference, a concern Canadians have. I am looking to members opposite, any Conservative, to stand in their place and tell us why their leader will not get a security clearance so he can be informed like every other leader of the House. What is he hiding? What is in his past that Conservatives are not sharing with Canadians?
Mr. Speaker, the question is a nice deflection again on the issue. The member continually asks the same question to deflect from the relevant issue at hand and being debated today: severe corruption at the SDTC, which has been well documented by the Auditor General and by whistle-blowers. It is very serious, and we need to uncover the facts of the matter. The unredacted documents need to be released to the RCMP for a full investigation. What are the Liberals trying to hide?
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, since my Conservative colleague wants to get to the bottom of things, I would like to ask him a question.
He mentioned Annette Verschuren, who he linked to the Liberal Party. Ms. Verschuren did receive considerable funding. She was an economic adviser to Stephen Harper from 2008 to 2015.
Does he realize that?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, the chair of the green slush fund, Ms. Verschuren, resigned from the fund because of the Ethics Commissioner's investigation on her, which is what the minister should also do. He should resign and release the documents. That is the issue at hand.
The debate today, which has been going on for the last however many weeks, is about there being severe corruption; it is documented. The Auditor General has made it clear. In my speech, I went through many of the items in her report: severe, serious infractions by the fund development group. We need the unredacted documents to be released to the RCMP; that is the point. Why are the Liberals trying to hide them?
Mr. Speaker, the member is my brother's member of Parliament.
Like the member, I have been in the House for many days of debate on the issue, but we are at the stage where we are not hearing anything new. I can summarize the last two weeks: The Liberals and Conservatives have been pointing fingers at each other, saying that each party was worse in government. The fact is that each of these parties is guilty of major scandals and of having withheld documents. They do not shine in the debate. One is actually as bad as the other.
Let us get to what is going on in the House right now. The Conservatives are filibustering their own motion. The House of Commons costs about $70,000 an hour to run. That is a lot of money being burned up right now, and we are doing absolutely nothing.
Like the member, I want to get to the bottom of this. I would love to see the documents, but as long as we are talking this through, we cannot get to the action part. If I were a judge in a case such as this, I would be asking counsel to make their closing arguments. When are we going to get to that stage? When are we going to get to the part where the House can actually take action, vote and proceed to the next question of privilege, which is about calling an individual before the bar to be admonished and to allow the House to ask questions of that individual?
Mr. Speaker, I hope I meet the member's brother one day in my riding, as I door-knock daily when I am in Calgary. Maybe he can let me know where his brother lives. I can knock on his door and perhaps convince him to support the Conservative Party.
There is a way to end the current debate and move on in the House of Commons, and that is for the Liberal government to release all unredacted documents to the RCMP so there can be a full and clear study of what has been going on at the SDTC. That is what will end the debate.
Mr. Speaker, the member and I both come from provinces where protecting our environment is top of mind and crucial because of the makeup of our provinces. The government insists that its members are the ones who care about the environment; however, there is a fund specifically set up to help with that, and the tax dollars the government is collecting, in carbon tax supposedly, are being abused in this circumstance.
Could the member please comment on that?
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is completely right. Canadians have been paying hundreds of millions of dollars into the carbon tax to go to funds like the SDTC fund for the government to allocate to businesses. What do we hear? We hear that the businesses in question are not even eligible; they are businesses that have close ties to the Liberal government. It is a shame.
Mr. Speaker, I would remind our colleagues from the NDP, with the finger pointing back and forth, not to forget who has propped up the government through the corruption and scandals for the last four and a half years. They are just as guilty as those across the way.
Our hon. colleague gave a great speech summarizing the corruption over the last nine years and what we are dealing with here today. We are talking about over $400 million of taxpayers' funds where the Auditor General found potential criminality and 186 points of conflicts of interest, where the chair and Liberal appointees siphoned the $480 million. They essentially stole it.
I want to ask our hon. colleague this, because the Liberals are essentially asking us to let the issue go to committee: If somebody steals from him, does he go to a committee or to the RCMP?
Mr. Speaker, my hon. colleague summarized very clearly what has been going on. If somebody steals from me, whom do I go to? I go to the police. I don't go to some neighbour to figure out how to get my money back. This is where we are going here. We want the documents released to the RCMP so it can have a clear investigation and prosecute whoever has to be prosecuted.
Mr. Speaker, in this situation, the leader of the Conservative Party says, “I want more information. I want to see the unredacted information.” On the other hand, when it comes to foreign interference, an issue that Canadians are deeply concerned about, he does not want to get his security clearance.
What does Wesley Wark, who advised the Liberal and Conservative governments on national security, have to say? He says that the Tory leader “is ‘playing with Canadians’ by refusing to get a top-level security clearance and receive classified briefings on foreign interference.”
The leader of the Conservative Party wants it both ways. Why is he choosing to play games with Canadians? What is it in his past that Canadians should be aware of that would prevent him from getting the security clearance?
Mr. Speaker, 30 seconds is just not enough time to answer the question. Also, it is not the issue at hand right now. It is not relevant to the debate we are having here today. There is severe corruption at the SDTC. It is well documented and very serious. We need the unredacted documents released to the RCMP.
Why will the government not release the documents to the RCMP? What are its members trying to hide?
Before going to the next speaker, I just want to wish my dad a very happy birthday.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Saskatoon West.
Mr. Speaker, I wish a happy birthday to your father. I am sure he is excited to watch the proceedings here every day.
Unfortunately, for me, this is not a happy occasion to be speaking in the House of Commons. It is my job to represent the electorate of Saskatoon West, to do things in their best interest and to put forward a positive vision of our great country.
I can say to the people back home in Saskatoon that the Conservative Party has a positive vision for this country, for Canada. We have a plan that will axe the tax, build the homes, fix the budget and stop the crime. Conservatives, led by our leader, will fix what this costly NDP-Liberal coalition has broken. They do not have to worry. I will speak to the hopeful optimism that the leader of the Conservative Party is bringing to Canadians.
Like I said, today is not a good day, and it is because, instead of being able to speak to the great things Conservatives would do for Canadians, we are once again stuck here in the quagmire of an NDP-Liberal scandal. With another NDP-Liberal scandal, I can imagine people flipping the switch and tuning out right now. Canadians have heard this record on repeat for 10 years. Actually, it has been much longer than that. It goes back even further. At this point, Canadians are quite jaded to the graft corruption and outright illegality of the Prime Minister and his cronies.
Before us today is a simple issue: The House asked the government to provide documents related to the green slush fund to the RCMP because we are suspicious that the Liberals have been taking taxpayers' money and giving it to their friends and supporters. The government provided some documents but decided to black out much of the relevant data.
The Speaker's office ruled that the Liberals were wrong and had violated the rules of the House, so now the Liberals would rather gridlock Parliament than provide the blacked out information. There must be some nasty surprises lurking in those documents. I also want to remind everyone in the House that the Liberals could end their filibuster of Parliament by simply releasing the documents, but they seem to want to fight this one to the end. Again, I am curious to know what they are hiding.
This is history on repeat to many folks. It certainly is to me. I stand here in the House of Commons as a Conservative member of Parliament, but I must say that I have not always been partisan. Most of my adult life, I did my civic duty, just like most Canadians. I would look at the candidates running for election and then mark my ballot. I would pick my MP based on the leader who I thought would make the best prime minister, the party that had the best policy items and the local candidate who would best represent me in the House. Then I would go home and repeat that process four years later. That was it.
Then, the 1990s occurred, and the Liberal government members at that time did what they always did, which was to become arrogant and out of touch. It is so important to understand that Liberals behave a certain way. Just like the prior Liberal government collapsed in a pile of corruption, it appears that the current Liberal government is moving the same way, this time helped by the NDP. Twenty-five years ago, the Liberal corruption was a billion dollars wasted on a long-gun registry that was useless and ineffective; Jean Chrétien using his influence as the then prime minister to ensure that money flowed to a hotel owner in his riding, in a scandal known as Shawinigate; the billion-dollar boondoggle; and the even more staggering sponsorship scandal. These are the Liberal corruption scandals that convinced me that it was time to stop just marking my ballot and to take a keen interest in the workings of our government.
It appears that here again we have a story of Liberal corruption, but it is important to put it in context. One of the most egregious examples of Liberal mismanagement in our nation's history, the billion-dollar boondoggle, occurred in the 1990s under the Liberal government of Jean Chrétien. It was not a small oversight or an isolated mistake. It was systemic incompetence that cost Canadians over a billion dollars, money that was supposed to be used to create jobs and help hard-working families.
At the heart of that scandal was Human Resources Development Canada. An internal audit revealed that over a billion dollars in grants had been handed out without proper paperwork, oversight or accountability. Grant applications were incomplete or non-existent, and approvals were given based on politics, not on the quality of the application. Essentially, public money was being given out to Liberal insiders and supporters as a reward, the kind of corruption we expect to see in a third-world dictatorship, not in Canada. That was my introduction to the Liberal Party, the first time I really paid attention to politics. Billions of dollars had been funnelled into pet projects, wasted with no oversight and with no one held responsible. Canadians were promised better job opportunities and stronger communities. What did they get? A scandal that reeked of corruption and incompetence, with taxpayers left holding the bag.
Soon after came another dark chapter in our country's history of Liberal corruption, which was the infamous sponsorship scandal, also known as ad scam. This scandal represents one of the clearest examples of why Canadians can never trust the Liberal Party to responsibly handle their hard-earned taxpayer dollars.
In the early 2000s, an investigation revealed that, under the Chrétien Liberal government, millions of dollars were funnelled into a corrupt scheme under the guise of a national unity program. This sponsorship program, supposedly designed to promote Canadian unity in Quebec, became nothing more than a cash machine for Liberal-friendly ad firms and well-connected insiders. Public money was funnelled through advertising agencies that had close ties to the Liberal Party.
These companies received millions for doing next to nothing, and then conveniently donated a portion of that money back to the Liberal Party. This was a government caught red-handed using taxpayers' money to grease the palms of its political friends while Canadians were left paying the bills. Fortunately, Canadians saw through this and elected a Conservative government to clean up the mess. Does this sound familiar?
We know the importance of fiscal responsibility and transparency. That is why we are committed to fixing the damage caused by these corrupt and wasteful practices. Billion-dollar boondoggles and sponsorship scandals are what happens when the Liberals are in charge. There is waste, fraud and scandal. Let me remind the House that this is the same Liberal Party that continues to throw around billions in unchecked spending, all while raising taxes on the very people we are supposed to serve.
Conservative governments believe in fiscal responsibility, transparency and in being careful stewards of the hard-earned tax dollars of Canadians. We will not tolerate waste and mismanagement. It is time to axe the tax, fix the budget and put an end to the reckless spending habits of the Liberal government once and for all.
Sometimes we forget the impact the decisions made in the House have on Canadian people. The waste and graft that occurs through the Liberal mismanagement of public dollars impacts people in a very real way. Last week when I was home, I was reminded of this when I met somebody that has been impacted by this.
Stan Holcomb, born near Viscount, Saskatchewan, overcame the loss of his left leg to become an exceptional athlete and prosthetist. Raised on a family farm, he thrived in sports, learning to skate and swim with a prosthetic leg. In 1971, Stan joined the Saskatchewan Abilities Council, launching a 43-year career in prosthetics, and began competing in wheelchair sports.
He represented Canada in the 1976 Paralympics and was integral in founding the Canadian Amputee Sports Association and Canadian Association for Disabled Skiing. A passionate volunteer, he remains an avid golfer and dedicated sports supporter. A fixture in the Saskatoon community, Stan's dedication to hard work, personal responsibility and traditional values align closely with his Conservative principles.
Over the years, he has been an advocate for local causes and has remained committed to strengthening his community through volunteer work, youth sports and his unwavering belief in the values that have helped shape his life and career. Stan will be inducted into the Saskatoon Sports Hall of Fame on November 2, and it is no wonder.
Stan's beliefs and values are shared by all Conservatives and many Canadians. It is people like Stan who feel the pain of Liberal corruption. People like Stan end up paying the price of this corruption. When people get frustrated with the corruption, it leads to a change in government, like what happened in 2006 with the election of Stephen Harper's Conservative government.
The last time Canadians called in the Conservatives to clean up the Liberal mess, a great many things were accomplished. One of the ways Stephen Harper's government cleaned up the last Liberal mess was the Federal Accountability Act, which brought in new anti-corruption laws. We also created the independent office of the Ethics Commissioner and established the lobbyist registry. One of our proudest accomplishments was the creation of the Office of the Parliamentary Budget Officer.
Unfortunately, the Liberals have managed to find ways around all of these safeguards. It is almost like they have a special department in the Prime Minister's office dedicated to finding ways to skirt the rules.
What is the latest scandal that is paralyzing the House right now? It is the green slush fund scandal. It follows a typical Liberal pattern. The government decides that it needs a way to reward its friends and supporters by funnelling money to them. Then it finds a legitimate program tasked with dispersing vast amounts of money. In this case, it was a program to fund environmental projects. The government then encourages all of its friends to apply on the promise that they will be approved, regardless of the actual value of what is being done, and most do not do much of anything. Then the money flows and, boy, does it flow.
After that, the Liberals get caught. In this case, it was the Auditor General who investigated and ultimately found 400 million dollars of spending that was at risk and hundreds of conflicts of interest. Now we are trying to get Canadians the accountability that they deserve, but the government refuses to provide the documents to the RCMP. Here we are, and I will the remind the House that the government and the NDP-Liberals could end this right now by providing these documents to the RCMP.
What is the legacy of the NDP-Liberal costly coalition? It takes what is good and wonderful and blows it up. The Prime Minister, when he was simply the leader of the Liberal Party in 2015, ran an election campaign on the promise of blowing up Stephen Harper's legacy of achievement. To his credit, that promise made was a promise kept. It is perhaps the only promise the Prime Minister has ever kept, and it was the one to destroy everything good about Canada. He sure made good on that one, did he not?
Is there accountability in government? Not anymore. Are there people going to prison for committing violent crimes? Not anymore. Is the government treating taxpayer dollars with respect? Not anymore. Is the Prime Minister pitting one group of Canadians against another while they fight for table scraps? Yes. Indeed, he does that every day.
Whatever the NDP-Liberals can do to hurt Canadians and make them lash out at their neighbour, I assure members they will do that. Every single wedge issue they can find, they will use. Integrity, honesty, trust and truthfulness are all foreign concepts to that lot.
How do they fill the void when they have no values? They fill the void with deficits, deceit and drugs. These are the disastrous ideals driving the NDP-Liberal coalition. After nearly a decade of its reckless policies, we are seeing the devastating consequences of the deficits, the deceit and the failure to address the drug crisis.
First, the NDP-Liberals have run up record deficits, driving our national debt to unprecedented levels. Their out-of-control spending has fuelled inflation and made life unaffordable for countless Canadians. From rising grocery bills to soaring mortgage rates, Canadian families are struggling to make ends meet, all while the government continues to pour billions into misguided programs. These deficits are not just numbers on a balance sheet. They represent higher taxes, increased borrowing costs and a future burden on our children and our grandchildren.
The government's deceit has been just as harmful. The NDP-Liberals continue to claim that they are helping Canadians, but the truth is that they are making life harder. Time and again, they have promised transparency and accountability, yet they have consistently misled Canadians. Whether it is their failure to balance a budget or their mishandling of public funds, Canadians have every right to be outraged by the government's dishonesty.
We must also talk about the drug crisis. The NDP-Liberal government's approach to drug addiction has failed to keep our communities safe. Its so-called harm reduction polices have done nothing to curb addictions or support recovery. Instead, they have enabled dangerous drug use, leading to more deaths and an increase in crime across our communities. Canadians deserve better. A Conservative government would restore fiscal responsibility, put an end to deceitful policies and tackle the drug crisis, with a focus on recovery, treatment and community safety. It is time for real leadership that puts Canadians first.
Before Canadians are able to bring it home with real Conservative leadership, perhaps we need a reminder of why we are here today. Rampant corruption is the defining feature of the NDP-Liberal costly coalition. Let us dive right into these scandals: the so-called green slush fund, the arrive scam, the WE Charity scandal, the SNC-Lavalin affair and the Prime Minister's secretive trip to the Aga Khan's private island.
Let us start with the so-called green slush fund. As I said, it was under the guise of tackling climate change that the NDP-Liberal government used a fund that had little to do with real environmental action and more to do with lining the pockets of its well-connected friends. The Liberals funnelled billions of dollars into this fund without proper oversight or accountability. The real purpose was to have a way to funnel taxpayer dollars to their friends and allies. This misuse of taxpayer money is a betrayal of trust, particularly when Canadians are facing high inflation, rising energy costs and unaffordable housing. This is not in dispute. The Liberals themselves closed the whole thing down once the Auditor General shone a light on their corruption and deceit.
Canadians deserve better. They deserve a government that is honest, transparent and focused on real solutions, not on political gains.
Next, we have the ArriveCAN debacle, better known as the arrive scam. The government spent $54 million on an app that should have cost a fraction of that amount. When questioned, the Liberals could not even explain where the money went. ArriveCAN was supposed to make border entry smoother during the pandemic but instead it turned into a costly, unnecessary fiasco. Not only was the app riddled with glitches, causing confusion and chaos for travellers, but it also became clear that most of the money spent went to well-connected contractors rather than to the development of the app itself.
How did an app like ArriveCAN, which was later deemed unnecessary, cost $54 million? While Canadians struggled during the pandemic, the NDP-Liberal government was busy wasting millions on a failed app. Instead of owning up to its mistakes, it tried to shift the blame and avoid accountability. This is not leadership. This is corruption.
We then have the infamous WE Charity scandal. In 2020, the Liberal government handed nearly a billion-dollar contract to the WE Charity, an organization with close ties to the Prime Minister's family. This was supposed to be a program to help students during the pandemic, but it quickly unravelled when it became clear that this was yet another example of the Prime Minister using his office to benefit those close to him.
Multiple members of the Prime Minister's family, including his wife and brother, received payments from WE Charity, which raised serious questions about conflicts of interest. This is a clear violation of ethical standards, but instead of coming clear, the Prime Minister and his cabinet doubled down, refusing to take responsibility for their actions. The WE Charity scandal not only wasted taxpayer money, but also showed the extent to which the government is willing to go to enrich its friends and allies. The Ethics Commissioner found that the Prime Minister broke conflict of interest rules again, and once again there were no real consequences. Canadians deserve better.
Next up is the SNC-Lavalin affair, a scandal that shook the foundations of our democracy. In 2019, it came to light that the Prime Minister and his inner circle attempted to interfere in the criminal prosecution of SNC-Lavalin, a Quebec-based engineering firm accused of bribery and corruption. When then attorney general Jody Wilson-Raybould refused to bend to the Prime Minister's will, he retaliated by removing her from her role, demonstrating that the government prioritizes political favours over principles.
This is a direct attack on the rule of law in Canada. The Prime Minister and the government were willing to bend the rules, pressure the former attorney general and undermine the justice system, all to protect a corporation with deep political connections. This scandal was not just about SNC-Lavalin. It was about the lengths to which the Liberals would go to protect their own interests. It showed a complete disregard for the rule of law and an alarming willingness to interfere in the justice system for political gain. This is corruption at the highest levels, and Canadians deserve better.
Finally, let us talk about the Prime Minister's secretive trip. In 2017, it was revealed that the Prime Minister accepted a lavish vacation on the private island of the Aga Khan, a billionaire whose foundation receives millions in funding from the Canadian government. This was a blatant conflict of interest, and the Ethics Commissioner ruled that the Prime Minister had violated the Conflict of Interest Act. Despite this, there were no real consequences, and the Prime Minister brushed off the scandal as a misunderstanding. However, make no mistake: This was no simple misunderstanding. It was yet another example of the Prime Minister using his position of power for personal gain while ignoring the ethical standards that should guide all public officials.
Canadians expect their leaders to lead by example, to be transparent and to put the interests of the country ahead of their own. However, time and again, the Liberal Prime Minister has shown that he is more interested in helping his friends, bending the rules and avoiding accountability. Canadians are tired of the corruption, the scandals and the excuses. All of these scandals show a pattern of deceit, mismanagement and ethical violations from the NDP-Liberal government. It has betrayed the trust of Canadians and has proven time and again that it cannot be trusted to govern with integrity.
A Conservative government will put an end to this corruption. It will restore accountability, transparency and ethical leadership to Ottawa. Canadians deserve a government that works for them, not one that is mired in scandal and focused on enriching its friends. It is time to clean up the mess, restore integrity and bring real leadership back to Canada.
The time for excuses and corruption is over. Canadians are tired of a government that puts political insiders ahead of hard-working families. We need real leadership, not more scandals, waste and deceit. That is why we must hold a carbon tax election. We need an election to axe the carbon tax, which drives up the cost of living, making gas, groceries and heating unaffordable for millions of Canadians.
We need to build homes, not bureaucracy. Families are struggling to find affordable housing, and the NDP-Liberal government's policies have only made it worse. A Conservative government will fix this by empowering builders, cutting red tape and ensuring more homes are built faster to meet the needs of Canadians.
We must also fix the budget. Nine years of reckless Liberal spending, like the green slush fund, have driven up inflation, and Canadians are paying the price, with higher interest rates, less purchasing power and ballooning national debt. A Conservative government will restore fiscal responsibility, balance the budget and bring down inflation to help all Canadians.
We need to stop the crime that is plaguing our communities. Under the NDP-Liberal government, crime rates are rising, and its soft-on-crime approach has failed. A Conservative government will restore safety and order and bring order to our streets by enforcing tougher penalties and supporting law enforcement.
The next election will be about restoring common sense in government. It will be about bringing home lower taxes, affordable homes, fiscal responsibility and safe streets. It is time to end the corruption and bring home a government that works for the people. Let us bring it home.
Mr. Speaker, as the member was reflecting on history, let me remind him of another history. There were 70 abuses of power by Stephen Harper, 31 of them scandals, corruption and contempt. The current leader of the Conservative-Reform party, who was the parliamentary secretary to Stephen Harper, does not even want to get the security clearance necessary to deal with the issue of foreign interference. This is very much a hot topic in Canada.
Why does the leader of the Conservative Party refuse to get a security clearance? What in his past might cause it to be denied? Is the member opposite aware of anything that would prevent the leader of the Conservative Party from being able to get a security clearance? Is that why he is not applying for it?
Mr. Speaker, that is a new one. It is very clear the Liberals are doing everything they can to avoid talking about the subject we are talking about today. They are trying so hard to hide behind other issues because they do not want to face the reality of the corruption in their party, in the government and among the people who are part of the government.
I will play along a bit. Last week, we heard there were names of parliamentarians from different parties, from the Liberal Party and from wherever else supposedly, but we did not hear the names. My challenge to the member opposite is to release the names. They are not secret. If there are names, release them. I think there is some doubt about whether there are names, and until they are released, we do not know if there are.
If there is evidence that they exist, they should be shared with the public. There is no reason not to share them, and I challenge him to do that.
Mr. Speaker, we are talking today about a privilege motion on the government's refusal to release documents as ordered by Parliament. I want to thank my colleague for mentioning some of the scandals that the government is mired in right now.
Let us not overlook ArriveCAN. I note that the government operations committee, the mighty OGGO, unanimously demanded documents from the government on the ArriveCAN scandal. In the production order, the committee sent for, in an unredacted format, the list of contractors and subcontractors and so on. Internal results released on the ATIP request to the government said to apply the spirit of the ATIP Act and provide any redactions that should be made. The government said that this was not an ATIP request, but there was some information that it did not want made public. It also said that if documents are redacted too much, it is recommended that those documents not be released at all.
This is another example of the government refusing an order to produce documents, this time to a committee, covering up the ArriveCAN scandal. I wonder if my colleague could comment on the government's insistence on, in this case, refusing to honour an order of Parliament to release documents.
Mr. Speaker, it is sad that we see this happening over and over again. The example the member raised is a really good one.
I thought it was interesting that the internal email thread basically said that if the Liberals released this information, it could be really bad for them, so they tried hard not to do it. I am sure that email thread has happened on many occasions, including this one. There are many examples. I have seen others in other parts of my work, in immigration and elsewhere, where tremendously important pieces of information that have been asked for have not been responded to, or documents have been very liberally blacked out to hide information that would implicate the government or members of the government in bad things, including potentially criminal things.
We see this over and over again. It is a practice of the government. It is a practice, as I said in my speech, of the Liberals that goes way back to as far as I can remember. We need to stop this. We need a change in government, and we need a government that applies good ethics and good practices to the House.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, a rather sinister spectacle has been unfolding over the past two weeks as the Liberals and the Conservatives play their partisan games. Meanwhile, work on behalf of Canadians has come to a standstill.
I would like to ask my Conservative colleague a very specific question. We, the NDP, managed to force the government to provide dental care to seniors. If his party comes to power, will it keep the existing dental care program or take it away from Canada's seniors?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, it is an interesting question but is completely off of today's subject. It is something I would have expected from the Liberals, but perhaps the NDP is also trying to hide something. I do not know what is going on here.
It is a very interesting situation. The reality of it, though, is that the whole event that is going on, this whole discussion and debate, could end immediately if the government just presented the unredacted documents to the RCMP. That is what we are trying to do. We do not want the government to run away from this. We want it to have to face the consequences of what it has done. That is what we are asking for. The Liberals can end it today; it is in their control.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, we agree with the Conservatives. The government's refusal to produce the documents requested by Parliament is unacceptable. However, the Conservatives have done the same thing in the past. In fact, under Mr. Harper, the Conservative government fell on that very issue.
Has my colleague given any thought to ways of preventing this kind of situation from happening again? Would he be willing to accept suggestions on how to do so?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, there is a really simple solution to this, and that is a change of government. Of course, all of us on this side are eagerly working hard for Canadians to that end.
If members can believe it, I did not have enough time in my speech to go through all of the scandals. I only picked out some of the big ones, but there are others I want to briefly mention.
There was “elbowgate” in the House with MP Ruth Ellen Brosseau. There was the India trip, which I did not mention. With SNC-Lavalin, there was another issue: Employees who had been donating to the Liberal Party were being reimbursed by the company. There was, of course, the blackface scandal. There was the Governor General's spending scandal. There was the former ethics commissioner, who was sister-in-law to one of the Liberal ministers. There was also the $6,000-a-night hotel in London.
I could go on, but I am running out of time. There are so many things to talk about.
Mr. Speaker, nobody has ever accused the hon. member of not fully understanding the facts. While he wants to dismiss the hon. member from the NDP caucus, it was the NDP, at committee, that uncovered the corruption happening with one of the board members. I know that because I was the member. The notion that somehow we are in the cover-up is not only ridiculous, but is another example of the way the member chooses not to understand the facts.
The fact is that the Conservative Party wrote a motion to send this to PROC. The Conservatives are banking on their base being too stupid to understand the procedural shenanigans they are doing in the House. Given that, will the hon. member finally have at least the courtesy and dignity to stand up, come clean with Canadians and send this to committee so we can get on with the good work, or does he not understand—
Mr. Speaker, it is quite rich for a member of the NDP to talk about how virtuous they are with regard to holding the government to account. The New Democrats have voted with the government to prop it up. They have voted for budgets hundreds of times. They are in a coalition. They have shut down debate in the House at the request of their Liberal masters. When the Liberals say “jump”, the NDP asks, “How high?” That is how this has gone for nine years, and people know the truth of that.
These documents need to be given to the RCMP. They need to be unredacted and need to be produced. That could end the whole debate right now.
Mr. Speaker, I am pleased to speak today to the SDTC scandal. The organization had a key mandate. It was federally funded, non-profit and approved to disburse over $100 million in funds annually to clean-technology companies. Sustainable Development Technology Canada was established in 2001 by the Government of Canada through the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act to fund the development and demonstration of new technologies that promote sustainable development.
It was to be an arm's-length, not-for-profit organization, created to support projects that developed and demonstrated new technologies addressing issues related to climate change, air quality, clean water and clean soil. Clearly, it must have functioned quite well until around 2017-18, when the government changed hands and it fell under the responsibility of our Liberal government; actually, the Liberal government. I have trouble saying “our” because I do not feel it is representing me or my riding.
In 2018, former Liberal industry minister Navdeep Bains expressed concerns regarding the Harper-era chair of SDTC, Jim Balsillie, given his public criticism of government privacy legislation. The minister's office expressed its discomfort about Mr. Balsillie's comments to the CEO of SDTC, and Mr. Bains requested that the chair stop criticizing government legislation. At that point, the minister proposed two alternative chairs to the CEO of SDTC as replacements, in a phone call.
One of the candidates proposed was Annette Verschuren, an entrepreneur who was receiving SDTC funding through one of her companies. The minister, the PMO and the PCO were warned of the risks associated with appointing a conflicted chair and were told that, up until that point, the fund had never had a chair with interests in companies receiving funding from SDTC.
It sounds like it was run well with proper oversight. However, in June 2019, former minister Bains decided to proceed with the appointment of Ms. Verschuren despite repeated warnings expressed at his office. The new chair went on to create an environment where conflicts of interest were tolerated and managed by board members. Board members went on to award SDTC funding to companies they held stock or positions in. Former minister Bains went on to appoint two other controversial board members who engaged in unethical behaviour, in breach of the Conflict of Interest Act, by approving funding to companies in which they held ownership stakes.
This is beyond the pale for Canadians. They are at the point where they wonder if there is anything the current government does that does not serve itself or those who are part of its larger group. ISED officials witnessed 186 conflicts at the board, but they did not intervene.
In January 2021, the member for Saint-Maurice—Champlain became the new Minister of Industry, replacing Navdeep Bains after his decision not to run for re-election. Mr. Bains, I guess, felt that would be a wise decision on his part.
In November 2022, whistle-blowers raised internal concerns with the Auditor General about unethical practices that were taking place. The Privy Council was briefed by the whistle-blowers about the allegations shortly after, and it commissioned two independent reports.
In September 2023, the whistle-blowers took the allegations public, and the minister agreed, finally, to suspend SDTC funding. Things were a mess.
In November 2023, the Auditor General announced an audit, and in June 2024, the Auditor General's report was released, finding severe government failures. The Auditor General and Ethics Commissioner initiated these separate investigations after whistle-blowers came forward with allegations of financial mismanagement at the fund. I have to say, it is an amazing thing when people are willing to put their reputations, their lives and their futures on the line because they see something like this taking place within the government. I applaud them for making that decision and for moving forward with that.
I am going to take a moment here to share some of the words from the whistle-blower that were shared as committee testimony:
I think the Auditor General's investigation was more of a cursory review. I don't think the goal and mandate of the Auditor General's office is to actually look into criminality, so I'm not surprised by the fact that they haven't found anything criminal. They're not looking at intent. If their investigation was focused on intent, of course they would find the criminality....
I know that the federal government, like the minister, has continued saying that there was no criminal intent and nothing was found, but I think the committee would agree that they're not to be trusted on this situation.
What a sad comment to be made of a government that is responsible for Canadian taxpayers' dollars.
I would happily agree to whatever the findings are by the RCMP, but I would say that I wouldn't trust that there isn't any criminality unless the RCMP is given full authority to investigate.
Of course, my colleagues on this side of the House and I could not agree more.
I don't think we should leave it to the current federal government or the ruling party to make those decisions.
Obviously, there is an incredible lack of trust among our public servants who are responsible for working with these organizations that they see clearly are being abused by the federal government.
Just as I was always confident that the Auditor General would confirm the financial mismanagement...I remain equally confident that the RCMP will substantiate the criminal activities that occurred within the organization.
There is one more that I think is really important. It really hit me when I read what he said:
The true failure of the situation stands at the feet of our current government, whose decision to protect wrongdoers and cover up their findings over the last 12 months is a serious indictment of how our democratic systems and institutions are being corrupted by political interference.
The political interference level of the Liberal-NDP government, I think, is beyond anything in the history of Canada. We are dealing with internal political interference and international interference under the current government's watch.
It should never have taken two years for the issues to reach this point. What should have been a straightforward process turned into a bureaucratic nightmare that allowed SDTC to continue wasting millions of [taxpayer] dollars and abusing countless employees over the last year.
That really hit me, of course, the wasting of Canadian taxpayer dollars, especially when it is related to supposedly doing things that would improve our environment. The government cannot get off its need to tax Canadians with the carbon tax because of the work that needs to be done to make sure our country and our world are sustainable for the next generations. In the meantime, it is taking those exact dollars set aside for green technologies and improvements and giving them quietly to companies that have ulterior motives for that money and no intention of using it for supposed environmental processes.
When Canadians who are paying that carbon tax are not getting back what they have put into it, and are facing higher costs for fuel, food, housing and everything because of the added down-the-line costs of that carbon tax, we know where it is leading Canadians. We know how desperate they are in wanting a new future for Canada, which, of course, will come when the Conservative Party of Canada has the incredible honour of forming government soon.
On the second part, the “abusing [of] countless employees over the last year”, the government talks about how much it appreciates the people behind the scenes, and the high quality of people who serve the government. Here we have an individual talking about how it abused countless employees. This speaks to a government that is not a servant but rather a master, determining that what it wants will happen. It is the government's way or the highway and who is in the way does not matter; it is willing to throw them under the bus.
There are so many violations here of Canadians' trust. My colleague from Saskatoon West spoke of many other issues the government has been part of, all the way back to the ad scam and up to the WE challenge. There are just so many. I have one myself that I cannot help but recall, which really hit me as a new member of Parliament when I had the opportunity to speak for the first time to an issue in the House of Commons.
It was a bill brought forward by the federal government to be discussed. It was actually the first debate I participated in that sought to remove the government's accountability to the House. It was in regard to an environmental framework, and the bill sought to give sweeping power to the minister and accountability to an advisory board.
I was somewhat concerned about this. I had not heard a lot about this approach, so I asked the individual who had spoken, the member for West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country, about this board: what it was supposed to look like, how it would function, how many people would be on it, where they would come from, what their qualifications and credentials would be, what their mandate would be and all of these types of questions. We were at the beginning of discussing the potential of this bill and wanting to give good feedback on what we thought was appropriate or not.
That member stood up and immediately was so pleased to say that the board had already been chosen. We were in the first hours of debate, and the deal was done. This gives just a bit of an example of how the government really does not care about the elected people representing this country and how they are to function within the responsibilities of Parliament.
As I said, so many violations have been discussed throughout the day, in addition to the green slush fund, that I cannot help but notice how much Canadians' trust in this particular NDP-Liberal coalition, and in government in general and many of our institutions, is waning. Canadians are very discouraged because they see these ethical violations taking place over and over again on that side of the floor, yet the government has no sense of having to apologize or to change its behaviour on behalf of Canadians.
Abusing employees is something else. The Liberals enabled the SDTC to give funds to those who should not have received those funds. I cannot help but think it is a very good thing we made the decision to request that these papers get to the RCMP so that criminality can be explored.
Then there is the question of financial management. People say we can give the benefit of the doubt the first time we hear of an error. I believe the new minister even said, “As soon as we heard, we acted.” Well, two years later, it is the result of whistle-blowers that we are here dealing with this today.
Are the Liberals not capable of running the government in a respectful, transparent way that makes proper use of Canadian tax dollars? Are they not capable, or are they just indifferent? Here the Liberals are, in places of power, and not truly giving proper oversight to the departments they are responsible for. That speaks not only to indifference but to the potential for being incapable of doing their job and of ensuring their departments are being run properly.
Then there is the third thing, and I think this is the one that is now so obvious to Canadians, which is that of a very self-serving agenda. That it is not about Canadians and is not about serving Canadians, but is about Liberals serving themselves and their friends and being focused on political gain at all costs rather than doing the right thing for Canadians.
The Auditor General's report showed that over $400 million, over the five-year audit period, had been awarded to projects that either should not have been eligible or was awarded to projects in which the board members were conflicted. A preschooler could understand the importance of doing this properly. If the Liberal government knew these are the things that were expected in these roles, it would see very clearly that this did not match that.
On the part about speaking about indifference and self-serving, I want to follow it up with a quote I have used before that speaks to the very essence of what we are hearing in this circumstance and in so many other conflicts by the government, which is, “It's hard not to feel disappointed in your government when every day there is a new scandal.” These are the words of the Prime Minister, as the member for Papineau, when he was in opposition.
Liberals have said a lot that we Conservatives cannot blame them because we did the same thing. This is not true.
An hon. member: Why not?
Mrs. Cathay Wagantall: We will get into that.
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister's words absolutely ring true today.
After nine years of scandal, corruption and Liberal entitlement, the business of the House has been put on hold to discuss this scandal of monumental proportions and to request and demand what should be done by the government, which is to simply release those documents, as the government has been required to do by this place by the vote of the membership of the House, who have the right to demand those documents be presented unredacted. The documents should not be presented in piecemeal, but be presented as required.
As the Speaker of the House indicated, the government was not doing that. Those documents need to be shared and they need to be provided to the RCMP so that the proper work can be done, work that respects Canadians' intelligence, their hearts and their love for this country, as well as their tax dollars.
I want to comment on a couple more things. The Auditor General gave SDTC a clean bill of health in 2017. What does that say? It was only after the Prime Minister's hand-picked Liberal board members were appointed that this fund began voting itself absurd amounts of taxpayer dollars, and it is not arm's length from the government.
The minister recommended board appointments, and ISED had senior department officials sitting in on every meeting monitoring the activities of the board and doing nothing about it. It is unbelievable that a senior department official would say nothing while witnessing how many millions of dollars were funnelled to companies in which board members held conflicts of interest.
I will end with one more quote. Basically, the Prime Minister himself, in 2016, was saying how proud he was to be the Prime Minister, which meant first servant of Canadians. However, he also made the point of saying that Canada was “the first postnational state”, which to me was a very serious comment that basically indicated he was not concerned about Canada and what it is. He was not concerned about its sovereignty, but it was a post-national state that he was prepared to run into the ground for his own ideological purposes.
Mr. Speaker, the Conservative reformers across the way need to better understand why Stephen Harper was the only Prime Minister in the history of Canada who was found in contempt. Why is that relevant? Think of the character of the current leader of the Conservatives. Their current leader was the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister back then.
Why would someone not understand why it is important that the leader of the Conservative Party is saying that he does not want to get the security clearance so he can get more information about members of Parliament? Maybe the member can provide her response to this quote by Wesley Wark, who has advised both Liberal and Conservative governments on national security issues, who said that the “Tory leader is knowingly misleading the public by claiming he doesn't need the security clearance because his chief of staff has received briefings.”
The leader of the Conservative Party is playing games with Canadians. When is the game going to stop, and when will he be getting that security clearance?
Mr. Speaker, the member across the floor is playing games. That is the bottom line.
Here is the thing. Who is in contempt of court? It is the NDP-Liberal coalition. It is time to give those papers to the House and the RCMP. The Liberals should do their job.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, my colleague did a good job of taking up a lot of time in the House of Commons to say that the documents must be handed over. I am going to share something that should not be a news flash. We all agree on that, and we are ready to vote to force the government to hand over those documents.
Could she let me know when the Conservatives will be ready to vote? I think everyone could be ready today or tomorrow. We are ready. The vote will pass. The Bloc Québécois will support the Conservatives on this.
Are they ready to vote on this?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, what we are requesting and what we expect is for the government do the right thing and hand over those documents.
Mr. Speaker, one of the things that struck me was the word “self-serving”. There are many examples, but one that comes to mind is one of the board members receiving a quarter of a million dollars for her companies. The Minister for Environment and Climate Change was a lobbyist for them, has shares in a company and met with the PM's office a dozen times before getting elected.
I wonder if the member would comment a bit more on that, as far as the almost self-serving, incestuous relationship that the Liberals seem to have with the slush fund.
Mr. Speaker, the Minister of the Environment continually chides people about the need for the carbon tax and the reason the carbon tax has to go up and up, to the point where it is basically debilitating Canadians in being able to function in their homes and run their businesses.
All of the things that Canadians need to do are being impacted by this carbon tax, yet this individual has personally gained in those circumstances and this slush fund has handed out millions of Canadian tax dollars to companies that are not eligible for the funds and are not even doing anything specific to improve the environment, something very important to me, my constituents and the whole province of Saskatchewan. We have been concerned about the Canadian environment as a whole and certainly where we work and play.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I have asked two or three times now what could be done to prevent this kind of situation from ever happening again. This does not seem to be of any interest to the Conservatives.
The Conservatives have also been reprimanded for refusing to table documents at Parliament's request. We agree that the Liberals are no better.
What guarantee do we have that the Conservatives will not do the same thing after a few years in power if they form government?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, it was the Conservative government that created the first Federal Accountability Act. Can members imagine where we would be today if it had not put the things in place that it did? Those things apply as much to Conservatives, when we form government, as anyone who has that privilege and responsibility.
I am very proud of the leader of my party, who has made it clear that “prime minister” means “first servant”. As a caucus, when Conservatives form government, we will hold each other accountable. That is what Conservatives do and that certainly will be our responsibility. We will continue to make sure that what happens in this place is done ethically and in Canadians' best interests.
Mr. Speaker, I have a straightforward question. For the last three weeks, the Conservatives have framed the situation as being solely a partisan issue from a Liberal insider who, I agree, received favourable treatment and self-dealings and acted in a corrupt way.
However, would the hon. member care to comment on the fact that the same person in question, Annette Verschuren, donated to the Conservative Party as recently as March 24, 2022? This is a situation where not only is the person a Liberal insider, but a Conservative insider as well. Does the hon. member care to comment or do Conservatives seem to have amnesia on that fact as well?
Mr. Speaker, I have had members from the member opposite's ranks today say, “Tell us the names of the 11 MPs dealing with foreign interference.”
If he were to get security clearance, the leader of the Conservative Party could go and get the names. However, unlike the leader of the Bloc, the leader of the Green Party, the leader of the NDP and obviously the Prime Minister, he has chosen to be blind on the issue.
Can the member justify why the leader of the Conservative Party feels it is appropriate to play games with Canadians on this important issue?
Mr. Speaker, the government is rife with corruption. For those at home wondering, this is one of three green-related scandals going on right now: Of course, there is the green slush fund; there is one involving the environment department giving out millions in grants to massive corporations without any oversight or governance; and also the net-zero accelerator, where the government gave out $8 billion to wealthy foreign corporations that were not eligible for the money.
I wonder if my colleague could tell us what it says about the government, that it has so many scandals going on that it has subsets of subsets of subsets of scandals.
Mr. Speaker, here is what I would say: Somebody needs to write a book, or at least document, maybe do a movie someday, I do not know.
I do not think the Liberals have any item of business in this House that is not somehow impacted by their choices to focus on self and those that support them, rather than do what is best for Canadians. I can hardly wait until we have the opportunity to change government.
Mr. Speaker, I do not mean to be pre-empting anybody in this place, but because I do not know if I will be on my feet in this place tomorrow, I do want to say something quickly.
Tomorrow is October 22. It was 10 years ago tomorrow that I and a handful of people, who still remain in this place, had the unfortunate scenario of being locked down in the House of Commons. I was in the reading room of the Conservative caucus with former prime minister Stephen Harper when a gunman killed Corporal Nathan Cirillo at the National War Memorial and then proceeded into this place. I know that there will be people commenting about this, but I want to give my continued condolences to the family of Patrice Vincent, the warrant officer who was killed a few days earlier, and to the family of Nathan Cirillo.
I am also thankful for the continued work of our Parliamentary Protective Services. It was not that way then; in fact, the contingent was reorganized after that incident. However, I want thank J.J. Frankie, who was the security guard in our caucus room that day, and Constable Son, who actually took a bullet that day. I want to thank all the Protective Services. As a hunter, I knew exactly what I heard outside the doors of that caucus room. In the almost 19 years of doing this job, I do not remember every single day, but I remember that day.
I rise today to speak to a motion of privilege put forward by my Conservative colleague following the government's refusal to hand over all documents related to the Prime Minister's green slush fund to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police.
In my 18-plus years as a parliamentarian in the House, I have understood that breaches of privilege of parliamentarians is a serious matter, however, it seems that the current Liberal government does not share that same understanding. The Liberal government has ignored the will of Parliament and Canadians once again.
I will go back and summarize this latest act of corruption by the Liberal government with a quick review of the timeline.
In late 2018, the former industry minister expressed concerns regarding the chair of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, given that he had been publicly criticizing government legislation at the time. The then minister's office requested that the chair stop criticizing his government's legislation. The minister at the time, the Prime Minister's Office and the Privy Council Office were warned of the risks associated with their desire to replace the chair with a proposed candidate who was receiving Sustainable Development Technology Canada funding through one of their companies, which was a clear conflict of interest.
In June 2019, the minister decided to proceed with the appointment of the conflicted chair, despite repeated warnings expressed to the minister's office. The new chair created an environment where conflicts of interest were tolerated and managed by board members.
Board members then went on to award Sustainable Development Technology Canada funding to companies in which they themselves held stock or high-level positions within the companies that received the funding. Two additional appointed and controversial board members engaged in unethical behaviour in breach of the Conflict of Interest Act by approving funding to companies in which they held ownership stakes. Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada officials witnessed 186 conflicts at the board but did not intervene.
In November 2022, whistle-blowers raised internal concerns with the Auditor General about unethical practices at Sustainable Development Technology Canada. The Privy Council was briefed by the whistle-blowers about the allegations shortly after the commission's two independent reports.
In September 2023, the whistle-blowers took the allegations public and the minister agreed to suspend Sustainable Development Technology Canada funding.
In November 2023, the Auditor General announced an audit of Sustainable Development Technology Canada. In June 2024, the Auditor General's report was released finding severe governance failures at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and that brings us to where we are today.
On June 10, the House adopted a motion calling for the production of various documents related to Sustainable Development Technology Canada to be turned over to the RCMP for review. It was passed by a majority of members in the House.
In response to the motion adopted, departments either outright refused the House order or redacted documents were turned over, citing provisions of the Privacy Act or Access to Information Act in direct violation of the order that was voted on by a majority of members of the House. Nothing in that House order required redactions. The House enjoys the absolute and unfettered power to order the production of documents that is not limited by any statute. These powers are rooted in the Constitution Act of 1867 and the Parliament of Canada Act.
In response to the failure to produce documents, my colleague, the Conservative House leader, raised a question of privilege, arguing that House privilege had been breached due to the failure to comply with the House's direct order.
On September 26, the ruling on this question of privilege found that the privilege of the House had indeed been breached, and the Conservatives have been fighting for the will of Canadians and to uphold the powers of the House in debate ever since.
The whistle-blower for Sustainable Development Technology Canada stated:
I think the Auditor General's investigation was more of a cursory review. I don't think the goal and mandate of the Auditor General's office is to actually look into criminality...I'm not surprised by the fact that they haven't found anything criminal. They're not looking at intent. If their investigation was focused on intent, of course they would find the criminality
The whistle-blower went on:
I know that the federal government, like the minister, has continued saying that there was no criminal intent and nothing was found, but I think the committee would agree that they're not to be trusted on this situation. I would happily agree to whatever the findings are by the RCMP, but I would say that I wouldn't trust that there isn't any criminality unless the RCMP is given full authority to investigate.
Full authority means that it has to have all of the facts, not just the facts that the government chooses to release in direct contravention of an order passed by the House. It is high time for the government to hand over the documents to the RCMP and for the RCMP itself to determine the criminal activity in the green slush fund scandal.
The whistle-blower continued, stating:
...I...[am] confident that the Auditor General would confirm the financial mismanagement at [Sustainable Development Technology Canada], I remain equally confident that the RCMP will substantiate the criminal activities that occurred within the organization.
...The true failure of the situation stands at the feet of our current government, whose decision to protect wrongdoers and cover up their findings over the last 12 months is a serious indictment of how our democratic systems and institutions are being corrupted by political interference. It should never have taken two years for the issues to reach this point. What should have been a straightforward process turned into a bureaucratic nightmare that allowed SDTC to continue wasting millions of dollars and abusing countless employees over the last year.
The Conservatives know that the current government remains more concerned about its own insiders, friends and ministers than the issues that are facing ordinary everyday Canadians. I could not have said it better myself than when the whistle-blower for this massive government overreach said, “I think the current government is more interested in protecting themselves and protecting the situation from being a public nightmare. They would rather protect wrongdoers and financial mismanagement than have to deal with a situation like [Sustainable Development Technology Canada] in the public sphere.”
It has become abundantly clear that after nine years, the NDP-Liberal government is not worth the cost, crime or corruption, and the green slush fund scandal is just another scandal on the heap pile of the festering corruption of nine years of the government.
My Conservative colleagues and I prioritize the concept of responsible government in Canada. The government must answer to members as the representatives of the people and must be held accountable to Canadians who are suffering from the failed policies, actions and inflationary spending of the government.
In 2015, the Prime Minister set his core principles of open and accountable government as a central tenet of his office and the role of cabinet. For years, the actions of the Liberal government have broken promises for this motto and now has failed to explain to Canadians where $400 million taxpayer dollars have gone under the green slush fund. Just to refresh everybody's memory, the $40 million through the adscam was just one-tenth of what this scandal alone is.
The Prime Minister's own statement in “Open and Accountable Government” states:
Creating the culture of integrity and accountability that allows us to earn and keep the trust of Canadians will require constant attention and ongoing commitment by all of us throughout our mandate. This guide will serve as an important reference as we strive to provide an open and accountable government for all Canadians.
How has that turned out? Broken promises, corruption and scandal are now known by millions of Canadians as the core principles and tenets of the Liberal government and its Prime Minister, rather than their so-called open and accountable government document. The Liberals never refer to it anymore.
The Speaker has ruled that the NDP-Liberal government has violated a House order to turn over evidence to the police for a criminal investigation in this scandal. It is time for some accountability, and it is time to show Canadians where their tax dollars are really going.
The Auditor General's findings reveal that Liberal appointees paid $400 million to their own companies, involving not one, not two, not 10, not 50, not 100 but 186 conflicts of interest. Canada is struggling. Our country feels broken under the leadership of the Prime Minister and his NDP-Liberal government.
Canadian families will spend $700 more this year at the grocery store, and food banks have seen a 50% rise in visits since 2021, with two million Canadians a month visiting food banks. Life has never been less affordable and more expensive. At a time when Canadians are struggling with an impossible cost of living, the Liberal government continues to spend recklessly, funnelling taxpayer dollars to their friends and their insiders.
To summarize the facts and this serious breach of privilege, Sustainable Development Technology Canada was established in 2001 by the Government of Canada through the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act to fund the development and demonstration of new technologies that promote sustainable development. Sustainable Development Technology Canada is responsible for the administration of the SD tech fund in accordance with the guidelines of the funding agreement with Innovation, Science and Economic Development Canada.
In 2019, the former industry minister began appointing conflicted executives to the board of Sustainable Development Technology Canada. The board appointed by the Liberal government began voting companies in which executives held active conflicts of interest. The Auditor General and Ethics Commissioner initiated separate investigations after whistle-blowers came forward with allegations of financial mismanagement of the fund. The Auditor General's investigation finds severe gaps in governance standards and uncovers that $400 million in Sustainable Development Technology Canada funding was awarded to projects in which board members, the ones making the decisions of the awards, were conflicted during the five-year audit period.
The government has opposed the opposition at every step of the way in getting these documents, trying to silence the will of parliamentarians in the House and avoid accountability to Canadians. The Liberals are trying to hide the $390 million that has gone to Liberal insiders under this program. They continue to oppose this production order for important documents to be turned over to the RCMP.
The Prime Minister's personal department, the Privy Council Office, defied the order of the House to produce these documents and ordered departments to redact all sensitive information. The Prime Minister's office turned its back on Canadians by blacking out these documents. Canadians want to know what exactly the government is hiding. Under the leadership of the Prime Minister, Canada is facing corruption like we have never seen in my 18 years in the House.
The Conservatives have asked for these documents to hold the Liberal government to account. My voters in the riding of Red Deer—Lacombe have had enough and want answers. The government needs to answer for its corrupt actions and release these documents. The Liberal government is resisting and hiding these documents because it knows there is corruption that has yet to be revealed. If this were a private sector company, that company would be turning those documents over to police for immediate investigation.
This is our job, not the job of police to seek with the courts. It is our job to expose the corruption in the things we have authorized money for in this Parliament. It is our job, and it is time that the Liberal minister and the Prime Minister started caring about it.
The Auditor General found that Sustainable Development Technology Canada gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that, on occasions, could not demonstrate an environment of green technology. These projects had nothing to do with the mandate of the organization. There was $334 million given to projects in which board members had conflicts of interest. In these cases, just a handful of board members managed to wind up in 186 conflicts of interest. We cannot make this stuff up.
There was $58 million given to projects without ensuring that contribution agreement terms were met. In other words, where there were matching funds expected, there was no requirement for the matching funding to come, so we would just send out another $60 million. Normally we would do due diligence and make sure that, before we released any taxpayers' funds, the matching funding would come. Who cares? It is just another rich day for Liberal insiders.
Even the Prime Minister's own government departments know that the Liberal government is not worth the corruption or the cost. A recording of a senior civil servant revealed the outright incompetence of the government, which gave 123 million dollars' worth of contracts inappropriately. The blame for this scandal clearly lies with the Prime Minister and his ministers of industry, who did not sufficiently monitor the contracts that were given to Liberal friends and insiders.
In fact, just today, the Speaker tabled a further update from the legal clerk on the responses to the June 10 production order concerning Sustainable Development Technology Canada. It would not come as a surprise to anyone in this place that these documents from the departments of Finance and Industry, as well as the Treasury Board Secretariat, were heavily redacted or had pages withheld in their entirety. What a surprise it is that, even in the context of the debate in this place, the Liberal government is withholding information from Canadian taxpayers. This privilege ruling and the actions of the NDP-Liberal government have already paralyzed Parliament and made it impossible to address the serious issues facing Canadians, such as doubling housing costs, food inflation, crime and chaos.
I will just remind the viewers at home that this is not the first time we have actually been in this scenario. I hope the Speaker has good legal counsel because the precedent has already been set that, in the event that the House is adjourned, the Speaker could be facing legal consequences. The scandals are too numerous to mention. However, in just one of them, the Winnipeg lab scandal, the last Speaker tried to produce documents. The government was actually going to take the Speaker to court in order to cover up its accountability and its actions, or lack thereof, when it came to protecting Canada's sovereignty. Such are the lengths the government will go to.
I have news for government members about the lengths that Conservatives will go to in order to hold the government to account and to make sure that taxpayers are adequately informed about where their hard-earned dollars are going. We will continue this debate until the result that Canadians deserve and expect is produced, which is that the full, unredacted documents are disclosed here in Parliament and turned over to the RCMP so that we can pursue any criminality, if necessary, within Sustainable Development Technology Canada.
It is time for the Prime Minister to take accountability and provide these documents outlining the conflicts of interest of this green slush fund. Only common-sense Conservatives will end the corruption and get the answers that Canadians rightfully deserve.
Mr. Speaker, one issue I was talking about earlier is one of the various green scandals that the government is mired in, which is the net accelerator. The Auditor General noted that $8 billion had been given away to companies, many of which do not even qualify. Looking at it, I saw that one of the companies that received government funding is a company called Geely. It received $15 million in subsidies. Geely is a Chinese-owned EV company, which is now, of course, subject to a 100% tariff on its cars.
Could the member comment on the ridiculousness of using taxpayers' money to subsidize Chinese EVs at the same time as hitting them with 100% tariffs to stop them from bringing their cars into Canada?
Mr. Speaker, if someone ever wanted to hear a rhetorical question, that was one. This speaks to the broader issue of the profligacy of the government. It will spend money on anything it wants to put in a window to showcase. The government is all about virtue signalling, messaging, appearances and optics. It is not about good governance or making responsible decisions.
We see what the government has been about the whole time. Finally, after nine years, Canadians see it. The only way to find a path forward is to have these documents produced to the House and to the RCMP. If that is not going to happen, then the people of Canada should have their say in an election to decide whether they want to continue allowing the government to spend the way it spends and commit the corruption that it commits. I hope that a Conservative government will follow, restoring some sense of accountability and good governance to this once-proud country.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, we have been discussing this issue for about two weeks now.
It seems pretty clear that everyone in the House agrees on this issue. The NDP, the Bloc Québécois and the Conservatives agree. What we want to know is what we are accomplishing here.
Last week, a study in La Presse reported that the number of homeless people who have died on the streets of Quebec has tripled over the past five years. In Quebec, over the past five years, 200 people died on the streets in the cold. If we extrapolate, that means that in Canada as a whole, 700 to 800 people died on the streets. That is a direct result of the housing crisis, which we are currently not talking about in the House because we are wasting time discussing a motion that everyone agrees on. We agree on accountability. We agree on the need for more transparency. We are ready to vote on this motion.
What are the Conservatives waiting for to bring this motion to a vote?
[English]
Mr. Speaker, if we all agreed in the House, then the document would have been produced as requested. To suggest that we all agree is to say something that is simply not true. The government does not agree, which is why it is failing to fulfill the order passed in the House, which is to provide, unredacted, all the documents requested.
I will say to my colleague from the Bloc Québécois that, if he is dissatisfied with how the people of Quebec are suffering under the Liberal government, then he has to answer for the fact that he voted to sustain the government in matters of confidence. Canadians have had enough. He has had enough. Instead of this dystopian Parliament that exists without the support of Canadians, my colleague should be supporting non-confidence and making sure that we move to an election so that Canadians, and Quebeckers, can have their say.
Mr. Speaker, this is nothing but a game for the leader of the Conservative Party and the Conservative caucus. At the end of the day, if the Conservatives stop talking, it passes. The Liberal Party wants to see it go to committee. The Conservatives know that, but the games continue.
The only government to be held in contempt of Parliament, in the history of Canada and the Commonwealth, is Stephen Harper's government. When he was prime minister, who was the parliamentary secretary to the Prime Minister? It was none other than the leader of the Conservative Party. Today, we have the leader of the Conservative Party saying he does not even want to get the security clearance. The question is why.
What is the history? What does the leader of the Conservative Party have to hide? Why is he not being accountable to the public, to the Canadian people?
Mr. Speaker, that is just a red herring that the parliamentary secretary continues to bring up in the House.
Members of Parliament from all political parties have security clearances. The leader of the Conservative Party has said quite clearly that, if the Prime Minister and his cabinet and caucus are so sure of themselves, they can simply release the names. I urge my colleague who asked the question to go to caucus this week and bring this up, that is, if they are not dealing with something else.
Mr. Speaker, my colleague has done an incredible job over the last nine years, since I have been a member of Parliament, of exposing the government's corruption and scandal. For those in the gallery who perhaps missed what we were talking about, and those in TV land who are watching, we are talking about over $400 million in taxpayer funds. The Auditor General found 186 conflicts of interest in which Liberal insiders funnelled $480 million to their own pockets and to their own companies.
I have asked colleagues this before: If somebody steals from us, do we go to a committee or do we go to the RCMP?
Mr. Speaker, I said in my remarks that, if this were a private sector company and if over $400 million of suspected fraudulent activity had gone on in the company, that company would have a responsibility to take that information to the police for an investigation as soon as possible. The responsibility would be to its shareholders, if it was publicly traded, or to its board and ownership, if it was privately held.
As a matter of fact, if they had that information in the private sector and did not proceed with charges, one could assume they were negligent or even compromised themselves. I think my answer speaks for itself.
Mr. Speaker, we are now three weeks into this debate, and we still have Conservative members being purposefully obtuse about what is actually before us. They wrote the motion to go to committee, but they are pretending that, somehow, everybody else is obstructing.
They talk about Liberal insiders. Will the hon. member finally be clear with Canadians and note that, on March 24, 2022, the same person in question, Annette Verschuren, donated to the Conservative Party as well? In fact, they have a long history of donating to the Conservative Party.
Will they come clean and just admit that Liberal, Tory, same old story?
Mr. Speaker, my colleague has tried to put on a brave face, but a basic civics course would let them know who the actual government is. The government is across the way, both from me and my colleague who just asked the question. At least, that used to be the way it was, until he and his leader signed on to a supply and confidence agreement; by the way, that agreement enabled this kind of behaviour for the last two-plus years.
It is a bit rich to hear my colleague talking about this. I am a member of the procedure and House affairs committee, and he has said at procedure and House affairs while I have been there that, if this issue goes towards the committee, it will get buried; it will get mired down in the committee. He knows this full well.
This is the appropriate place to be having this debate. This is the stage of the business of the nation. We need to have that discussion and have it out right here in front of all Canadians, not buried away in some obscure committee in the basement of this place.
Mr. Speaker, I will just ask the member the same question I asked earlier in regard to this question of privilege. It appears, based on what I am hearing, that all parties, all members are in support of this question of privilege and making sure we are able to do the important work.
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Hon. Bardish Chagger: Mr. Speaker, I see a member who wants to chirp at me because he has a different question; he should wait his turn as I just patiently waited my turn.
Can the member share if there is any member of Parliament, or any political party, who is opposed to this question of privilege? Does the member agree that we should perhaps call the question so that we can do the important work that this question of privilege is requesting the House and this place to do?
Mr. Speaker, I will remind my colleague that, even though this debate has been going on for quite some time, this has been my first opportunity to speak on behalf of my constituents on this particular issue. I was very much looking forward to that. As I also said in my remarks, although I do not know if my friend who asked the question was here, the Speaker tabled more documents in reference to the motion just this morning. The documents, from the various government agencies from which they were requested, continue to be redacted, either in part or in full.
Conservatives believe in transparency and accountability. We know the only way to get the full documents and to uphold the intent of the original motion that was passed is to make sure those documents are deposited in the chamber before we dispose of the motion.
STATEMENTS BY MEMBERS
[Statements by Members]
[English]
Pharmacare
Mr. Speaker, it is with great pleasure that I rise today to celebrate the passing of the Pharmacare Act, which will have an immense impact on the lives of Canadians and Newfoundlanders and Labradorians.
Every Conservative member of the House voted against the historic pharmacare legislation at every step. They voted against legislation that will help nine million women and gender-diverse Canadians access universal, single-pay contraceptives. Canadians have made it clear they do not want slogans; they want a government that will put their health first, including their reproductive rights, and make lasting impacts to the Canadian health care system. It is our Liberal government that is delivering just that.
Canadian Farmers
Mr. Speaker, it is harvest, a time of thanksgiving for tens of thousands of farmers across Canada, including in my home province of Manitoba. Despite the Liberal-NDP plan to quadruple the carbon tax on these hard-working individuals, Conservatives wish to express our gratitude to farmers.
Manitoba's 20,000 farmers are renowned worldwide as consistent and reliable suppliers of safe, high-quality grains, oilseeds, livestock and agri-food products. This reputation will continue to thrive despite the Liberal-NDP effort to make them less competitive globally by quadrupling the carbon tax. In 2023, Manitoba's crop sector achieved a record $6.6 billion in revenue, with this year anticipated to be higher. Across Canada, the agriculture and agri-food system employs 2.3 million people and contributes $150 billion to GDP.
It is harvest time and Thanksgiving time, so when we enjoy another meal with family and friends, we should remember the farmer who made it possible. I thank our Canadian farmers.
Pharmacare
Mr. Speaker, pharmacare matters to my constituents in Dartmouth—Cole Harbour, and I will never stop advocating for national pharmacare. I do not believe that anyone should have to choose between paying their rent and paying for the prescription drugs they need. That is why we have laid a strong framework and launched the first phase of our plan.
Cost is one of the biggest barriers for women to access contraceptives, but under our new pharmacare plan, women will get the access they need without having to empty their wallet. No Nova Scotian with diabetes should ever feel the need to stretch their insulin doses or other medication just to try to make it last longer. Our pharmacare plan will be there to support folks living with diabetes so they no longer need to worry about the costs; they can focus on their health and well-being.
Canada is the only country in the world with universal health care that does not provide universal coverage for prescription drugs, and our Liberal government is working to fix that.
[Translation]
International Day of the Girl Child
Mr. Speaker, on October 11, we celebrated the International Day of the Girl Child. This year's theme was “Girls' vision for the future”, which conveys the need for urgent action and for hope, driven by the power of girls' voices and their vision for the future.
In 2011, the United Nations General Assembly declared October 11 as the International Day of the Girl Child to recognize girls' rights and the unique challenges girls face. Future generations will be disproportionately affected by global crises related to climate change, international conflict and poverty, as well as by push-back on hard-won gains for gender equality.
However, girls cannot realize this vision alone. They need allies, because the potential of the world's more than 1.1 billion girls is limitless. Girls are breaking boundaries and barriers posed by stereotypes and exclusion, including those directed at children with disabilities and those living in marginalized communities. They are doing so as entrepreneurs, innovators and initiators of global movements for future generations.
Let's go, girls.
[English]
British Columbia Provincial Election
Mr. Speaker, this past Saturday, British Columbians braved an atmospheric river to vote for their next government. While a clear majority of British Columbians voted for candidates who believe in the science behind climate change and vaccines and rejected the conspiracy theories that defined the Conservative Party, the final make-up of the legislative assembly is still too close to call.
We do know that West Vancouver—Sunshine Coast—Sea to Sky Country will have three first-time MLAs, all from different parties. I congratulate Randene Neill and Lynne Block for their incredible campaigns and hard work, but I want to give a special shout-out to Jeremy Valeriote, who, after being ahead on election day four years ago by 60 votes unfortunately did not win. However, this Saturday, he was officially declared the winner and the first-ever Green Party MLA for the mainland of British Columbia.
All members of the House know that the long days of door knocking, making phone calls and connecting with voters is physically and emotionally demanding, so I want to congratulate Karin Kirkpatrick, Sara Eftekhar, Archie Kaario, Jen Ford, Yuri Fulmer, Chris Moore, Chris Hergesheimer and Greg Reid for putting their name forward to be in the spotlight to represent our communities. Our province and democracy are better for it.
Finance
Mr. Speaker, the finance minister has missed the 2024 deficit target by 17%, making debt-servicing charges the fastest-growing budget item. It is Small Business Week. Can members imagine if the CFO of a business spent the majority of the budget on paying debt? They would be replaced or the company would go bankrupt.
I recently did a post on my Facebook page asking for stories about my community of Peterborough—Kawartha, and I received hundreds of comments about businesses donating time and money to affordable housing, organizations and volunteers helping with the homelessness and opioid crises. A comment from Alan Clark really jumped off the page; he said that the community has done more than the government to help the people. That is so true. The most compassionate thing a leader can do is make life more affordable.
It is time for a government and a leader who know that budgets do not balance themselves. It is time for a leader who empowers small businesses, cuts the taxes and allows them to flourish and give to our community. Together, Conservatives will build a Canada that works for the people who do the work.
Foreign Interference
Mr. Speaker, last week the RCMP revealed to Canadians allegations of transnational aggression by the Indian government. This includes tying murders of Canadian citizens on Canadian soil to agents of the Government of India, the use of organized crime to target the Sikh community in Canada and foreign interference in our democratic processes.
This very serious evidence has sent shock waves through the community. Since then, our allies in the United States, New Zealand, the United Kingdom and Australia have come to support us in our investigation and have urged the Indian government to co-operate.
I want to remind the Indian government that Canadians will not be intimidated by the acts of foreign interference and violence. We will not tolerate any form of intimidation, harassment or harmful targeting of communities in Canada.
Foreign Interference
Mr. Speaker, in the wake of the RCMP's alarming statement revealing it has gathered credible evidence that agents of the Indian government are involved in serious criminal activity in Canada, including coercion, extortion and homicides, many Canadians are understandably shaken and concerned for their safety. Trust in our institutions is being tested, and the sense of security that Canadians should feel has been deeply affected, particularly within the Sikh and South Asian communities.
Despite this unsettling news, we must recognize and thank our law enforcement agencies for their tireless work in uncovering these serious threats and taking decisive action to protect our communities. Their work is critical to ensuring the safety of every Canadian, and we stand firmly behind them as they continue these investigations. Together we will hold those responsible to account.
[Translation]
Public Service of Canada
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of this Liberal government supported by the Bloc Québécois, we already knew that the size of the federal government had reached unprecedented proportions.
This week, however, we learned that the total number of federal public servants has increased by 42%, with more than 108,000 new employees added to the payroll. Costs have gone up 68% since 2016, with public service spending reaching an all-time high of $67.4 billion. That is huge.
According to data from the Treasury Board of Canada Secretariat, federal departments are struggling to meet 50% of their target every year. Furthermore, consultants' fees cost $21.6 billion during the 2023‑24 fiscal year. That is a new record for our country: more public servants, more consultants and fewer services to the public.
What a disgrace.
[English]
Leader of the Conservative Party of Canada
Mr. Speaker, do members know that Stephen Harper has been the only prime minister in history to date who has been in contempt of Parliament? Interestingly enough, the leader of the Conservative Party today, the Conservative Reform Party, was his parliamentary secretary at the time. Is it any surprise that he would not want to get the security clearance necessary in order to understand what is happening on foreign interference. It begs this question: What is the history of the leader of the Conservative Party? Does he believe that he is not going to be able to get the security clearance? Is that the reason he does not want it?
Canadians have the right to know the leader of the Conservative Party's past. What is he hiding? I want to know, and Canadians want to know, why he will not step up and do something about it. Why will he not do the honourable thing and apply for the security clearance?
Food Security
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up.
This weekend in Surrey, over 15,000 people attended Ugly Potato Day, an initiative that invites residents to get imperfect produce for free from farmers. Over 250,000 pounds of produce was donated. Food insecurity is so harsh that residents were willing to wait in line, in one of the worst storms we have seen, for hours just for the chance to get some potatoes and carrots for their families.
Food Banks Canada reports that the cost of living has become so high that food bank use has increased by 50% since 2021. British Columbians have the second-highest poverty rate in the country, impacting over 382,000 individuals.
It is clear that things are broken. Canadians need relief, but the Liberal-NDP government is not listening. Only common-sense Conservatives will reduce spending, eliminate the carbon tax, boost paycheques and give families some much-needed relief.
Indigenous Procurement
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up.
The Liberals once again find themselves mired in corruption and controversy, as witness after witness has testified that the Prime Minister and his ministers stood idly by while billions were stolen by businesses falsely claiming to be indigenous-owned. The Assembly of First Nations has testified that the vast majority of companies taking advantage of the Liberal government's indigenous contracting program are actually shell companies. However, rather than helping Conservatives uncover the truth and solve this problem, Liberal MPs held up committee and failed to address the issue of billions being misspent. While Liberal MPs stall and deflect, common-sense Conservatives will continue to investigate the contracting abuse and theft taking place under the Liberal government.
With WE Charity, SNC-Lavalin, the green slush fund, ArriveCAN, foreign interference and now indigenous procurement, when will the Prime Minister do the right thing and call an election?
Foreign Interference
Mr. Speaker, last Monday, the RCMP took the unprecedented step of informing Canadians that agents of the Government of India are involved in serious criminal activity on Canadian soil. These crimes represent a grave threat to our national security, yet the leader of the Conservative Party is displaying a concerning lack of seriousness in response to the RCMP's alarming announcement. His failure to acknowledge the severity of these actions undermines public confidence in our institutions and Canada's commitment to upholding justice. As Shachi Kurl, president of Angus Reid, said, “I think that's folly, and frankly, I think he should grow up, get the security clearance and find out what he needs to find out.”
At a time when a unified response is required, the Leader of the Opposition's dismissal sends the wrong message both domestically and internationally. Canadians expect their leaders to prioritize national security and the rule of law above partisan politics.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Colleagues, declarations by members, or S. O. 31s, are an important opportunity for all members to express themselves freely. The hon. member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo knows that very well and caught my eye. I would ask him not to take the floor unless recognized by the Speaker.
The hon. member for Skeena—Bulkley Valley.
Kirsten Patrick
Mr. Speaker, today, I rise to mark the passing of Kirsten Patrick, a young 34-year-old resident of Smithers whose life ended last Monday at the Smithers District Hospital. I had known Kirsten for most of the time that I have lived in Smithers. I remember her broad smile. I remember the way that she greeted everyone on Main Street, including our mayor.
Kirsten lived an unimaginably difficult life, one marked by trauma, addiction, violence, homelessness and loss. For the past several years, she lived in a tent. She was a fighter, a survivor, a neighbour and a friend.
My heart today goes out to her mom Marina, to her kids, to her partner Casey and to everyone who knew and loved her. Kirsten's life mattered and she will be deeply missed.
[Translation]
Women Farmers of Montérégie‑Ouest
Mr. Speaker, I rise today with pride to congratulate Mélissa Bourdon on being named woman farmer of the year in the Montérégie‑Ouest region. From farmwork and fieldwork to financial management and direct sales, Ms. Bourdon is always finding ways to innovate on the farm she manages alongside her father, François. With the strong support of those close to her, and on top of her endless plans and projects, she even finds the time to work as a part-time firefighter in Saint‑Étienne‑de‑Beauharnois and to advocate for the Union des producteurs agricoles. Ms. Bourdon is a smart woman whose passion and commitment will undoubtedly keep her at the forefront of agriculture for many years to come.
Likewise, we applaud Ange‑Marie Delforge for winning the special tribute award. She is known for her straight-talking ways and, above all, her unwavering determination to fight for our agriculture. Long live women's involvement in trade unionism and agriculture, and many thanks to the women farmers of Montérégie‑Ouest.
[English]
Government Accountability
Mr. Speaker, after nine years, we have more proof that the costly NDP-Liberal coalition is not worth the cost, crime or corruption. The Speaker has ruled that the government has violated an order of the House. The Liberals are paralyzing Parliament to hide $400 million of corruption.
The Auditor General has found that 186 contracts went to Liberal appointees, contracts that must be turned over to the police. These contracts are not just documents; they represent money stolen from the pockets of Canadians and given to the friends of the Prime Minister and his cronies, money that Canadians could have used for rent, groceries and gas.
The solution is simple: The Liberals need to obey the Speaker's ruling, turn over the documents and make Parliament work. This is the common-sense plan, the Conservative plan. Common-sense Conservatives are here to deliver solutions for the doubling of housing costs, food inflation and the crime and chaos on our streets. It is time for common sense. It is time for ethics and integrity. It is time to bring it home.
Support for the Fight Against Cancer
Mr. Speaker, I am grateful to be with friends and colleagues and am thankful for the support so many of them have shown me. I am looking forward to being back with everyone. I am especially grateful to doctors, scientists and health care professionals for their medicine, research and caring, which have allowed me to work every day for the community I love, through multiple surgeries, radiation and ongoing chemotherapy.
I know there are people on the Hill who have gone through cancer or are going through it now. My heart is with them. Cancer touches all of us, and it is hard. Sometimes the fight is week by week; sometimes it is hour by hour. It can be lonely despite having the best support system.
Those who are hurting should know they have one more person in their corner. I understand and support them and I walk beside them and their families as they climb every hill.
Some hon. members: Hear, hear!
Oral Questions
[Oral Questions]
[Translation]
The Economy
Mr. Speaker, after nine years, this Prime Minister has doubled the debt and the cost of housing to the point where a monthly mortgage payment in Quebec is $1,055 higher than it was five years ago. That is a 74% increase. On top of that, two million Canadians are relying on food banks while the government wastes our money. Now Parliament is paralyzed by an attempt to cover up a $400‑million scandal.
What is the Prime Minister doing? He is trying to save himself from his own caucus.
Will he call an election so we can fix what he has broken?
Mr. Speaker, I am glad the Conservatives are starting off with a question about the Canadian economy. I think we can all be happy knowing that inflation dropped to 1.6% in September, which is a major success story for all Canadians. This will really make a difference in Canadians' lives.
However, the Conservatives do not want to talk about Canadian success stories.
Mr. Speaker, while Canadians are going through hell because rent has doubled and the cost of living is out of control, what is the Prime Minister doing? He is trying to save himself from his own caucus, which is now revolting against him. He is not working for Canadians. He is working to save his own skin.
The funny thing is that the Liberals may not have confidence in this Prime Minister anymore, but the leader of the Bloc Québécois still does.
Will the Prime Minister finally call an election so that we can fix what he has broken?
Mr. Speaker, the real question is, why does the opposition leader keep obstructing the work of the House? I think it is because he is afraid to lose another confidence vote in the House.
We have won two confidence votes. The Conservatives are the only ones who do not want another confidence vote because they will lose again. The House does not have confidence in the Leader of the Opposition.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, this weekend in Cloverdale, 15,000 people lined up in the pouring rain with the hope that they might get a few rejected potatoes. It was Ugly Potato Day in that city, and 15,000 British Columbians are so hungry and desperate that they needed to collect rejected foodstuffs.
Two million Canadians are lined up at food banks. There are 1,400 homeless encampments in Ontario today. What is the Prime Minister doing? He is working to save his political skin from his revolting caucus.
This cannot go on. Will he call a carbon tax election now?
Mr. Speaker, I really hope that every single MP in the House agrees that in our great country, no one should ever go hungry. However, when the Conservatives talk about the most vulnerable, they are crying crocodile tears. How do I know that? I know that because they have had the gall to vote against a national school food program, a program that will feed 400,000 Canadian kids. How can the Conservatives look themselves in the face when they oppose feeding Canadian kids?
Mr. Speaker, that program, though it has cost millions, has not fed a single hungry child. It has fed bureaucracy, which is all it ever was intended to do. Meanwhile, two million people are lined up at food banks. We watched 15,000 people line up for an ugly potato because they cannot afford to eat. Diseases like scurvy are back, and one in four kids goes to school hungry after nine years of the Prime Minister, yet his priority is saving his political career from his revolting caucus.
This cannot go on. Will the Prime Minister call a carbon tax election?
Mr. Speaker, the Conservatives are damning themselves with their own words. I was at a school in downtown Winnipeg on Friday with Premier Wab Kinew, and we gave those beautiful, wonderful children some bannock, a little carton of milk, some jam, some butter and a banana. That was not bureaucracy that fed those kids; that was the deal we did with Manitoba.
The Conservatives are against feeding kids. How could they stand up and be in favour of not feeding kids?
Mr. Speaker, is she kidding me? She says that Canadians should be happy. While one in four kids go to school hungry, while two million people line up at food banks, while scurvy is making a comeback after nine years of this government, Canadians should be grateful that she showed up with a few snacks and a photo op at one school.
This is the same finance minister who has just blown $7 billion past her deficit target, meaning more inflation and higher rates. Meanwhile, the Prime Minister hides in a fetal position under his desk. Will he call a carbon tax election now?
Mr. Speaker, we have clearly knocked the Leader of the Opposition off his game this afternoon. How can he have the temerity to talk about actual meals fed to actual children as bureaucracy? That tells us how cynical these Canadians are and how low they go. Then he talks about inflation. It has been in the Bank of Canada's target range for nine months in a row. It fell below 2% in September and rates have come down three times. That is what is happening with inflation.
[Translation]
Seniors
Mr. Speaker, who is flying the Liberal plane?
It is October 21. There are eight days left to pass Bill C‑319 and increase OAS for seniors; otherwise, the Liberals are risking an election. The idea of increasing pensions is supported by the Conservatives, the NDP and 79% of the population. Even the Liberals in committee agree.
There is clearly no one flying the Liberal plane. Everyone supports this initiative, but nothing is being done about it. The deadline is eight days away.
Is that why the Liberals want their leader out?
Mr. Speaker, thanks to the Government of Canada, the Liberal government, we were able to lower the retirement age to 65, increase the GIS and help hundreds of thousands of Quebeckers by providing dental care for seniors.
As a result, we were able to lower seniors' poverty rates well below the national average, all without the support or help of the Bloc Québécois.
International Trade
Mr. Speaker, guess who has not yet said a word about Bill C‑282, which is being blocked by two senators? I am talking about the Prime Minister himself.
He has never asked Peter Boehm or Peter Harder to do their job. He has not said a word. He is too busy pulling all the knives out of his back. Not only is he the one who appointed those two senators, but one of them is even a friend, specifically, Peter Harder, whom he often calls for advice.
Could he pick up the phone now, call his buddy Peter and tell him to do his job?
Mr. Speaker, perhaps my colleague is aware that the reason we can talk about supply management in Canada is that 50 years ago, it was a Liberal government that introduced supply management for farmers in Quebec and across Canada.
The reason we are still talking about it now is that, during negotiations with President Trump, it was a Liberal government that defended the interests of farmers by defending supply management at all costs for Quebeckers and Canadians, contrary to what the Conservatives wanted to do.
[English]
Public Safety
Mr. Speaker, country first, party second.
According to the RCMP, the Indian government hired thugs to terrorize Canadians.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Jagmeet Singh: The Conservatives are laughing about this, but people have died as a result, and they have meddled in our politics. The Prime Minister has said that there are multiple Conservative MPs and/or candidates compromised. They may be sitting in the chamber right now, but the Conservative leader chooses ignorance. Has the Prime Minister directly urged the leader of the Conservatives to get his security clearance?
Mr. Speaker, we have been clear. We think all party leaders in this House should have the required security clearance so that they can receive information concerning the threats to this House or threats to Canada involving foreign interference. We also take the comments of the leader of the NDP very seriously with respect to protecting Sikh Canadians and protecting those who have been victims of this foreign interference by the Government of India.
My responsibility as public safety minister is to ensure the safety of all Canadians, and that is exactly what we are going to continue to do.
Mr. Speaker, I repeat, country first, party second. I dare the Conservatives to laugh again. I see they are not. They are quiet.
[Translation]
Narendra Modi must not see that a Canadian leader is willing to turn a blind eye to crimes committed against Canadians. Every member of the House must condemn India's interference. There must be consequences for any parliamentarian involved.
Has the Prime Minister directly urged the Conservative leader to get his security clearance?
Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister has been clear. We fundamentally believe that all party leaders in the House should have the appropriate security clearance so that they can find out the information they need to manage their parliamentary caucus and understand the threats facing Canadians.
I wholeheartedly endorse the sentiments of the NDP leader concerning the need to condemn the Government of India's interference. I congratulate the RCMP on a job well done. I know that investigations are under way. We have full confidence in the work of the RCMP.
[English]
The Economy
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal government, it seems that no part of Canadian life is safe from the finance minister's radical tax rampage, not food, not home, not gas and not even music.
In response to new streaming taxes from the government, Spotify just announced that it is raising subscription fees by 15%. Even the simple things like kicking back and listening to a playlist are not immune to this greedy government.
When will the finance minister wake up, face the music, and finally admit that her new taxes and spending are not worth the cost?
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, once again, the Conservatives are recycling the rhetoric of the big platforms, which have been making millions in profits in Canada for years and which were recently asked by the CRTC to contribute to our system, like every other Canadian company.
This is not the first time that Spotify and the others have raised their subscription fees, but never once did we hear the Conservatives complain. This time, however, when it is for something that will help our Canadian artists, especially emerging artists, the Conservatives are up in arms.
I am not terribly surprised to see that they are still in the pocket of the U.S. tech giants.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, their hands are in the pockets of average Canadians. The finance minister told Canadians to cut Disney+, and she is probably going to tell them to cut their Spotify subscriptions, too.
The Liberals say the taxes will fix climate change and the economy. They say that paying more taxes is going lead Canadians to be better off. All the while, the Liberals talk down to people. The carbon tax is up, the streaming tax is up, capital gains taxes are up and the finance minister missed her target by 17%.
When will the finance minister admit that she has failed, axe the taxes and let Canadians live their lives without the government's hands in Canadians' pockets?
Mr. Speaker, we on this side of the House have a plan for a prosperous economic future for this country.
The Conservatives, who continue to deny the existence of climate change, have a plan that leads backwards, not forwards. We are ensuring that things like the $12-billion Dow plant in Alberta is getting built, along with the $7-billion Jansen potash mine, electric vehicle and battery plants, and hydrogen facilities in Nova Scotia, and Newfoundland and Labrador.
We have a plan for a future that is a great and prosperous future. The Conservatives have no plan.
Mr. Speaker, here are the consequences of the NDP-Liberal plan. A new report shows that 35% of Albertan families are skipping meals because of high food costs, yet the Liberals and NDP tell Canadians that they have never had it so good.
I would like to remind the Prime Minister that his own Parliamentary Budget Officer confirmed that Canadians are worse off paying the carbon tax. In fact, when the NDP-Liberals quadruple the carbon tax, it will cost Alberta families $2,000 a year.
Will the NDP-Liberals just finally admit their carbon tax is a scam and call a carbon tax election?
Mr. Speaker, on this side of the House, we continue to fight for Canadian families.
How do we do that? One way is the Canada child benefit. Families with children under the age of six can receive almost $7,800 each and every year per child. This is tangible support that arrives each and every month to help families afford the basics or whatever their child needs.
This is how we fight on this side for Canadian families.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to give the minister some facts about what Canadian families are facing. Some 35% of Albertan families are skipping meals because of high food costs. Food bank usage in Mississauga is up 60%. Doctors are worried about scurvy because families cannot buy nutritious food. Food inflation in Canada is 37% higher than in the United States. The government's own Parliamentary Budget Officer admitted and confirmed the carbon tax is all pain and no gain. The NDP-Liberal government can end the pain it is inflicting on Canadians by calling a carbon tax election.
Will the government do it?
Mr. Speaker, cutting a cheque that low-income Canadians are getting, as the vast majority of them, or 80%, are getting more back than than they pay, is not going to fix an issue like scurvy. What is going to fix scurvy is certainly not cutting our health system; it is not getting rid of diabetes medication or getting rid of free dental care; it is not attacking the foundations of our health system just as we are working with provinces and territories on solutions.
What is going to get it done in a time of global uncertainty is collaboration and working together, not nonsense slogans.
[Translation]
Housing
Mr. Speaker, facts are stubborn things. The Quebec Professional Association of Real Estate Brokers says that the median price of a single‑family home in Quebec is now $450,000. It has increased by 74% in five years.
New homebuyers are now paying $1,055 more per month. In Saguenay, purchase prices have gone up by $130,000, making it even harder for people to buy a home. What does the “Liberal Bloc” intend to do to help these Quebeckers?
Mr. Speaker, that is a very interesting question. As the member knows full well, we are investing to build affordable housing in Quebec and across the country. In Quebec, we have invested more than $900 million to build housing.
I find it interesting, because the Conservative Party opposed the program that helps build housing. When the leader of the Conservative Party was the federal minister responsible for housing, he only built six homes across the country. That is unacceptable.
Mr. Speaker, once again, facts are stubborn things. In Trois‑Rivières, the price of a single‑family home has shot up by $190,000. In Drummondville, it has gone up by $200,000. That does not even include the costs associated with buying a home. These increases speak to a growing crisis that warrants urgent action.
What is the “Liberal Bloc” government going to do?
Mr. Speaker, what a lucky coincidence that the Conservative leader is here today, because I am going to ask him to help me. We travelled all over the Quebec region, including my colleague's riding, to look for the six affordable housing units that the Conservative leader built across the country during his entire tenure, and we have yet to find them. Could he come to Quebec with me to look for them?
Justice
Mr. Speaker, recent events at the Bedford school in Montreal remind us that it would be a serious mistake to think that we have achieved secularism. On the contrary, we need to do even more. In Quebec, we are witnessing the return of religion to our schools, after decades of fighting to keep it out.
Gender equality and the separation of church and state are at the heart of Quebec's integration model and must be assiduously and regularly protected at all times. Will the government commit now to not challenging Bill 21 before the Supreme Court?
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately, the Bloc Québécois sometimes confuses the responsibilities of the Government of Quebec with those of the Government of Canada. We are not responsible for education. Perhaps the Bloc Québécois wishes things were different, but education is not a federal government responsibility. My colleague might want to run for a seat in the Quebec National Assembly.
Mr. Speaker, one day we will get there.
I would remind members that prayers are still said every day before the House begins its work. I would remind members that the government continues to uphold a religious exemption in the Criminal Code that permits calls for violence or even murder. That happened just a few weeks ago. That is serious. I would also remind members that the Prime Minister appointed a representative who spends her time criticizing Quebec's Bill 21 and blaming it for everything bad.
Canada is not moving toward secularism. It is moving away from it, and it is also working on moving Quebec away from it. Will the government listen to reason and restrain its irresistible desire to constantly undermine Quebec's model of secularism?
Mr. Speaker, my colleague talked about desire. If he really has a desire to get mixed up in Quebec's jurisdictions, maybe he should run for a seat in the Quebec National Assembly during its next election.
Mr. Speaker, I usually have a lot of respect for my colleague, but today he refuses to listen to the questions and his answers are nonsense.
Quebec chose an integration model based on common values such as gender equality, separation of church and state, and French as our common language and historical heritage. Ottawa chose a very different model. It chose multiculturalism, which basically means newcomers do not need to change or integrate. The result is that while Quebec is trying to integrate newcomers, Ottawa is telling them that it is okay if they do the opposite. The truth is that the federal integration model runs contrary to Quebec's plan for an egalitarian, secular, French society.
When will this government, or the next one, understand that multiculturalism does not work in Quebec?
[English]
Carbon Pricing
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal Prime Minister, Canadians are worse off. The effects of his deficits, inflation and carbon tax hikes have been devastating. A new report by the Angus Reid Institute says that a majority of Canadians are struggling just to buy food. Of course, that is even worse for low-income households, with two-thirds of those Canadians saying they cannot even afford to feed their families.
One way to lower food prices would be to axe the carbon tax on the farmer who grows the food, the trucker who ships the food and the grocer who sells the food. The Prime Minister could do that today.
Will the he show some compassion, lower food prices and just axe the tax?
Mr. Speaker, every day, we see the Conservatives get up in the House and tell mistruths. Eight out of 10 Canadian families get more money back than they pay for the price on pollution.
Of course, this is no surprise when we hear what the Conservatives' closest friends and allies have to say. Danielle Smith believes planes are spraying chemtrails. Ches Crosbie says climate change is bogus. John Rustad says fighting climate change is a plot to reduce the human population and force people to eat bugs.
They say one can tell a lot about people from the company they keep. Well, we certainly can.
Although the hon. minister did not make reference to a particular member, I encourage all members to skate further away from the line, especially in regard to using that word.
The hon. member for Regina—Qu'Appelle.
Mr. Speaker, obviously, the carbon tax scheme is not making Canadians better off. Otherwise, two-thirds of low-income Canadians would not be reporting that they cannot afford to pay for groceries and would not be lining up at food banks or waiting hours to get rejected potatoes.
The Parliamentary Budget Officer, the government's own watchdog, has concluded that when we factor in all the costs of the carbon tax, and remember that Canadians do not get to pick and choose which costs they pay, and after the Liberals are done quadrupling the carbon tax, a family in Ontario will be $1,400 poorer; one in New Brunswick, $1,000 poorer; and one in Saskatchewan, $2,000 poorer.
Why not let the people decide in a carbon tax election?
Mr. Speaker, the Parliamentary Budget Officer and 300 economists across this country have said that eight out of 10 Canadian families get more money back, and it works directly inverse to income. By taking away the price on pollution, the most vulnerable will become more vulnerable. The Leader of the Opposition and his caucus know that, but certainly—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
The hon. minister.
Mr. Speaker, we know that the Conservatives do not believe in the reality of climate change, nor do they have a plan for our economic future. They are no different from Mr. Rustad, who has endorsed the Leader of the Opposition. He said, “We should not be trying to fight climate change” and that “this narrative about climate...I can only put it to the fact that somehow they think that we need to reduce the world population.” Many other candidates have essentially said that we do not need to fight climate change.
Canadians know that climate change is real. Canadians know we need a plan for the future of the economy, and that is what is on this side of the House. Shame on you.
I can take some slings and arrows, but I am certain the hon. member was not referring to the Speaker.
The hon. member for Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa.
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up.
I recently visited a local food bank in Dauphin, Manitoba, where the volunteers told me they cannot keep up with the increased demand. However, the Prime Minister does not care, as he plans to quadruple the carbon tax and force Manitoba families to pay $1,300 in carbon taxes every single year.
Manitobans cannot afford the costly carbon tax, so when will the Prime Minister give Canadians a choice and call a carbon tax election?
Mr. Speaker, I recently had the opportunity to be in Manitoba to speak with some parents about what they are facing there. I had the opportunity to announce, alongside the Deputy Prime Minister, that we have come to an agreement on our national school food program that will see, this school year, over 19,000 more children receive food at school. It is an over $17-million commitment over three years. That is what we do on this side of the House to ensure that families are supported.
Labour
Mr. Speaker, flight attendants, who are predominantly women, work an average of 35 hours a month unpaid. Consecutive Liberal and Conservative governments have overlooked this issue for decades. The big airline bosses are profiting off of the unpaid labour of flight attendants. It is time for this exploitation to end.
Today, I will be tabling a bill to end unpaid work for all flight attendants in Canada. Will the government support it?
Mr. Speaker, Canadian airlines are, of course, private sector entities. The government sets a minimum standard and lets the hard work of collective bargaining take it from there. Flight attendants have a collective agreement that sets out their hours and their wages, and it is not my place to comment on it.
[Translation]
Housing
Mr. Speaker, people are dying in the streets, on park benches, in alleys and sometimes in portable toilets. The number of deaths among the unhoused has skyrocketed. In fact, it has tripled in recent years, and this is just the tip of the iceberg considering that a lot of deaths are not even recorded. The housing crisis kills.
Liberals and Conservatives alike have allowed this crisis to fester so that big property owners could line their pockets. They have put profits before people.
What are the Liberals going to do to house people and save lives?
Mr. Speaker, like my colleague, I represent an area in Montreal's east end. We are seeing the human crisis playing out.
Unlike the Conservatives, who ignore human dignity in order to exploit human misery, on this side of the House, we are going to work with every municipality to make sure that everyone has a roof over their heads.
[English]
Foreign Affairs
Mr. Speaker, recently, I spoke in the House about the growth of radical far-right movements. They have organized disinformation campaigns, have impacted how some people and politicians treat others and have led some politicians to act against the best interests of Canadians.
Our government has said that Canada will stand with the Ukrainian people until they win. Ukraine must win because its victory is essential to Canada's security.
There is a coordinated Russian campaign to spread disinformation, sow distress and encourage isolationism. Could the Minister of International Trade please share with us how Russian foreign interference is a threat to our support of Ukraine and to all Canadians?
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Etobicoke Centre for his steadfast support for Ukraine.
The Conservative leader's dismissal of Ukraine as a “faraway” land is shameful. The Conservatives' willingness to appease far-right disinformation, often fuelled by foreign actors like Russia, undermines democracy and Canadian values. Canadians deserve leadership that stands firmly against these dangerous influences.
While the Conservatives abandon Ukraine, on this side of the House, we will keep supporting Ukraine until it wins this war.
Innovation, Science and Industry
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and now time is up.
At a time when Canadians are skipping meals and many are living paycheque to paycheque, the Liberals have siphoned $400 million of taxpayer money to contracts for their friends at the green slush fund. The Liberal-appointed board has racked up at least 186 conflicts of interest.
When will the government end the cover-up so the House can get back to helping Canadians deal with the cost of living crisis that it created?
Mr. Speaker, it is disappointing that after nine years, it is the same slogan, the same type of disinformation, the same type of false accusation. It is time to get real.
The Conservatives know very well that we acted in a timely way to dissolve that organization. The board has resigned, the CEO has resigned and the organization no longer exists. We made a solemn promise to Canadians to get to the bottom of this. That is what we did. The Conservatives should let the House do the important work, which is work for Canadians, instead of filibustering their own motion. It is shameful what they are doing.
Mr. Speaker, what is shameful is the cover-up. The Liberal government is still in contempt of Parliament by refusing to turn over the documents that could certainly reveal the depths of its corruption with the green slush fund. It has now paralyzed Parliament to hide its scandal. Meanwhile, Canadians are suffering through the unprecedented food, crime and housing crises that it created.
Will the government finally turn over the documents today and give Canadians the answers they deserve?
Mr. Speaker, what my hon. colleague is saying is false. The government has handed over thousands of documents, just done in a way that protects the charter rights of Canadians. What is true is that the Conservatives are filibustering their own motion because they do not want to respect the Speaker's ruling, which asks for this unprecedented motion to go to committee.
There is only one thing the Conservatives are afraid of: They do not want the House to get to work because they know that if there is another confidence motion, the Conservative leader will lose it.
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the NDP-Liberal coalition, taxes, costs and crime are all up and now time is up.
After Liberal-appointed board members of SDTC were caught funnelling 400 million tax dollars to 186 of their companies, why will the NDP-Liberals not end the cover-up today by releasing the documents, as Parliament ordered and the Speaker agreed with, so there can be accountability for the obvious corruption and potential crimes that have taken place under the costly coalition?
Mr. Speaker, the truth is that the Speaker's ruling was to send this matter to committee for further study because it was unprecedented what the Conservatives were asking for. We agree with the Speaker's ruling. The Conservatives are obstructing their own obstruction because they do not want the truth to come out, which is that they are trying to abuse the extraordinary privileges they have in order to override the rights of Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, the truth is that there is more proof these Liberals are not worth the cost, the crime and the corruption. Here are the facts: 186 conflicts of interest took place and 400 million tax dollars were funnelled to the companies of Liberal-appointed board members. The Speaker ruled that the evidence needs to be handed over unredacted, as Parliament has demanded.
Why are the NDP-Liberals not releasing the documents? What and who are they covering up for?
Mr. Speaker, it is typical for the Conservatives to omit the facts that are inconvenient to them. The fact of the matter is that we have provided thousands of pages of documents already; we are respecting the Speaker's ruling, which is to send this matter to committee for further study. I think all Canadians would appreciate and expect that the police follow due process. They expect that parliamentarians support their rights. They would expect that parliamentarians would not try to abuse their extraordinary powers to go after their own partisan vendettas and attack Canadians.
[Translation]
Public Safety
Mr. Speaker, as we speak, three vehicles have been set on fire in three days in Ahuntsic. The federal government needs to realize that Quebec has been plunged into another gang war.
This war is being waged by younger and younger gang members, who are practically child soldiers. It is a war that is taking innocent lives, like those of Léonor Geraudie and her seven-year-old daughter Vérane, who were collateral victims of arson in Old Montreal on October 5. Meanwhile, it has been radio silence in Ottawa.
What is the government waiting for? When will it crack down on criminal gangs?
Mr. Speaker, on the contrary, we are not waiting. We are taking action. We have added more RCMP members. While the Conservatives made cuts to border services, for example, we invested to crack down on criminal gangs.
I had some very positive discussions with Minister Bonnardel at our federal-provincial meetings last week. We agreed to continue to work together. I will continue to support him in his strategy to stop drones from dropping contraband goods onto prison grounds in Quebec, for example.
We are working hard together, and we will continue to do so.
Mr. Speaker, that is not good enough. This gang war is affecting all of Quebec.
In Montreal, two people died in a fire allegedly linked to extortion. In Frampton, a 14‑year‑old died, apparently trying to take on the Hells Angels, no less. In Quebec City and eastern Quebec, it has been open war for months. As early as September 20, the Quebec City police were warning other police forces that this war could be worse than the one in the 1990s, and things have only gotten worse since.
Does this government understand how serious the situation is?
Mr. Speaker, we understand the need to ensure public safety in Quebec and elsewhere in Canada. That is exactly what we are doing every single day.
I am very heartened by the RCMP's work with its partners in Quebec, including the Sûreté du Québec, the Montreal police and the Quebec City police. RCMP Commissioner Duheme often talks to me about joint task forces, particularly to address the challenges of criminal gangs.
We will continue to do our job. Frankly, the Bloc Québécois should support the government in this important process.
[English]
Finance
Mr. Speaker, in another conflict of interest involving the Liberal government's de facto finance minister, we have found out that he has been caught using his access to lobby governments to benefit himself and his company. It is carbon tax Carney's heat pump hustle. He is claiming it is green policy, but his only policy is to line his pockets with green, and the Prime Minister is shielding him from Canada's conflict of interest laws and lobbying regulations.
After nine years under the NDP-Liberals, taxes are up, costs are up, crime is up and time is up. Will they just have carbon tax Carney testify at committee?
Mr. Speaker, again, when there are Canadians who oppose their policies, all the Conservatives know how to do is attack them. Instead of respecting people and their differences of opinions, the Conservatives go after them personally. That is not how leaders in this country should act.
Mr. Speaker, I can assure the member opposite that Canadians take it personally when, every time the Liberals given the opportunity, they do not help out Canadians but instead help out well-connected Liberal insiders, such as Mark Carney with his heat pump hustle. He is carbon tax Carney or conflict of interest Carney. It is stacking up in such a way that we cannot even keep track of all the scandals involving the de facto finance minister since the Prime Minister lost confidence in the finance minister. Now Canadians want answers about the access that carbon tax Carney has been given and all the Canadian tax dollars he is lining his pockets with.
Will the Liberals just instruct the de facto finance minister to testify at committee?
Mr. Speaker, again, there the Conservatives go attacking private citizens. It just goes to show that anytime a Canadian citizen beats up against them, what do they do? They go on the personal attack.
I have a question for the Conservative leader. Why will he not get his security clearance? It is a question Canadians across this country are asking because they want to know what and whom he is trying to protect.
The Economy
Mr. Speaker, after nine years of the government, taxes are up, costs are up, time is up and credit card fees are up. The government announced that it lowered credit card fees, but this announcement flopped like a soggy pancake. Stripe, where Liberal leadership candidate Mark Carney sits on the board, said savings will not be passed on to consumers because of “other rising costs”. Even Liberal insiders tied to oligopolies know the government's announcements fall flat.
When will the government learn? It is not Carney that Canadians need, but competition, as well as a Prime Minister who will flip real results for Canadians and their families?
Mr. Speaker, the question on Canadians' minds this week is why the Leader of the Opposition will not get his security clearance. Every Canadian is wondering what he is trying to hide and what he is trying to protect. It is an easy thing to do. All the other leaders in this place have done it.
Why will the Leader of the Opposition not get his security clearance?
Foreign Affairs
Mr. Speaker, the events of the past year and the announcement last week have shaken many Canadians, particularly those in Indo-Canadian and Sikh communities. Canada is a country rooted in the rule of law. The safety and security of our citizens is the top priority of our government.
Can the Minister of Foreign Affairs update the House on the additional steps our government has taken to protect Canadians?
Mr. Speaker, of course I will. As I mentioned, since the beginning, we have had three priorities: first, to seek the truth; second, to make sure we protect Canadians; and third, to defend Canada's sovereignty.
Based on information provided by the RCMP, we asked India to lift the diplomatic immunity on six of their diplomats. Unfortunately, India refused. Therefore, since Canadians' safety was at risk, I decided to expel them from Canada. I want to be clear: Canada does not seek diplomatic confrontation with India, but, of course, we will not sit idle with this information.
[Translation]
Public Safety
Mr. Speaker, for three weeks the Minister of Justice has been saying that it is the Quebec premier's fault that criminals are always back on the street without facing consequences for their crimes.
With the spike in crime in Quebec's communities, will the minister finally stand with us or does he believe that the police associations are out to lunch?
Mr. Speaker, as I have mentioned several times to this member, we have to look at who is responsible for bail. When we made changes to the bail system, it was up to the provinces to implement those changes.
That being said, there needs to be enough space in the courts. There need to be enough Crown prosecutors to examine the files and make the submissions. There also needs to be enough room in the prisons for these people.
If the situations are not clear, then they will indeed have to, as I have said in three words, talk to Legault.
Mr. Speaker, it is bizarre that Canada's justice minister continues to blame the Quebec government for a crisis he created.
It was the Liberal government that tabled Bills C-5 and C-75. What is happening in federal prisons right now is because of Bill C-83. Everyone is complaining. Last year, even victims' groups like the Fédération des maisons d'hébergement pour femmes, the Maison des guerrières and the Communauté de citoyens en action contre les criminels violents supported us. Everyone from police officers to victims' groups agreed.
Why will the government not listen to us and kill Bill C‑5?
Mr. Speaker, I beg to differ. On this side of the House, we have invested $390 million to fight guns and gangs. We have also increased penalties for certain crimes, such as auto theft. That member voted against that. We have also made it so that bail is not so readily available to people who repeatedly commit serious violent crimes.
These are the changes we have made. We now expect the Province of Quebec to do its share.
Forestry Industry
Mr. Speaker, the Petit Paris sawmill in Saint‑Ludger‑de‑Milot shut down a day earlier than planned, putting 100 workers out of a job.
After the Liberal government's incompetence in negotiating the softwood lumber agreement, now the Minister of Environment is adding insult to injury with his order, which will kill 1,400 jobs. As everyone knows, the Bloc Québécois is no longer a party that defends the regions, and it seems dead set on keeping this government in power.
Why do the Liberals insist on hurting the forestry sector, which is an economic driver for our regions?
Mr. Speaker, I would like to remind my colleague that we are working in close collaboration with all forestry stakeholders, including workers, businesses, communities, environmental groups and first nations.
We are also working with the Quebec government to find long-term solutions for sustainable forestry in Quebec.
[English]
Public Safety
Mr. Speaker, we have seen a rise in serious crimes targeting Sikh Canadians and the South Asian community, leaving many Canadians feeling anxious and unsafe. Last week, the RCMP confirmed that agents of the Government of India have been involved in these crimes.
Can the Minister of Public Safety please explain the steps the government is taking to ensure that all Canadians can feel safe in their communities?
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank our colleague from Surrey—Newton for that question. He is right. Last week, the RCMP took the unprecedented step of sharing with Canadians information about a significant public safety threat. The alleged actions are a grave violation of Canada's sovereignty and the rule of law. We stand with the Sikh and South Asian communities with respect to ensuring their safety.
I want to thank all those involved in this complex investigation. The RCMP and its partners in the provincial and municipal police have done terrific work. Our priority is always the safety of all Canadians. The RCMP will work with us to continue to ensure that.
Telecommunications
Mr. Speaker, the multi-billion dollar telecom company Rogers said that its latest price hike is a result of the increasing cost of technology. Canadians are not buying it, but they are paying for it. They were misled. This is another ploy to get ripped off by Rogers, which just gouged out record profits.
The Conservatives will not stop Rogers from gouging Canadians. They will not risk losing the maximum donations they receive from the company's owner. The Liberals keep handing out millions of taxpayer dollars to Rogers, which is gouging those same taxpayers.
Why do the Liberals, like the Conservatives, ratchet up corporate greed at the expense of Canadians? Why will they not stand up to Rogers?
Mr. Speaker, a lot of members here should take lessons from the NDP about standing up for what is right.
On this side of the House, we stand up for Canadians. We stood up to Rogers. We said no to its proposed merger. We imposed the harshest conditions in our nation's history on telecom.
We are always on the side of consumers. We want more competition in this country, more choices for consumers and lower prices for Canadians. Canadians know we will always stand up for them.
I think everyone should take a lesson from us in the House.
Foreign Affairs
Mr. Speaker, last week, an IDF missile strike burned Palestinians alive at a hospital tent camp. This escalation of what the University Network for Human Rights has called a “genocide” only emboldens Hamas and does nothing to return hostages.
Canada's focus must be on achieving peace, including a true arms embargo, by advocating for Israel to allow humanitarian relief in and for an end to the occupation of Palestinian territories. When will the government's actions align with its words when it says “never again”?
Mr. Speaker, the situation in Gaza is absolutely catastrophic. Too many innocent children, women and people have died. That is why we need the violence to stop. We need a ceasefire that is supported by the UN Security Council, including the U.S. We need hostages to come back home. Their families need to be able to see them and to love them. In the end, we need more humanitarian aid going into Gaza, and the government is working on this every single day.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to propose that a standing committee on Canada-India relations be created. Therefore, if you seek it, you should find unanimous consent for the following motion: That the House recognize: (1) Canada's Foreign Interference Commission has identified the Government of India as a possible foreign interference actor in Canada; (2) an October 2022 CSIS intelligence assessment stated that the Government of India proxy agents have provided electoral support to “a number of politicians at all levels of government”; (3) on October 14, 2014, the RCMP commissioner released findings indicating that agents of the Government of India were involved in serious criminal activity on Canadian soil, posing an ongoing and significant threat to safety; that the House appoint a special committee with a mandate to conduct hearings to examine and review all aspects of Canada-Government of India relationships, including, but not limited to, diplomatic, consular, legal, security, public safety, political and economic relations, provided that:
(a) the committee be composed of 12 members, of which six shall be from the government party, four shall be from the official opposition, one shall be from the Bloc Québécois and one shall be from the New Democratic Party; (b) the whips of the recognized parties shall deposit with the Clerk of the House the list of their members to serve on the committee within four calendar days after the adoption of this motion; (c) changes to the membership of the committee shall be effective immediately after notification by the relevant whips have been filed with the Clerk of the House;
(d) membership substitutions be permitted, if required, in the manner provided for in Standing Order 114(2); (e) the Clerk of the House shall convene an organizational meeting within one week after the adoption of this motion; (f) the chair of the committee shall be a member of the government party, the first vice-chair shall be a member of the official opposition, the second vice-chair shall be a member of the Bloc Québécois and the third vice-chair shall be a member of the New Democratic Party;
(g) the quorum of the committee be as provided for in Standing Order 118, provided that the chair be authorized to hold meetings to receive evidence and to have that evidence printed when at least four members are present, including one member of the opposition and one member of the government; (h) the committee be granted all the powers of a standing committee as provided in the standing orders, including the power to: (i) travel, accompanied by the necessary staff inside and outside of Canada; (ii) authorize video and audio broadcasting of any or all proceedings; (i) the provision of Standing Order 106(4) shall also extend to the committee;
(j) the committee shall have the first priority for the use of House resources for committee meetings; and, (k) any proceeding before the committee in relation to a motion to exercise the committee's power to send for persons, papers and records shall, if not previously disposed of, be interpreted upon the earlier of the completion of four hours of consideration or one sitting week after the motion was first moved and in turn every question necessary for the disposal of the motion shall be put forthwith and successively without further debate or amendment.
Routine Proceedings
[Routine Proceedings]
[English]
Certificates of Nomination
Pursuant to subsection 4.1(3) of the Lobbying Act and Standing Order 111.1, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the certificate of nomination and biographical notes for the proposed reappointment of Nancy Bélanger as Commissioner of Lobbying for a term of seven years.
Pursuant to subsection 54(3) of the Access to Information Act and Standing Order 111.1, I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the certificate of nomination and biographical notes for the proposed reappointment of Caroline Maynard as Information Commissioner for a term of seven years.
I request that these nominations and biographical notes be referred to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics.
Committees of the House
Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 104 and Standing Order 114, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 70th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs regarding the membership of committees of the House. If the House gives its consent, I intend to move concurrence in the 70th report later this day.
Flight Attendants' Remuneration Act
moved for leave to introduce Bill C-415, An Act to amend the Canada Labour Code (flight attendants).
She said: Mr. Speaker, I am introducing a bill to stop the exploitation of Canada's flight attendants. I want to thank the member for Hamilton Centre for seconding it.
Flight attendants have been exploited since the commercial aviation industry was launched because they were women. The exploitation continues today as billion-dollar airline companies profit off the backs of unpaid work. Successive Liberal and Conservative governments have let this happen.
Today, flight attendants who work in a federally regulated industry are expected to work for free up to 35 hours per month. This must end, and it can end with the adoption of this NDP bill. It would ensure that for every hour worked, flight attendants are paid their full wage, and that a long-standing discriminatory practice is rectified.
I thank the Canadian Union of Public Employees, whose workers took a stand with a very successful campaign called “Unpaid Work Won't Fly”. It has been an honour to work alongside them on this important legislation.
I call on the Liberal government to do what is right, adopt my bill as its own and take immediate action to make sure that unpaid work will not fly.
(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)
Committees of the House
Mr. Speaker, if the House gives its consent, I move that the 70th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs, presented to the House earlier this day, be concurred in.
[Translation]
[English]
10th Anniversary of Attack on Parliament Hill
Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion:
That, notwithstanding any standing order, special order or usual practice of the House, at the conclusion of Oral Questions on Tuesday, October 22, 2024, the House observe a moment of silence for the 10th anniversary of the attack on Parliament Hill, that afterwards, a member of each recognized party, a member of the Green Party, and the Speaker, each be permitted to make a statement to pay tribute for not more than 5 minutes each.
[Translation]
[English]
Petitions
Mr. Speaker, it is an honour to rise to present a petition from my constituents. I identify it as petition no. 12404906.
Petitioners express concern, as do British Columbians in general, about the plight of our west coast wild Pacific salmon. A deep concern about the Fraser River sockeye run led to the commission of inquiry referenced in the petition, chaired by Mr. Justice Cohen and put in place under the administration of former prime minister Stephen Harper. The results of that commission of inquiry have been in front of government since 2012. That was 12 years ago.
The petitioners continue to ask that all of the recommendations of the Cohen inquiry be implemented and that the government act immediately to implement all 75 recommendations.
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances
Mr. Speaker, I rise to table a petition submitted by hard-working firefighters from Burnaby IAFF Local 323 and Vancouver IAFF Local 18 along with 220 petitioners. This petition addresses an urgent issue impacting the health and safety of firefighters across Canada. I have sponsored this petition. It calls for immediate action to ban per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, also known as PFAS, in firefighter gear and firefighting foam.
PFAS are man-made chemicals that are resistant to heat, water and oil. Their durability comes at a significant cost. Scientific evidence links these substances to severe health risks, including cancer, putting firefighters, who already face hazardous conditions, at greater risk. Research shows that PFAS can accumulate in the body, leading to serious health issues. Alarmingly, firefighters face a higher cancer risk than the general population.
We have to mitigate these risks by regulating what we can control in their working conditions. Several countries have restricted PFAS use. Canada must follow suit. According to these petitioners, our firefighters deserve gear free from toxic chemicals. Let us protect those firefighters who risk their lives for us.
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to present e-petition 5150, signed by over 3,000 Canadians who are expressing their disappointment in the production of Russians at War, a documentary film that spreads Russian misinformation and propaganda. Unfortunately, it was funded with taxpayer money through the Canada Media Fund and TVO.
The petitioners are calling on the Government of Canada to recover all of those taxpayer dollars. They are asking the government to audit all government programs that could possibly be used to the benefit of Russia and its misinformation campaign. They are requesting that law enforcement agencies like the RCMP and CSIS undertake an investigation of the filmmaker, who was an RT journalist, as well as others who participated in it within the occupied and invaded territory of Ukraine, to see whether Canadian, Ukrainian or international laws were violated.
Finally, they want to have all the materials that were filmed during production in Russian-occupied Ukraine to see if there is any evidence of Russian war crimes against the people of Ukraine.
Mr. Speaker, I proudly rise this afternoon to present petition e-4974, initiated by Emily Johnson and signed by over 17,000 Canadians, which highlights the growing concern about exploitative practices of large food cartels such as Loblaw, which are clearly out of control. It underscores the monopolistic behaviour that allows these corporations to dictate prices and terms, pushing essential goods beyond the reach of many, especially low- and middle-income families.
This petition calls on Parliament to strengthen antitrust laws; investigate unfair pricing strategies, including price-fixing and shrinkflation; support smaller vendors; and explore price controls to prevent price gouging on essential food items. It also mandates that Loblaw and Walmart sign the grocery code of conduct. The goal is to ensure fair competition and protect consumers from price gouging on the basic food items needed to survive.
Mr. Speaker, my second petition, with 237 signatures, highlights the urgent need to address Canada's housing crisis. Housing is a fundamental human right, yet many are unable to afford a safe place to live.
Since 2018, the number of unsheltered individuals has tripled in areas such as my riding of Hamilton Centre and the Waterloo region, where the petition's sponsor is from. This is driven by large corporate investors in real estate income trusts buying up all the affordable housing and raising rents. The petitioners recognize there have been decades of underinvestments, which has only worsened the shortage of affordable rentals.
The petition calls on the federal government to invest in non-profit housing, regulate REITs and remove their tax exemptions. The government needs to establish national rent control and introduce a homebuyers' bill of rights to make home ownership more accessible.
Per- and Polyfluoroalkyl Substances
Mr. Speaker, I am proud to rise here today to present a petition from 118 firefighters in British Columbia. This petition addresses an urgent issue impacting their health. I want to thank the member for New Westminster—Burnaby for sponsoring this petition. It calls for immediate action to ban per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances, or PFAS, in firefighter gear and firefighting foam.
PFAS are man-made chemicals known as “forever chemicals” because they build up in the environment and our bodies, and cause serious health issues. We have to help firefighters stay safe and healthy by regulating what we can control of their working conditions. Several countries have banned PFAS. Canada must follow suit. We have to protect those who risk their lives for us. This petition is asking for urgent action on this matter.
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to present a petition on behalf of constituents.
I rise for the 50th time on behalf of the people of Swan River, Manitoba, to present a petition on the rising rate of crime. The community of Swan River is alarmed by extreme levels of crime caused by the Liberal government's soft-on-crime laws, like Bill C-5 and Bill C-75. Bill C-75 allows violent reoffenders to be in jail in the morning and back in the community in the evening, and Bill C-5 allows criminals to serve their sentences from home.
It is no surprise that after nine years of Justin Trudeau's—
I am certain the hon. member caught himself on that issue of not mentioning names of members, but I will ask the hon. member to withdraw that and phrase it in the appropriate way.
Mr. Speaker, it is no surprise that, after nine years of the Liberal government, Statistics Canada reports violent crime has risen by 50%. The people of Swan River see crime in the streets every day, and that is why they are calling for jail, not bail, for violent repeat offenders. The people of Swan River demand that the Liberal government repeal its soft-on-crime policies that directly threaten their livelihoods and the community.
I support the good people of Swan River.
Mr. Speaker, I rise to present a petition. The petitioners note that an estimated 27 Canadians are diagnosed with a brain tumour each day. Canada is years behind the United States in approving new drugs and treatments, and there continues to be a shortage of brain cancer drugs in Canada.
Therefore, petitioners call on the Government of Canada to increase funding for brain cancer research; to work with provinces and territories to ensure that drugs, medical devices and new therapies are accessible to brain cancer patients nationwide; and to remove unnecessary red tape so brain cancer drugs can be approved expeditiously.
Before we move on to the next rubric, I would like to remind all members of the practice of the House when petitions are presented. First, clearly, we should not use the name of a particular member; we only use the name of their riding. Second, members should summarize the content of the petition as opposed to reading it verbatim. Third, the common practice is not to express whether the member agrees or disagrees with the content of the petition but just to present the petition to the House.
Questions on the Order Paper
Request for Emergency Debate
RCMP Allegations of Foreign Interference by the Government of India
[S. O. 52]
I wish to inform the House that I have received two notices for an emergency debate concerning the same subject. I invite the hon. members for Calgary Skyview and Burnaby South to rise and make brief interventions.
The hon. member for Calgary Skyview.
Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Burnaby South for also bringing this issue forward.
As per Standing Order 52, I propose an emergency debate, as per my urgent letter sent to you this morning, Mr. Speaker, on the concerning and ongoing interference by the Government of India in the lives of Canadians, which was recently alleged by the RCMP. The RCMP has gathered clear and compelling evidence that agents of the Government of India have engaged in and continue to engage in activities that pose a significant threat to the safety of Canadians, including coercive behaviour, extortion and involvement in over a dozen threatening violent acts, including homicide, targeting Sikh and South Asian Canadians.
All Canadians deserve to live free from fear and intimidation, and many of our constituents are feeling unsafe and afraid. As parliamentarians, our foremost duty is to represent the voices and concerns of our constituents, ensuring they are the heart of everything we do in this chamber.
I thank you, Mr. Speaker, for approving this emergency debate on this important topic in advance.
Mr. Speaker, I am rising to request your consideration of an emergency debate on the issue of foreign interference and, very specifically, the RCMP's allegations of violence and chaos in our communities linked to the Indian government.
A week ago, the RCMP revealed chilling and disturbing information that Indian agents were engaged by Indian government diplomats in a campaign of terror in Canadian communities. This campaign included hiring and directing gang members to shoot at Canadian homes, to shoot at Canadian businesses, to extort Canadian businesses and to engage in car thefts and other criminal activities.
The Prime Minister testified at the Hogue inquiry into foreign interference that a number of parliamentarians, both current and former, have been compromised by foreign powers, including India.
Canadians have been killed on Canadian soil. Bullets have flown in Canadian communities. Businesses and business owners have been threatened. People have been killed. People have been extorted. This is something that makes all Canadians less safe.
It is the responsibility of parliamentarians to take these allegations of crime and threats of violence against Canadians very seriously. It is also the responsibility of members of the House to stand committed to denouncing the Indian government's alleged interference here in Canada and to show a united front, together, so that no one will suggest to the Indian government that people here are willing to turn a blind eye to these acts of criminality.
Given that, Mr. Speaker, I urge you to consider the letter I sent you this morning and grant the emergency debate for today to debate this very serious matter.
[Speaker's Ruling]
I thank the hon. members for Burnaby South and Calgary Skyview for their interventions. These requests meet the criteria, and I am prepared to grant an emergency debate regarding the RCMP's allegations concerning foreign interference from India. This debate will be held later today at the ordinary hour of adjournment.
Orders of the Day
[Privilege]
[English]
Privilege
Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs
The House resumed consideration of the motion, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.
Mr. Speaker, Canadians from coast to coast work hard every day. They wake up early, put in long hours and make sacrifices to provide for their families. They play by the rules, pay their taxes and trust that their government is looking out for them. They expect honesty, integrity and accountability from the people who hold public office.
However, over the past nine years, that trust has been shaken. There is a growing sense that something is not right in Ottawa, that the NDP-Liberal government is more focused on helping itself and its friends than on serving the people who put them in office.
In my travels across Yellowhead, I have spoken with farmers, small business owners, parents and seniors, and they are worried. They are seeing that their hard-earned tax dollars disappear into programs and projects that do not benefit them or their communities. They are struggling with rising costs, inadequate services and a lack of support from the people in government.
They are asking me, “What is happening in Ottawa? Who is looking out for us?” They read headlines about scandals involving millions, even billions, of dollars. They see reports of funds mismanaged, conflicts of interest ignored and insiders getting ahead while hard-working Canadians fall behind. They wonder why their needs are overlooked while well-connected Liberals seem to have direct access to the government.
The choices the NDP-Liberal government has been making have real consequences for everyday Canadians, choices that favour insiders and special interests over the needs of regular people. While families are struggling to make ends meet, the government is spending recklessly, often without proper oversight or accountability. Communities are facing challenges like underfunded services, lack of infrastructure and insufficient support for those who need it most, yet instead of addressing these issues, the government seems preoccupied with helping its friends and maintaining its own power.
It is time to take a hard look at where our money is going and who is benefiting. It is time to ask whether this is the kind of leadership Canadians deserve. At the end of the day, it is about fairness. It is about doing what's right. It is about ensuring that Canada remains a place where everyone has a fair shot and where our leaders are held to the highest standards.
Canadians deserve a government that is transparent and accountable, a government that puts the interests of its citizens, not the interests of a select few, first. As representatives elected by the people, we have the duty to hold the government to account, to shine a light on misconduct and to demand better. We owe it to our constituents to fight for their interests, to be their voice in Ottawa and to work tirelessly to restore their faith in our institutions.
Today I want to address these concerns. I want to talk about pressing issues affecting Canadians, the mismanagement and misplaced priorities and the lack of accountability, because Canadians deserve answers. They deserve to know that someone is standing up for them, challenging the status quo and working to bring about the change that is so desperately needed.
Let us turn our attention to Sustainable Development Technology Canada, known as SDTC. This organization was established to foster innovation and to support sustainable technology, noble goals that Canadians can stand behind. However, under the Liberal government, SDTC became something far different. It is now being referred to as the green slush fund, for a good reason.
Reports have surfaced revealing that over $300 million of taxpayers' money was involved in 180 cases of clear conflicts of interest with SDTC. That is $300 million that could have been invested in communities, health care, education or infrastructure. Instead it was funnelled into ventures in which decision-makers had personal stakes. This is not just a minor oversight; it is a blatant misuse of public funds.
What is more troubling is that Liberal ministers were aware of the conflicts and did nothing to stop them. They allowed the mismanagement to continue unchecked. A senior civil servant even described the situation as “outright incompetence”, pointing out that 123 million dollars' worth of contracts were awarded inappropriately. The Auditor General confirmed that the government's oversight was severely lacking, stating that the industry minister did not sufficiently monitor the contracts being handed out.
This pattern of negligence and favouritism raises serious questions about whom the government is really serving. While Canadians are forced to make hard choices every day to make ends meet, the Liberals seem more interested in enriching their insiders and friends. Imagine what $300 million could have done for our country. It could have funded sustainable projects that genuinely benefited Canadians, created jobs or supported small businesses struggling in these tough times. Instead it was used to line the pockets of a select few.
The green slush fund is not an isolated incident; it is a symptom of a larger problem, a government that has lost touch with the people it is supposed to represent. Canadians are losing faith because they see a lack of integrity and accountability at the highest levels. We need to ask ourselves whether this is acceptable. Should we stand by while public funds are misused and trust is eroded? The answer is a resounding no. It is time for transparency, time for accountability and time for a government that puts Canadians, not the interests of Liberal insiders, first. The green slush fund is a stark reminder that we need change, a change that will restore integrity and ensure that taxpayer dollars are used responsibly.
Canadians have witnessed a series of scandals that reveal a constant disregard for ethics, transparency and accountability. Consider the WE Charity affair. The government attempted to hand over nearly $1 billion to an organization with close personal ties to the Prime Minister's family. Members of his own family received significant sums in speaking fees from WE Charity. Despite this clear conflict of interest, the Liberals moved forward without proper oversight or transparency. It was only after public outrage and media scrutiny that they reversed course. This was not an innocent mistake; it was a deliberate attempt to channel public funds to people within their inner circle.
Then there is the SNC-Lavalin scandal. The Prime Minister's Office was accused of pressuring the Attorney General to interfere in a criminal prosecution of a well-connected corporation. This led to the resignation of high-ranking officials who refused to compromise their principles. It exposed a government willing to undermine the rule of law to protect their friends.
There is also the millions of dollars awarded in contracts to McKinsey without proper transparency or competitive bidding. At a time when Canadian businesses were struggling and could have benefited from government contracts, the Liberals chose to funnel money to a foreign firm with ties to their own party. This raises serious questions about their commitment to supporting Canadian enterprises and maintaining fair procurement practices.
These incidents are not isolated; they form a clear pattern of behaviour. The Liberals have repeatedly placed the interests of their friends and insiders above those of hard-working Canadians. This series of scandals reveals a government consistently sidetracked by its own ethical failings. Instead of dedicating its full attention to the pressing issues facing our nation, it is repeatedly caught up in controversies of its own making. This not only hampers its ability to govern effectively but also diverts valuable time and resources away from addressing the needs of Canadians.
Canadians deserve leadership that is focused on and unwavering in its commitment to serve the public good. When the government's attention is consumed by managing scandals, then critical issues like health care, economic recovery and national security do not receive the full attention they require. This lack of dedicated focus hinders our progress as a nation and leaves many people feeling neglected and unheard. This is not just about politics; it is about principle. Canadians expect and deserve a government that operates with integrity, is transparent in its actions and is accountable to the people it serves.
The ongoing pattern of Liberal misconduct cannot be ignored or brushed aside. It is our duty to hold the Liberals accountable and to demand better on behalf of all Canadians. When government funds are mismanaged or siphoned off to benefit a select few, it is not just a matter of accounting; it is a direct hit to Canadians from all walks of life. The consequences of the Liberal government's actions are felt in every corner of our country, affecting families, workers and communities that rely on responsible governance to meet their needs.
Consider the challenges Canadians are facing right now. The cost of living is rising, with families struggling to afford basic necessities like groceries, housing and child care. Small businesses, the backbone of our economy, are fighting to keep their doors open amidst economic uncertainty. Our health care system is under strain, with long wait times and limited resources impacting the well-being of our citizens. When hundreds of millions of dollars are misallocated or lost to scandals like the green slush fund, that is money that is not available to address these pressing issues.
Imagine what could be achieved if these funds were managed wisely and directed toward initiatives that empower Canadians. We could implement policies to make housing more affordable, allowing families currently priced out of the market to purchase their own home and build a stable future. In health care, we could enhance patient care and reduce wait times by cutting red tape, improving efficiency and encouraging innovation within the system. By supporting educational choices and opportunities, we could equip our children with the tools they need to succeed in a competitive world. Investing strategically in essential infrastructure, like repairing aging roads and bridges and improving connectivity in rural areas, would bolster our economy and create jobs, all while ensuring responsible use of taxpayer dollars.
These are not complicated ideas. They are real needs that, if met, would significantly improve the quality of life for Canadians across the country.
Moreover, the mismanagement of funds undermines the trust that citizens have in their government. When people see their hard-earned tax dollars being misused, it leads to frustration and disengagement. They begin to question whether their sacrifices are valued and whether their voices are heard.
Seniors on fixed income worry about their pensions and access to health care. Parents wonder whether their children will have the opportunities they had. Young people question whether they can afford to start a family or buy a home. These are the everyday concerns that should be at the forefront of government priorities. Instead we are witnessing a pattern where the interests of Liberal insiders take precedence. This is not just unfair; it is unacceptable.
Canadians deserve a government that puts their needs first. They deserve transparency, accountability and assurance that public funds are being used to benefit the many, not the few. It is time to refocus on issues that matter most to Canadians: affordability, access to quality services and opportunities for a better future. We must commit to responsible stewardship of taxpayer dollars, ensuring that every cent is directed toward making a positive difference in people's lives. That is the standard Canadians expect and the standard they deserve.
I want to take a moment to highlight a heartbreaking event that has deeply affected my community: the devastating wildfire in Jasper. This tragedy was not only the result of natural forces, but was made worse by government inaction and mismanagement, showing how misallocation of resources can have dire consequences. For years, experts warned about the risk of a catastrophic wildfire due to dead wood buildup and pine beetle infestation. Forestry professionals, local officials and residents urged the government to take proactive measures by implementing proper forest management and investing in prevention, yet these pleas were ignored as the Liberal government prioritized political optics over practical action.
However, the mismanagement did not end there. After the wildfire wreaked havoc, destroying a third of Jasper, displacing thousands and claiming the life of a brave firefighter, the government's response has been lacking. Recovery efforts have been slow and underfunded, leaving families without homes and businesses struggling to rebuild. Communities feel abandoned by those meant to serve them. Meanwhile, hundreds of millions of dollars were funnelled into scandals like the green slush fund and over $300 million was lost to conflicts of interest and mismanagement, funds that could have gone toward rebuilding Jasper, providing relief to affected families and restoring vital infrastructure.
It is disheartening that while our community was in crisis, resources that could have offered relief were squandered elsewhere. That is not about politicizing this tragedy. It is about misplaced priorities, a government more focused on its own interests than the urgent needs of its citizens. The people of Jasper are resilient, but should not have to face these challenges alone. They deserve a government that stands with them, providing the support needed to rebuild and recover. Transparency and accountability in allocating public funds are essential, especially when those funds could alleviate suffering.
This tragedy highlights the tangible cost of corruption and negligence, a stark reminder that decisions made in Ottawa have real consequences for communities. We must hold those responsible accountable and ensure that future funds are directed toward protecting and supporting Canadians, not lost to mismanagement. The people of Jasper and all Canadians deserve better. They deserve leadership that prioritizes their well-being and invests in their future. It is time to learn from this tragedy, reassess our priorities and commit to responsible government that serves the interests of all.
Canadians deserve a government that works for them, a government that is transparent, accountable and committed to serving the best interests of all its citizens. It is clear that the current direction is not meeting those expectations. We need to restore trust in our institutions and ensure that public funds are managed responsibly. That means ending the culture of mismanagement and entitlement. It means implementing proper oversight, enforcing ethical standards and holding those in power accountable for their actions.
Conservatives are committed to putting Canadians first. We will prioritize the needs of everyday people and not insiders with special interests. We will invest in our communities, support small businesses and ensure that essential services are adequately funded. We will take decisive action to protect our environment and prevent tragedies like the Jasper wildfire. Proper forest management and disaster preparedness will be top priorities, guided by expert advice and community involvement.
It is time for a change that brings common sense back to government, respects taxpayers and focuses on building a brighter future for all Canadians. Together, we can rebuild trust, restore integrity and move forward toward a Canada where everyone has the opportunity to thrive.
Mr. Speaker, the member drew our attention to past behaviour. We can learn a lot from past behaviour. We should look at Stephen Harper. He was the only prime minister who was held in contempt of Parliament. His parliamentary secretary is the leader of the Conservative Party today. On many of the issues the member talked about, we should look at why Stephen Harper was held in contempt. The current leader of the party was a great defender of that contempt.
We see the pattern continue today. The Conservative leader does not believe he needs a security clearance and feels he does not have to be accountable. Does the member have any sense as to why the leader of the Conservative Party today, for example, refuses to get a security clearance? Is it because he would not qualify?
Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct regarding the pattern with the Liberal government, which is one scandal after another. Then, what did the Prime Minister do last week? He blew the doors wide open and said, “I think there has been some corruption here and foreign interference here and it is coming from the Conservatives, but I am not going to release names.”
Do members know why he is not willing to release names? It is because there are no Conservatives. That is the real issue that is going on. Just release the names. That is what Canadians want to hear. Which MPs or senators have been involved in foreign interference?
Mr. Speaker, I am happy to hear the member talking about awarding federal funds and transparency. In my community, the Anmore Community Hub was awarded $1.5 million of ICIP funding, and there are reports in the community that kickbacks might have gone to the mayor and council. Now, the federal government offers no oversight to such corruption. With the need for even more community infrastructure investments in the future, do the Conservatives agree that more oversight is needed on these funds as well?
Mr. Speaker, I am not disputing that we need to have oversight, but I am not certain if it was federal funding or provincial funding. If it is provincial, then it definitely would be under municipal affairs. Any time we are giving public funds, we need to make sure they are managed properly and allocated properly. Having oversight is a given, and we should always do that properly any time we are dealing with public funds.
Mr. Speaker, one of the things that I ascertain about the current Liberal government is how incompetent it is as a government. As a matter of fact, it quite clearly could be the most incompetent government in the history of Canada, whether that is regarding spending money or something else.
Let us just do a quick list, and I will talk about it more a bit later. There is the Winnipeg lab where the government actually hired Chinese spies of all things, and let them FedEx and Canada Post viruses back to China and then would not talk about it in Parliament. It is the same issue we have going on here where we are asking for documentation like we did back then. What did the Liberals do? They stalled and then they called an election. We actually brought someone to the bar over here, an unelected person, after over 100 years. This seems like déjà vu to me.
The hon. member mentioned Jasper and what a gong show it was for the government in how it handled it. It was completely shameful. How is it that the government is the most incompetent government in the history of this country?
Mr. Speaker, I would like to acknowledge the great speech that the hon. member had just talked about. It is very true that so many times I am out in the community and people just start saying, where is my money going? How is it being wasted once again when it goes to government in Ottawa?
That is the biggest problem and that is what people are really questioning. The current government has spent more than any other government in 150 years, in all of Canadian history. Therefore, is it any surprise that there are scandals happening? People are questioning, where is that couple of million going? A million dollars is nothing anymore with the current government. Even $1 billion of wasted money is nothing anymore. We are at the tens of billions of dollars.
That is what Canadians want to know. They want to know where all this money is going and how it is that other Canadians are getting rich and they are suffering and paying for this and losing their jobs and homes over this kind of government.
Mr. Speaker, I just could not help myself when I heard a few moments ago the member say, “release the names”. I feel as though he has spent too much time reading the memes that his party is creating in the back room back there. I mean, this member is a sitting member of Parliament. Does he not know that it would be illegal for anybody to release the names? Yet he comes in here and he makes comments like this as though it is actually possible. Guess what: Somebody can have the names. That is the Leader of the Opposition and all he needs to do is complete a security clearance.
The question from the parliamentary secretary a few moments ago was, why will the Leader of the Opposition not get his security clearance? Is he worried that he might fail it and he might not be given the clearance? Is there something in his history that is preventing him from actually getting the security clearance? That is what we want to know. Could the member not recite memes and rather just inform us why the Leader of the Opposition will not get a security clearance?
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member said that he just had to stand up, that he just could not stand it anymore, really. This is what the hon. member does on a daily basis. It is almost laughable, what the member has brought froward.
It is funny, though, how just last week the Prime Minister stated that there has been foreign interference, and he knows where it is coming from but he cannot say. Actually, under the legislation, the Prime Minister has the authority to say. Then we could actually find out who these people are.
If we truly want to find out how foreign interference is affecting Canadians, then let the Prime Minister release the names and let them be judged accordingly.
Mr. Speaker, on the topic of affordability in Alberta, CUPE Local 3550, representing over 4,000 educational assistants who make just $27,000 annually, are fighting for better wages. They are fighting for better work conditions, and they are fighting so that they can actually have a work-life balance.
This is an incredibly important issue that we are seeing. Almost 4,000 EAs are prepared to strike in Alberta on Thursday for better wages. The problem in all this is the fact that the province has instituted a 2.5% cap on their wages, which is nearly nothing.
Would the member agree that the most important part of getting good, powerful paycheques is actually supporting powerful unions?
Mr. Speaker, I am not certain how this is a federal issue, but I guess I will answer that everybody who is working deserves to have a fair and equitable wage to make sure that they have a living.
One of the biggest problems that we have been dealing with here in Canada is our cost of living continually escalating year after year. Actually, I wish it was year after year, it is almost month after month that people keep going to the grocery store and they cannot believe how quickly the prices of everything keep rising.
I think we need to get rid of the government and have an election, so we can get some common sense back in this Canadian economy to have a standard of living that everyone wants.
Mr. Speaker, what I find interesting about this debate is that the Liberals admitted a long time ago that money was stolen. That is when they shut down the SDTC.
All we are asking is that the Liberals turn over the evidence of this theft to the RCMP. What the Liberals want to do is refer this to committee. When the member's constituents tell him that they have been stolen from, is his advice to call a committee or call the police?
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is absolutely right. What does government want to do, and I do not care at what level? It is study things to death and not get any answers.
That is exactly what the Liberal government is trying to do: take it to committee so we can study it to death. We are saying it should go to the RCMP. It is the law in Canada, and it can deal with this properly. What are the Liberals doing? They are hiding behind government priorities or policies once again instead of getting the truth, which is what Canadians want to hear.
Mr. Speaker, it is always a privilege to rise in this House to speak to the important issues of the day. However, in this case, there is a sad irony in that opposition members are not using that privilege to promote or oppose legislation for the betterment of Canadians, but rather are being forced to defend those privileges on behalf of the Canadians we represent and against the stonewalling government across the way.
Last week, the editorial board of The Globe and Mail wrote, “The Liberals' naked disdain for Parliament [and by extension Canadians] is showing”. The Liberal government has such a profound disrespect for Canadians and for the long-held traditions of this place that it is choosing to defy not only the opposition, but the Speaker and, worst of all, Canadians themselves, who want and deserve to know the truth.
There is so much rot at the core of the government. The default toward secrecy and cover-ups, the antipathy toward law enforcement and the pattern of profound disrespect toward the people of Canada are all ingrained traits of the government and the failed and, as we can only be led to believe, corrupt Prime Minister, who has been the catalyst for a culture of cronyism, corruption and cover-ups.
This is nothing new. We are here today, as we have been for the last two weeks, debating the undebatable. The Auditor General has found that Sustainable Development Technology Canada appointed Liberals to run the program, who turned around and gave $400 million of taxpayers' money, the Canadian people's money, to their own companies. The Auditor General found a whopping 186 separate conflicts of interest, and rather than comply with the Speaker's ruling to produce documents related to the massive scam, the Liberals are choosing to hold up the business of the House indefinitely as they scramble to once again cover up their tracks.
This is not the first time the government has been accused of unethical behaviour. I know it is hard to believe, but it is true, and this is not the first time that government members have defied Parliament, defied the Speaker and even stonewalled the police in an attempt to cover up their sordid deeds. In fact, as I was preparing for this speech, when I searching in my emails and typed in the keywords “refusal to hand over documents”, what popped up was not about SDTC, which we are debating today, but another incident from back in 2021, when the government allowed Chinese spies, Beijing-sponsored scientists with ties to the Chinese military and bioweapons program, to access our top clearance national microbiology lab in Winnipeg.
The lead scientist, Dr. Qiu, at the same time as she was working in our top security level 4 lab, was flying back and forth to China for meetings in Beijing and helping Beijing set up its very own level 4 lab in Wuhan. At the time, the former Speaker ruled the government, his own party, to have violated parliamentary privilege and to be in contempt of Parliament when the Liberals refused to produce the documents related to this improper transfer of deadly Ebola and henipavirus samples from Winnipeg to Wuhan.
We still do not know how serious a leak that was because this House, through the Speaker's predecessor, ordered the government to hand over the documents and the government refused. The Liberals sought to cover up the truth of what happened, not on the grounds of national security but for political reasons, because they were trying to protect the Prime Minister, who had failed so spectacularly to keep Canadians safe.
It is the same Prime Minister who refused to hand over documents to the RCMP in yet another case. Back in 2019, it came to light that the Prime Minister had pressured and bullied the former attorney general of Canada to give SNC-Lavalin, which was ironically also facing corruption charges, a sweetheart deal to drop the charges so as not to negatively affect the Liberals' political fortunes in Quebec. She refused and he fired her, kicked her out of cabinet and eventually out of the Liberal Party. Clearly, there is no place for truth-telling and standing on principle in today's Liberal Party, especially when it comes to standing up to the Prime Minister.
The worst part of that affair is that all of the members on the other side who were there, all of the hon. ministers, all backed the Prime Minister. In fact, at the time, the Minister of Foreign Affairs, then the minister of tourism, called what Jody Wilson-Raybould had done “fundamentally wrong”. She was telling the truth. How morally backwards does one need to be to look at that situation and say that the former attorney general of Canada, who upheld the law, should be ashamed? The foreign affairs minister has been touted as a future leader of the Liberal Party. She certainly seems to fit into the mould.
Speaking of backwards, members may recall that that same week, we had in this House about 50 young women as part of a delegation from Daughters of the Vote, a youth leadership movement, and they turned their backs to the Prime Minister in protest during his speech to the delegation. Jody Wilson-Raybould and the one woman in cabinet who had the courage of her convictions and the moral clarity to support her, Dr. Jane Philpott, were treated shamefully by their colleagues in the current corrupt government.
To bring it back to the point about the documents we are discussing today, the government was ordered to hand over the documents and refused. In fact, so desperate was it to cover up the misdeeds of the Prime Minister that it not only withheld documents from the House, but withheld documents from the Ethics Commissioner. In his 2019 report, Commissioner Mario Dion wrote, “I was unable to fully discharge [my] investigatory duties”. As we learned, later that year it also refused to turn over documents to the RCMP.
Documents released by Democracy Watch, via an access to information request, show that the Prime Minister's Office refused to hand over documents to the RCMP when investigating the Prime Minister. I am really not sure what is worse here, the fact that the Prime Minister, who so clearly believes he is above the law, stonewalled the RCMP got away with it or the fact that the RCMP, under disastrous former commissioner Brenda Lucki, let him get away with it.
Subsection 139(2) of the Criminal Code of Canada states that it is a criminal offence “to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice”. In attempting to get the then attorney general to change her mind by attempting to convince her, the highest-ranking prosecutor in the land, to drop a criminal case for political reasons, it certainly appears that the Prime Minister and his staff were trying to obstruct justice. In fact, if we look at the RCMP report, we can basically paraphrase it as follows: The RCMP did not look at all the evidence because it could not get it because the government would not give it up, but it was probably just as well. That is shocking.
Then we have the ArriveCAN app scam, with an app that should have cost $80,000 ballooning to $60 million. The RCMP again opened criminal investigations into the actions of the Liberal government, 13 separate investigations at last count. There were allegations of identity theft, fraudulent and forged resumes, contractual theft, fraudulent billing, price-fixing and collusion, all with senior bureaucrats in and appointed by the government.
We could talk about WE Charity, with nearly a billion dollars handed over to an organization that paid nearly half a million dollars to the Prime Minister's family and paid for a lavish vacation for the then finance minister. Just on a side note, the then finance minister did repay the money he had been given for the cost of the vacation.
We could talk about how COVID contracts worth hundreds of millions of dollars were handed out to Liberal cronies, who got richer while Canadians had to suffer. We all remember the $237 million given to Baylis Medical, run by former Liberal donor and member of Parliament Frank Baylis.
Baylis donated tens of thousands of dollars to the Liberals and did he ever get a return on that investment. There was a $237-million contract to produce 10,000 ventilators, which would normally cost about $13,700. He billed the Canadian government $23,750 a ventilator. If we do the math, that is $100 million over and above a normal profit. There was another $422,000 from the Department of Industry, the same department at the heart of the green slush fund. Frank Baylis has also expressed an interest, in recent days, in running to replace the Prime Minister.
There was also the $84 million given to MCAP, the mortgage brokerage firm that employed the husband of the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Katie Telford. Hundreds of millions of dollars from that period remain unaccounted for.
I just want to pause here and note that the Liberal sponsorship scandal, which brought down the last Liberal government, was a mere $2 million. We know taxes are up, we know costs are up and now we know scandals are up. It is not $2 million this time; it is billions of dollars that we are talking about. I guess Liberal inflation is even affecting scandals. Everything is either broken or more expensive under the Prime Minister.
At the time, even the CBC called the Prime Minister out. We know it has to be bad for the Liberals when the radical ideologues and propagandists at the CBC are willing to bite the hand that feeds them, generously feeds them in the case of the current government, and criticize the government.
On December 7, 2020, an aptly named series called “The Big Spend” started. It stated the Prime Minister's government “won't say who got billions of dollars in aid” and that “While some payments have been revealed, the destination of billions of dollars in aid remains secret.” Then it goes on to note, with some irony, that the Prime Minister ran on a promise of openness and transparency, a promise that he has broken, like so many. Sunny ways and sunshine are the best medication, are they not?
It used to be blackface. Now it is black ink on the scores of documents that the Prime Minister seeks to hide from Parliament, from the authorities and from Canadians. Every time the Liberals and their cronies get caught breaking the rules, they cover it up and refuse to tell Canadians the truth. Here we go again with another scandal, more Liberal cronyism and corruption, another cover-up, more blacked-out documents and more stonewalling.
What happened? The Liberals created a $1-billion slush fund for funding so-called green technology projects and programs. They appointed Liberal insiders to run the program, but instead of helping Canadians, we know they were busy helping themselves. Just as with ArriveCAN and their crony COVID spending, the Liberals were helping Liberals get rich off the backs of struggling Canadians.
Just as with ArriveCAN and SNC-Lavalin, the RCMP is investigating corruption in the government. True to form, as with previous investigations, the Liberals are blocking the RCMP from getting the documents it needs to determine who in the government broke the law.
Like the Prime Minister and five of his ministers before, the Liberals' hand-picked chair of the Liberals' billion-dollar green slush fund, Annette Verschuren, broke the law. Canada's Ethics Commissioner has ruled that she violated subsection 6(1) and section 21 of the Conflict of Interest Act, finding that her actions “furthered her private interests”. To make matters worse, the Minister of Industry was warned of Verschuren's glaring conflict of interest but allowed her to keep her position until she was forced to resign. She only did this after being exposed for wasting Canadian taxpayers' dollars on projects that benefited her financially.
On top of this, the Auditor General found that over $330 million in taxpayer money was paid out in 186 cases where there was a conflict of interest, with Liberal-appointed directors funnelling money to companies they owned, including Verschuren's. There was $59 million given to ineligible projects that never should have been awarded any money at all. This is no small scandal. This is a big deal.
When this came to light, the Conservatives took action. Our job is to hold the government accountable, and that is what we are seeking to do with this privilege motion and this debate.
Back in June, all parties, with the exception of the Liberals, voted in favour of a motion requiring the government to produce documents related to the mass corruption at Sustainable Development Technology Canada. It should be noted that the Liberals do not deny any of these allegations, and that makes this so much worse. It actually admits to the wrongdoing, but it is still engaging in a cover-up. The House, the majority of the members of Parliament, who are the people's democratically elected representatives, demanded on behalf of Canadians that these documents be turned over. Rather than comply, the government handed over redacted documents, or in some cases, refused to produce documents entirely.
The rules of parliamentary privilege are clear: The House has the authority, with its very broad powers, to request whatever documents it wants. It is up to the House to determine if those requests have been met to its satisfaction. The House has determined that they have not, so we sit here, day after day, asserting the moral right of the House on behalf of the Canadians who sent us here, including those who sent the government here and whom the government has abandoned. They are the Canadians whose money and trust it has treated with such carelessness and disdain. We demand answers, and we demand accountability.
Another scandal, which is criminal in nature, is the $400 million in conflicts of interest. There we have the same model, with the same players and refrains of denial and distraction from the government benches. It is just sad. The saddest part of all is that we will probably be here again. I am not sure if it will be the $10-billion conflict of interest they are setting up with Mark Carney, or on a much smaller scale, maybe the real Randy will finally stand up. Maybe the Prime Minister will finally tell us the truth about China. I do not know. What I do know is that, as long as the Liberals are in power, we will be back here again soon, doing something very similar to what we are doing right now.
The latest scandal has paralyzed the House of Commons from being able to deal with the issues that families are facing in Canada, including right here in Ottawa, like the cost of living, food inflation and the crime and chaos that are rampant in our streets. We know that everything is up. My constituents in Provencher know it. They talk to me about how their taxes are up. They talk to me about how the costs of everything they have to buy are up. They talk to me about how crime is up, especially rural crime. Then they add on, “And I think the Liberals' time is up, too.” I cannot disagree with them. I also think the Liberals have exceeded their shelf life and their best-before date has come and gone, if there ever even was one.
As a result of the Liberals' entitled attitude towards accountability, we have crime and chaos in government. It is not so much the gravity of what they have done as much as the artlessness and the utter brazenness, along with the regularity of and the apathy towards their misdeeds, that has even the most jaded Canadians scratching their heads in disbelief. What started as a simple flouting of ethics rules for the Prime Minister with his taxpayer-funded vacation to a lobbyist's private island, for which he received the dubious distinction of being the only sitting prime minister in Canadian history to be found guilty of violating ethics laws, quickly unfolded into a pattern of cronyism, corruption, cover-ups and ethical violations for the Prime Minister, his ministers and others in government. That is unprecedented in the history of Canadian politics.
There is a saying, and I read it again just recently, that anyone who can be trusted with a little, will be trusted with a lot. We have seen that over and over again in the Liberal government. We want to trust it because we, as members of Parliament, know how important trust is. We expect our constituents to place their trust in us to bring their cares and concerns to Parliament, to vigorously debate, to defend them and their rights, and to uphold the integrity of this place. We do that day after day. Our constituents expect that of us. We know that the trust they have in us is not something that we can take for granted because trust can be broken. When trust is broken, it is very difficult to repair. If we can be trusted in the little things, these big things that we are talking about would not even be an issue because we know that trust would carry on, even for the big things.
We know that after nine years, the Prime Minister is not worth the cost, not worth the crime and not worth the corruption. Only common-sense Conservatives are standing up for Canadian families, and only Conservatives would end the Liberal culture of cronyism, cover-up and corruption. The Liberals must end their cover-up and hand over the documents to the RCMP so that Parliament can get back to working for the Canadians who sent us here.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to go back to something one of the member's colleagues talked about, and that is past behaviour. There is an interesting book that lists 70 instances of abuses of power, corruption, just name it, with Stephen Harper. I quickly went through it, but it missed one of the largest ones, the ETS scandal, which was a $400-million scandal. I do not think all the problems with Stephen Harper have been documented.
Why is that relevant? It is because the point person for Stephen Harper is today's leader of the Conservative Party. If we reflect on behaviour from the past, members of the Conservative Party need to look in the mirror and start asking questions of the Conservative leader, such as why he does not have the guts to get a security clearance and what he is hiding. Is there something about the leader of the Conservative Party's past that would not allow him to get the security clearance? Is that not a valid question, and should Canadians not have an answer to that?
Mr. Speaker, I have heard the member for Winnipeg North ask that question over and over again today. What he is missing is that that is not what we are debating today. We are debating Sustainable Development Technology Canada's refusal to hand over the documents the RCMP has requested to investigate the corruption of the Liberal Party. It starts with the Prime Minister and his orders to his people. It starts with the Prime Minister's office and appointments to a corporation like that. That is where it starts. That is what we are debating today.
Conservatives are asking for the documents to be produced so Parliament can get back to work and the RCMP can investigate. If there is nothing to hide, let the sunshine in.
Mr. Speaker, it has been three weeks of Conservatives filibustering their own motion and debating with Liberals about who is more scandalous. When we have serious things happening right now, including foreign interference, the leader of the Conservative Party refuses to get a security clearance, but he continues to point fingers.
I am a Manitoban, and I know Manitobans are really struggling right now. The hon. member for Provencher voted against a guaranteed livable basic income, a school meal program, pharmacare and dental care. Conservatives say Canadians are struggling. I always hear them talk about food banks.
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Ms. Leah Gazan: Mr. Speaker, now I am being heckled and called a socialist for trying to help people with the cost of living.
I am wondering if my colleague is ready to get back to work or if he is going to keep playing partisan games on the backs of Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, the member for Winnipeg Centre asked the same question that the member for Winnipeg North did. I think she thinks she is in a different debate.
I will tell the member one thing. The member talks about her constituents, and within her constituency is an organization run by my good friend, Kent Dueck, which is called Inner City Youth Alive. For 25 years, he has worked with youth in the member's riding to bring them hope and healing from addiction and drugs. This last weekend, he received an award from Scott Gillingham, the mayor of the City of Winnipeg, for the good work he is doing in her riding, which she should be doing, and she is not.
There is another organization in her riding, which is run by Steve Paulson, called Adult and Teen Challenge. I visited it in the member's riding. It deals with individuals struggling with addictions to substances, alcohol and drugs, and crime. It is helping individuals to get out of that lifestyle, to get jobs and to become productive, contributing members of society.
That is what is happening in the member's riding, and she has nothing to do with that.
Mr. Speaker, Canadians have lived this nightmare before, this nightmare on Wellington Street.
We had a situation where two doctors at the level four laboratory in Winnipeg took deadly viruses to Wuhan, China. In 2019, they were arrested. By the time 2020 and 2021 rolled around, we finally had enough to establish that we needed the production of documents. At that time, the government also refused to provide the documents and went so far as to sue the Speaker of the House. What happened after that? The Liberals called an election to get out of it.
Why do the Liberals not call a carbon tax election now?
Mr. Speaker, I just want to reiterate what a fantastic question the member for Renfrew—Nipissing—Pembroke asked, as that really is the question.
Why not just call a carbon tax election? We will let Canadians decide if they trust the Liberals anymore and whether they want a total reset by putting Conservatives back in place. The Conservative Party is a party they can trust, a party with integrity, a party that gives them the hope that they will be able to take home powerful cheques that would provide for affordable housing and affordable fuel. Let us have a carbon tax election.
Mr. Speaker, the way Conservatives are going on and on, for days and weeks at this point, is such a joke.
Earlier, the questions asked were why this is going on and why can we not let the motion go to committee. A Conservative got up and said that they cannot let it go to committee because things would just get buried at committee. Do the Conservatives even understand what they are debating?
We are literally debating a motion to send this to committee. The members cannot say they want to debate this and then not expect an end result at some point or another. The whole point is to send it to committee, yet, by their own admission earlier today, the Conservatives are intentionally keeping it here in the House so it does not go to committee.
When the House leader and the NDP are saying that the Conservatives are just filibustering their own motion, they are absolutely correct. That is exactly what the Conservatives are doing, and that is all they are doing.
Mr. Speaker, the hon. member is asking for clarification as to why we are here today.
We are here today debating this because we have asked that the SDTC, the Prime Minister, the PMO, the Liberal government, call it whatever we want, to hand over unredacted documents pertaining to the origin and destination of the $400 million that the Auditor General identified as being misappropriated. We want unredacted documents handed over to the RCMP. It is that simple.
If the government has nothing to hide, it can just let the sunshine in.
Mr. Speaker, in his speech, the member brought up the brazenness of this. It was an interesting observation on how we have this issue of scandal after scandal and violations of the privileges of elected members over and over again. He brought up the Winnipeg lab and much from the 42nd Parliament as well.
It is as though the Liberals are just trolling us now. They do not even care anymore that their insiders voted to give themselves money with their insider dealings at SDTC. The House has voted to release the documents. We are debating a motion to send it to committee, but they do not need to do that. The Liberals could just release the documents, and then we could move on to the next scandal, which is about the two Randys.
Does the member have any comment on the brazenness of the conflicts of interest that occur under the Liberal government?
Mr. Speaker, the question from the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge refers to something that I talked about in my speech.
I talked about the brazenness and the callousness with which the Liberal government operates, particularly the PMO and the Prime Minister. It is like it is with anything else as it starts off small. It started off with accepting a free vacation to the Aga Khan's Island. It started off with something small, and then it grew.
It is like a drug addict who starts off small. They start off with marijuana, which is something the Liberal government, coupled with the NDP, promoted and legalized. For most drug users I have talked to, it almost always started with marijuana, but it never ends there. It advances to cocaine, heroine and all these other very harmful drugs, such as opioids. I think people become numb after a while.
I think that is what has happened to the Liberals. They started out with small little scandals and have numbed their consciences. They have seared their consciences. They are not even capable of feeling guilt and remorse anymore. It is so sad, because there is hope for everybody, and I think there is hope for the Liberals too. Just let the sunshine in and—
I just realized, after five hours of sitting here, that it is actually the five-year anniversary of the class of 2019. I see a number of their faces here, so I just wanted to say happy anniversary to the class of 2019.
Resuming debate, the hon. member for Kingston and the Islands.
Mr. Speaker, I want to thank the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge for pointing out, just moments ago, what the Conservatives are actually doing. We heard him here moments ago; he said that they just want to keep debating the issue until the Liberals cave to their demands. He just said what we have been accusing the Conservatives of all along: filibustering their own motion.
It is not about doing anything that is actually in the interest of Canadians. It is not about sending the issue to committee to be studied, which is what the motion is actually about. It is just about Conservatives' trying to fill up the airtime to prevent anything else in the House from happening. After three weeks, it had to happen eventually; one of them was eventually going to slip and reveal the reason they are doing this.
I would encourage people, folks watching this at home or people who want to review Hansard, to go back and look at what the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge said. He admitted that the Conservatives do not want the issue to go to committee; all they want is for the government to concede or for the government to deliver on what they are asking for. However, that is not what the motion is about. The motion on the question of privilege is about sending the issue to committee so the committee can do its work and send it back to the House so the House can vote on it again.
The member for Calgary Rocky Ridge knows that. Every single Conservative here knows that. Instead, what they are doing is intentionally trying to filibuster this place. They are doing all of it at the expense of getting actual work done for Canadians.
I do not have a lot to say on this. I have quite enjoyed watching Conservative after Conservative get up and ramble on in speeches that are written by somebody probably in a basement room around here somewhere. Some of them, I recognize, have probably not even read the speech once before they read it here. We can tell by the way it is written that they are all written by the exact same person.
I want to let them continue doing that, but I do just want to take the opportunity to thank the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge for finally admitting to the House what the Conservatives are doing and how they are purposely trying to filibuster and delay this place so we cannot do work on behalf of Canadians. He was honest about it. He said it in his question. I know that he is going to want to try to ask me a question when it is time, but the reality is that there is nothing he can say that is going to reverse what he already admitted, which is what their tactic on this whole thing has been.
Mr. Speaker, obviously he did not listen to my speech this morning, where I actually expanded on the topic of the nature of the debate quite extensively. He is also taking enormous liberty with what I said on the record. He can maybe go back to Hansard and look at what I actually said, if he would like.
The point is that there is a choice between sending the motion to committee to study the issue of the government's contempt of Parliament, and the Liberals' just ending their contempt of Parliament and tabling the documents. Indeed if members, who are elected to this place, want to debate this, as he is doing, then they are welcome to do so. When that debate is exhausted, we will go to committee unless they table the documents.
Mr. Speaker, I did not have to listen to his speech this morning, because I have listened to the same speech over and over, written by the same person somewhere in a basement, operating on behalf of the Conservative Party. However, I do want to thank the member for just doubling down on what I already called him out on. He basically just said it again: We are debating this only because we just have to debate this and it would just go away if the Liberals would actually deliver on what we are requesting of them. That is what he just said.
By his own admission, not once but twice now, he is doing exactly what we are accusing him of doing, which is intentionally filibustering this place, preventing us from doing any work whatsoever. This is just so the Conservatives can keep up the charade of trying to make it look like they are doing something meaningful, when really they have an ulterior motive: to completely put this place in a position of being unable to get anything done.
Mr. Speaker, it is important to recognize that the original motion states that the issue should go to the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs. The RCMP, the Auditor General of Canada and other stakeholders have said that the tactic the Conservatives are using is wrong; it is questionable and it should not be done. It is an abuse of power. All of that is what is being implied.
The Conservatives moved the motion to have it go to committee, then when they ran out of speakers, they moved an amendment, and now we are speaking to an amendment to an amendment. Why is that? It is because of what the member is actually talking about: The Conservatives have not put the interest of Canadians in their hearts. What they have put in their hearts is just the Conservative Party of Canada and nothing else.
Mr. Speaker, the member is absolutely correct. I heard Conservatives say today that when there is a problem, we call in the police. Yes, of course we call in the police, but we let the police do their own work. I ask the former prosecutors who are sitting in the House right now whether it is the job of the public to do the work for the police. Is it the job of the House to do the work for the RCMP? No, of course it is not.
The RCMP has the tools necessary to get the information it wants. When and if the RCMP decides it wants that information, it will know how to get it. The RCMP does not need the House to somehow inform it how to get evidence or what evidence it should be getting. What the Conservatives need to do is listen to the RCMP, to the Speaker's ruling and to just about every expert on this who has said that there is a constitutional way to do this that involves the RCMP's actually doing its work. We do not need to step outside the Constitution for the RCMP to be effective at what it is doing.
Mr. Speaker, again, we will just let the record show that the member believes that if other members of the House of Commons, who have been elected, wish to debate the motion, there is something horribly wrong with that and that the members should be silenced in order for the issue to be dealt with before debate has been exhausted.
Mr. Speaker, we know it has really stung when the member has had to get up three times to debate me on this.
Mr. Speaker, I wanted to track back on the point about how the RCMP gathers evidence, particularly the issue of the tainting of evidence and the issue that if in fact the Conservatives have their way the prosecution of the entire case will be compromised—
Mr. Frank Caputo: How? How?
Mr. John McKay: Mr. Speaker, it is because the evidence will have been obtained in an improper fashion.
A simple legal procedure that does not seem to be understood by the other side is that if the Conservatives proceed in the fashion that they intend to, then the entire prosecution, if there is one, will be compromised.
Mr. Speaker, what I find most alarming about what I just heard was the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, a former prosecutor, heckling “How? How?” when the member from Scarborough was trying inform people about why there might be improperly gathered evidence.
He is absolutely correct, but we do not need to take this from the member from Scarborough or from myself. Listen to the RCMP, which is saying that. Listen to the Speaker's ruling, which is saying that. Listen to the countless experts who are saying the exact same thing, which is that the RCMP has an opportunity to get the information, that it knows how to collect evidence and that it does not need Parliament telling it how to collect evidence or what evidence it should be gathering.
The RCMP is very capable of doing its job. It knows what to do and how to do it. It is very effective at it. The RCMP certainly does not need the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo, the member for Calgary Rocky Ridge or the entire Conservative caucus leading the investigation for it. The RCMP knows what it is doing, and I have great confidence in the RCMP. I would hope my Conservative colleagues would feel the same way.
Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people of Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo. I am really glad to see that the member for Kingston and the Islands has really got his gusto back after his two-week hiatus, given the whole Kat Kanada thing.
Be that as it may, I am wondering whether he could tell us what charter rights are engaged. Given that he has come in to this place and told us how the law works, I am curious what charter rights are engaged and how they would impact a potential prosecution. I would like him, please, to give just the charter section numbers.
Mr. Speaker, this is the problem with Conservatives. This is what they are continually doing. I do not have to—
Some hon. members: Oh, oh!
Mr. Speaker, I do not have to cite specific charter references to be able to agree with you. Do I know the exact numbers? Of course I do not, but what I have been doing is listening to the RCMP, listening to and reading the Speaker's ruling and listening to the experts who have very clearly said this.
I apologize profusely to the member for Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo that I just do not believe him and that I would rather take the word of the RCMP, would rather listen to the experts and would rather listen to you, Mr. Speaker, and the countless pieces of legal advice you received in making a ruling.
Mr. Speaker, I wonder whether the member for Kingston and the Islands would recognize he is just totally off the mark. He is huffing and puffing and trying to blame the Conservatives, when really it is the Speaker's ruling that is saying that the documents need to be produced.
My question is this: Are the Liberals planning to take the Speaker to court, as they did previously to the other Speaker who ruled against them?
Mr. Speaker, it is your ruling, and what you said in your ruling was that this was unprecedented but that you agreed that it should go to PROC, which should be allowed to determine the best way to deal with it. I love how the member cherry-picks the sentences or half sentences that he wants to use in here today, but the reality is that for him to come in here and say it is the Speaker's ruling and they are just listening to him is completely ludicrous, because what they are actually doing is ignoring the majority of the direction you have given in your ruling.
Mr. Speaker, it is always an honour to rise in this place and speak on behalf of the constituents of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner. Unfortunately, rather than speaking about something fantastic that the government may be doing to better Canadians, we are here to discuss yet another scandal. That is right, another Liberal scandal: more corruption regarding the gross misappropriation of taxpayer funds, with a typical Liberal response of “Cover it up. Nothing to see here”. That is what we are doing.
I know that with all the Liberal scandals that have been going on, it is hard to keep track of everything, so let me clarify that what I want to talk about today are the Auditor General's findings that Liberal insiders at Sustainable Development Technology Canada, SDTC, or as I would refer to it, the green slush fund, gave nearly $400 million in tax dollars to their own companies with over 186 conflicts of interests, all at a time when Canadians cannot afford to eat, heat or house themselves. SDTC was a federal foundation that was supposed to support small and medium-sized businesses in the clean-tech sector by funding projects that were to develop technology that benefits the environment. The members of the Liberal-appointed board violated conflict of interest laws and turned it into a green slush fund for the Liberal elites.
On June 10, a Conservative motion was adopted by the House, calling for all documents relating to the green slush fund to be tabled within 30 days and eventually turned over to the RCMP. Thankfully, the motion was passed, despite the Liberals voting against it. That was another desperate attempt to cover-up. The Liberals responded to this motion on July 17, August 21 and September 16, but there were only portions tabled. There was partial disclosure due to either redactions or the withholding of documents. In other instances, the House order was met with a complete refusal by those departments.
According to the Speaker's ruling, the law clerk reported back to the Speaker that the Liberals had not complied with the House order by the stipulated deadline of 30 days following the adoption of the motion. In response to the Liberals' refusal to disclose documents, the House leader for our Conservative opposition raised the question of privilege, arguing that Parliament's powers to order the production of documents are absolute and the government cannot disregard this binding order.
As parliamentarians, we have a right to ask for any documents to be produced that are necessary for us to fulfill our duties to Canadians. Therefore, on September 26, the Speaker ruled that the Liberals' failure to produce documents relating to the green slush fund scandal constituted a prima facie breach of privilege. As such, all debates are suspended until this matter is resolved. That is going on four weeks now. If parliamentarians do not have the rights and freedoms necessary to do their jobs, Parliament is paralyzed, as it is now, but the Liberal government seems to be okay with wasting taxpayers' money and government's time.
The Speaker ruled that “The House has the undoubted right to order the production of any...documents from any entity or individual it deems necessary to carry out its duties”. In his ruling, he further stated that “The House has clearly ordered the production of certain documents, and that order has clearly not been fully complied with.”
In yet another attempt to obstruct the investigation, the Liberals have made the argument that since this motion calls for documents to be turned over to the RCMP, the motion would be inadmissible or out of order. However, the Speaker ruled that he did agree that “It is indeed unusual, novel and unprecedented for the House to order documents not for its own purposes but for a third party.” However, the Speaker also added that “I believe the best way for this to be achieved would be to follow the usual course for a prima facie question of privilege”. I would also argue that what is unusual and unprecedented is for the RCMP to have to be investigating a government over and over again with so many conflicts and absolute corruption.
For a government that claims to not be responsible for this scandal to then go to such lengths to try and cover it up instead of fighting on behalf of Canadians to get the truth out makes no sense to me. If the Liberals had nothing to do with this $400-million scandal, they should be as concerned as the rest of us about this gross corruption and theft of taxpayer money. One would think that a responsible government would take the lead on holding those responsible to be accountable for their actions and not be forced into responding appropriately. Liberals insiders have stolen $400 million from hard-working Canadian taxpayers, yet this Liberal government is doing everything in its power to prevent the House from gaining access to those documents.
In response to our demands that they give Canadians the answers they deserve, the Liberals have flat out refused, obstructing a criminal investigation into this misappropriation of public funds. The Liberals claim that this matter should be discussed in committee, because they think that nobody there will notice. However, I do not agree with that. The House has already passed a motion and the Speaker has made his ruling. The House is the place for the matter to be resolved, not at committee. This brings us to the privilege motion in front of us today.
Parliamentary privilege is the individual and collective rights that we, as members of the House of Commons, have that allow us to effectively carry out our principle functions to legislate, deliberate and hold the government to account. Parliamentary privilege dates back to the 17th century when the people of the House of Commons in the United Kingdom fought to protect their power from the king. In Canada, parliamentary privilege is part of our Constitution. It is essential for maintaining the power and authority of the House in allowing members of Parliament to represent their constituents fully. It is called “democracy”.
Violating parliamentary privilege is no small thing. It means that the government cannot govern and the House cannot fulfill its duties to the Canadians we represent. When parliamentary privilege is breached, our constitutionally guaranteed rights as parliamentarians are disregarded.
We are left to wonder what could be so bad about what is contained in these documents that the Liberals have resorted to breaking parliamentary privilege and obstructing a criminal investigation to keep them hidden. I think Canadians know why. They know that these documents contain evidence of significant corruption. So far, we know that the report showed $400 million in tax dollars was misappropriated and there were 186 instances of conflicts of interest with the awarding of contracts.
Further, for a fund dedicated to supporting the development of new sustainable technology, $59 million of this green slush fund went to 10 ineligible projects. As the Auditor General said, “the projects did not support the development or demonstration of a new technology, or their projected environmental benefits were unreasonable.” Not only were funds misappropriated to Liberal insiders, they were given to projects that were not even relevant to the goals of the fund.
Even more shocking is that the Auditor General's report found that the Minister of Industry did not sufficiently monitor any contracts from Liberal insiders. Why is no one in the government doing anything to get to the bottom of this gross misuse of taxpayer money? What makes this all so much worse is that the $400-million slush fund scandal comes at a time when Canadians face an economic crisis. Canadians are feeling the financial impacts of the government's policies over the last nine years. Not shockingly, the Liberals do not seem to care.
When I think of my riding of Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner, it pains me to think of the hard-working Albertans who are struggling with the cost of living crisis under the tax-and-spend Liberals. If we then add the carbon tax the government has implemented, it adds to my constituents' struggle to fill their gas tanks; heat their homes, businesses and barns; dry their grain; buy groceries and so much more.
Let us imagine how much the $400 million would impact the lives of Canadians who are struggling to make ends meet under this economic burden. How many additional doctors and nurses, or equipment, could we add with $400 million to help Canadians access health care? How about our school systems? How would $400 million invested in our communities impact the number of teachers, teachers' aides and school programs for our children?
The average Canadian family now spends more of its income on taxes than on basic needs, such as food, shelter and clothing. Canadians also cannot afford housing. In 2024, the number of chronically homeless people increased by 38% relative to 2018. We have 61% of young Canadians age 18 to 34 who are concerned about their ability to pay their mortgage or rent over the next 12 months, and 28% say they are considering moving to another country for greater affordability.
It is shocking that during a time when Canadians are experiencing a once-in-a-generation cost of living crisis because of the out-of-touch government spending, the Liberals dare to allow $400 million of taxpayer money to line the pockets of their friends and insiders. They are absolutely out of touch.
It does not stop there. The affordability crisis is affecting Canadians in every aspect of their lives. Food Banks Canada's 2024 Poverty Report Card shows that almost 50% of Canadians feel financially worse off compared to last year, and one in four Canadians are experiencing food insecurity. Under the Liberal government, Food Banks Canada reported that food banks have seen a 50% increase in visits since 2021.
It is shameful that while Canadians are struggling to meet their basic food and housing needs, the government's priority continues to be lining the pockets of Liberal elites. The $400-million green slush fund scandal, along with all the other scandals, demonstrates the Liberals have no respect for the hard-working Canadians who dutifully pay their taxes every year.
I have questions for the members present on the other side of the House. How do they respond to their constituents who are facing challenges in feeding their families, keeping their homes or ensuring their loved ones' safety? How would they explain to their constituents that the $400 million they earned benefited the Liberals' friends, instead of assisting those in need? Can members look their constituents in the eye and assert that the $400 million was spent more wisely than if it had been spent on the constituents who earned it and are currently struggling?
The members on the other side of the House have overlooked the fact that we serve the Canadian public and that taxpayer funds do not belong to the government. These funds are the property of Canadians. It is unimaginable, unethical and corrupt to use Canadian taxpayer dollars in this manner and then fail to acknowledge that these funds have been misappropriated. On top of that, the Liberals are actively trying to cover it up. They are obstructing a criminal investigation into this matter.
I want all members of this House to imagine what $400 million could do in their riding. Unfortunately for Canadians, on top on the misappropriation of $400 million, the Liberals are stalling the work of this House on important issues by refusing to co-operate and they are effectively paralyzing Parliament, sidelining our efforts to tackle the rising cost of housing, food inflation and issues of crime that Canadians care about.
Speaking of crime, in Alberta alone, the total number of violent Criminal Code violations is up 37%; total violent firearms offences are up 118%, and extortion is up 410%. Law enforcement, from coast to coast to coast, is crying for support. Law enforcement officers feel the impacts of the government's soft-on-crime policies first-hand. Whenever I check the news, I am appalled to see stories of individuals out on bail who are recommitting offences, making our communities less safe and putting our law enforcement officers at risk. Speaking of risk, an officer was shot in broad daylight in the GTA by an offender charged with 41 offences; hours previously, after being taken into custody, he was released on bail.
The $400 million that was given to Liberal insiders could have been invested in making our streets safer, but no, the Liberals thought it was better spent on their friends. Canadians are worried about increased thefts and crime rates. They should not have to worry about their government stealing from them too.
There is also a drug crisis across the entire country. There are 47,000 people who have died from opioid-related deaths in the last nine years. That is more deaths from opioids alone than all Canadian deaths in the Second World War. If we think about it, that is inconceivable. That is all thanks to the Liberals' failed approach to the so-called safe supply and tax-funded drugs. Can members imagine how much good $400 million could do for treating those with mental health and addictions struggles?
In addition to the issues faced at home, the Prime Minister and his Liberal government have embarrassed Canadians on the world stage. Three months ago, the Liberal defence policy update revealed that Canada is nowhere close to its 2% NATO commitments. That hardly comes as a surprise from a government that has repeatedly failed the Canadian Armed Forces in recruitment, procurement and every other way. We are short almost 16,000 troops, with a further 10,000 undertrained and undeployable. Our warships are rusting out. Our fighter jets are worn out. Entire air squadrons have been shut down because they do not have enough personnel. If the government had been serious about our national defence, it could have committed the $400 million to support our troops and come a little closer to meeting our NATO goals.
I really wonder what the NDP-Liberals have done right in the last nine years. Things are clear. Crime is up and costs are up; quite frankly, I think time is up. Canadians are sick of the rising costs of crime, chaos, corruption and international embarrassments. They are ready for a change, for a government that will bring common-sense leadership back to this country.
On this side of the House, we are ready to form a government that will work for Canadians, not steal from them. We will reduce the cost of living and reward work and investment. Conservatives are ready to fix the budget by cutting waste, capping spending, investing in economic growth and cutting taxes. We will reduce bureaucracy, sell off federal buildings and invest in the building trades so that we can build homes. We will repeal senseless, soft-on-crime policies and catch-and-release laws, reinforce our borders, stand up for law-abiding firearms owners, focus on the real criminals and improve our national security. When we form government, we will ensure accountability and transparency. Canadians deserve to know where and how taxpayer money is being spent.
These matters involving the green slush fund are criminal, and an investigation is needed and expected by Canadians. The government needs to come clean with Canadians and finally reveal the truth. It is time for the government to end the cover-up and corruption and provide the documents, so Parliament can get working for Canadians.
Mr. Speaker, I want to direct my comments to my friend, who is a former RCMP officer. In particular, I want to direct his attention to a letter by Mike Duheme, the RCMP commissioner. I am going to work on the assumption that, as a police officer and a member of this chamber, he wishes to see justice, with the perpetrators of this alleged crime brought to court and successfully prosecuted. However, Commissioner Duheme indicates in his letter that proceeding in the manner in which the hon. member wishes would taint the evidence and effectively destroy whatever possibility there is of obtaining a prosecution.
He stated:
The RCMP has also reviewed the implications of the Motion in a potential criminal investigation. Before taking any investigative steps...the RCMP must comply with...legal standards [of] investigation or prosecution.... For the reasons set out above, the RCMP's ability to receive and use information obtained through this production order and under the compulsory powers afforded by the Auditor General Act…give rise to concerns under the Canadian Charter of Rights and Freedoms. It is therefore highly unlikely that any information obtained by the RCMP under the Motion where privacy interests [exist] could be used to support a criminal prosecution or further a criminal investigation.
In other words, if this motion proceeds in the way the hon. member wishes it to do, there is no chance—
Mr. Speaker, while I have a lot of respect for Commissioner Duheme, it appears that the response was actually read by a lawyer in the PMO.
It is very easy to understand. One would think that the Government of Canada should be the complainant because of the fact that $400 million was misappropriated under its watch.
I was not in the RCMP; I was in a municipal police service, a great one. When I did investigations, a complainant turned over documents to the police to investigate. The government is not acting like a complainant in this matter. It is acting like an accused. That is what is really going on here.
The government has reason to be concerned about the evidence being gathered if it is the accused. The fact that it is not turning stuff over—
An hon. member: Oh, oh!
Mr. Glen Motz: Mr. Speaker, he asked a question for almost two minutes, so I am going to take some time to answer.
The government has a responsibility to turn over evidence. If it is acting as the accused, the police could get an order to obtain the evidence from the House of Commons. That is not unreasonable. That, in my opinion, would taint no one's charter. It would not taint an investigation. It would not lead to an illegal precedent that would not allow someone to have a fair prosecution of a case, unless, of course, it is the government and members in the government who are at fault.
If the documents continue to be withheld, it would lead me to believe that there is someone in government who has a lot to hide, and they had better get themselves a good lawyer.
Mr. Speaker, this Conservative filibuster is trying to figure out who is more scandalous, the Liberals or the Conservatives, and I would argue both.
I also want some answers. My hon. colleague was a former RCMP member. The RCMP reported that it obtained evidence that demonstrates four very serious issues in regard to India. I am going to read them verbatim:
1. Violent extremism impacting both countries;
2. Links tying agents of the Government of India (GOI) to homicides and violent acts;
3. The use of organized crime to create a perception of an unsafe environment targeting the South Asian Community in Canada; and
4. Interference into democratic processes.
We are talking about justice, and we are talking about getting to the root of things. It brings us to this question: Why will the leader of the Conservative Party, the member for Carleton, not get his security clearance to find out who in his party has been implicated, potentially, in foreign interference? Why?
Mr. Speaker, a number of things come up with this particular issue.
It is important to realize this: It has been made very clear that, if the Leader of the Opposition or a leader of any party, other than the Prime Minister in his role, receives this security clearance to have access to the names of those who might be wittingly involved in foreign interference, they are gagged. It is effectively impossible for them to answer questions or to deal with it.
I will quote the chief of staff to the Prime Minister, who said, “The recipient is prevented from using the information in any manner, even were it in the case of briefing political parties on sensitive intelligence regarding [an] MP”. This “could put the leader or representative of a political party in a tough position because any decision affecting the MP might have to be made without giving them due process.”
It is important to realize all of these accusations. The Prime Minister grandstanded under oath at the Hogue commission and misled the committee in public. If he has all this information, why does he not release the names? If there are Conservatives on the list, we will deal with it. I think the Prime Minister knows by the names that his own party has some skeletons in the closet.
I support the Conservative leader not taking this, because he can then act and speak. Being gagged is another trick that the government does not want Canadians to be aware of.
Mr. Speaker, I will go back to the response that the member for Medicine Hat—Cardston—Warner gave to the member for Scarborough—Guildwood. He raised a question that was for the arguments to be made on the original motion that the House has already pronounced on. The ship has sailed as to whether Parliament should receive the documents. The question is now around contempt and the government's refusal to comply with an order of Parliament, not whether it should.
Could the member get us back to the actual debate around the fact that the government has refused an order of Parliament, not whether the government should comply with it?
Mr. Speaker, I particularly enjoyed the hon. member's intervention earlier today, and it is along those same lines. Canadians are wondering about the contempt of the government in taking this position. The Speaker has already ruled, as my colleague indicated, that the unredacted documents need to be produced. If the government does not do that, what message is being sent to the Canadian public? Contempt of Parliament leads Canadians to believe that the Liberals are complicit in this wrongdoing and corruption, that they have something to hide and that they are not acting in a responsible manner to the Canadian taxpayer. This is something we have seen in their spending for the last nine years.
All the cover-ups and contempt really sour the Canadian public to the current condition of the government, even more than they are already, and show the fact that Liberals cannot be trusted.
Mr. Speaker, the member opposite implied in his comments that it was the Prime Minister's office that wrote the letter, and I think he owes the RCMP an apology for making that assertion. Would the member apologize for his comment about the chief commissioner in the letter he provided?
No, Mr. Speaker, I will not apologize. I said it appeared as if it were that way. There is a party line to be held, and it appears as if the commissioner has something to say. I am sure this is under the direction of the PMO. There is no evidence to support what the member said, because that is not what we are asking for.
Business of the House
Mr. Speaker, there have been discussion among the parties, and if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:
That, notwithstanding any Standing Order, special order, or usual practice of the House, during the debate pursuant to Standing Order 52 later this day, no quorum calls, dilatory motions, or requests for unanimous consent shall be received by the Chair.
[Translation]
Privilege
Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs
The House resumed consideration of the motion, of the amendment and of the amendment to the amendment.
Mr. Speaker, it is my privilege to rise today to represent the good people of Peace River—Westlock in the House of Commons and to bring my voice and their voices to the privilege debate.
The term “privilege” is common parlance these days, and folks here like to talk about their privilege. Sitting in this seat is a privilege. Being a member of Parliament is a privilege and it comes with privileges. One of those privileges is that we get to asked pointed questions of the government. That essentially sums up what the privilege debate we are having today is about: the House of Commons and members of Parliament. The people sent here, elected by their constituents, come to this place to hold the government to account, to ask the government tough questions and to demand a rationale for why things happen or do not happen. That is what we are after today. This debate comes down to the fundamental role of what Parliament is. Parliament is the check and balance on the government.
It is a bit confusing. A lot of times folks say that I am part of the government, and I always correct them and say that I hope to be soon, but at this point I am a member of the opposition. It is a bit confusing because the government lives in the legislative body in our parliamentary system, and the government is captured by the cabinet and the Prime Minister and the apparatuses of government outside of this place. It is our job as members of Parliament to hold the government to account, to make sure the government is doing the things it ought to be doing.
Being in government comes with great privileges, and one of those privileges is holding the debit card of the nation. The government knows the PIN for the debit card of the nation. However, the Liberal government seems to have written this PIN on the backside of the card and then handed the card out all over the place, with no real concern as to who gets access to it and where money is being spent. That is what we are after.
In this place and in government, we run across acronyms of all sorts. The acronym SDTC has come up a lot in this debate. For folks back home watching this, SDTC is Sustainable Development Technology Canada, an organization that was tasked with providing money to organizations that are doing research on sustainability. It has been redubbed the green slush fund because it seems to have been left unchecked by the government.
Some might say that this was not the government; it was an outside organization with a board set up by the government. However, I would point out that most of the people appointed to this board who were making decisions had strong Liberal ties. In many cases, being appointed to this board seemed to have been a reward for past loyalties. That has been pointed out a lot.
The other very interesting thing to note, for those trying to make the case that this was outside the government and the government did not necessarily know about it, is that the deputy minister, who reports directly back to the minister, the person right next to the minister, attended these meetings and would have taken notes, and his or her opinion on these things would have been taken into consideration. The deputy minister represents the minister, so they would have reported back to the minister what took place at these meetings and would have been there to advise the board as to the directions of the minister. The minister can say that he took a hands-off approach, and that is fine, but he still knew what was going on.
I want to thank my colleague, the member for South Shore—St. Margarets, who has done incredible work on bringing this to light. It should be recognized that to some degree, bringing this scandal to light, in light of all the other scandals, has been a challenge. I commend him for his work, because it seems like every other week there is another major Liberal scandal breaking. People have become tired of the scandals that have rocked the government.
We do not need to go too far back to remember the SNC-Lavalin scandal, over which an indigenous woman lost her cabinet position. She is no longer a member of Parliament because of that. The government was trying to manipulate the justice system. We can look back at the WE Charity scandal as well, where the government tried to give away the debit card with the PIN written on the back for $1 billion, again with no accountability. Then we have the Baylis medical scandal. For those who do not know about it, a former member of Parliament, Mr. Frank Baylis, owned a company that got a contract to supply the government with ventilators during the COVID pandemic. Rumour has it that the ventilators were never used. The ventilators were not approved by Health Canada either, yet the government bought 237 million dollars' worth of them, and they appear to have never been useful in Canada. This is the level of corruption we are dealing with, so I again take my hat off to the member for South Shore—St. Margarets for finding out this newest scandal.
I should also mention the ArriveCAN app scandal, where an app that should have cost no more than $200,000 ended up costing the government $60 million. As I pointed out at the beginning of my speech, the government, the Prime Minister and cabinet are responsible for the debit card of the nation, and they appear to have written the PIN on the back of it and handed it out wherever they went. Then when the scandals ensued, they said they did not know about them or that well-meaning Canadians abused the Canadian debit card.
This goes right back to the very beginning, though, to the level of Liberal scandal we saw already right after 2015. When the Prime Minister became the Prime Minister, we can recall his notorious Aga Khan trip, for which the Prime Minister was found in violation of the ethics code and was fined. We have never-ending layer upon layer of Liberal scandals.
The one on SDTC is most closely related to the Winnipeg lab scandal. This scandal is very hard to explain to people because we do not know much about it, although we know there is something there.
What happened is that members of Parliament voted and demanded that the government release documents related to suspicious activities: the arrest of individuals who worked at the lab, a number of trips made back and forth between that lab and China, and Chinese nationals who had access to the virology lab in Winnipeg. We knew that something seemed fishy there, so the House of Commons demanded the documents to get to the bottom of what was going on with that.
An hon. member: Did we get the documents?
Mr. Arnold Viersen: Mr. Speaker, we did not get the documents. In fact, the Prime Minister sued the Speaker of this place. It was unprecedented in Canadian history for the Prime Minister to sue the Speaker of the House of Commons to prevent those documents from being released. Then, as that carried on, the Prime Minister called an election to prevent the documents from becoming open.
Now we are in a similar situation. The House of Commons has demanded documents to be handed over to the RCMP. We are not asking for the documents for ourselves. We are saying to hand these documents over to the RCMP.
This is much the same as a person discovering that an employee of their business is embezzling. When the accounting department starts to put the pieces together, it might say, “We have a body of evidence that we think so and so is embezzling.” They might then confront the individual, but they would also most likely call the police. The first thing they would do is call the police and say they suspect that a crime has taken place, and they would hand over all of the documentation to prove the case. Then we would expect the RCMP or the police of jurisdiction to do its own investigation, which is an important part of police individuality. They do not just take accusations on their face; they do their own investigations. What we are saying here is that something stinks to high heaven. We can see what is going on. We can see how folks have abused the national debit card when they were entrusted with the PIN, and we are saying this is illegal; this is a crime.
The Liberals have pointed out that there have been Ethics Commissioner and Commissioner of Lobbying reports on this and that the Auditor General has had a report, which is great, but all of those people are not judging the criminal element of this particular thing. We suspect there was a crime, and we want the RCMP to do an investigation and to have the documents that it needs, which we are entitled to ask for. We feel that the RCMP should have those documents in order to build the case we want it to build. This is entirely within the purview of Canadian Parliament. It is one of the privileges of members of Parliament to ask for these documents.
However, it begs the question: Much as in the case of the Winnipeg lab, what are the Liberals hiding? We still do not know what they were hiding in the Winnipeg lab case, but what are they hiding in this case?
Quite honestly, the Liberals have been all over the place. At first they said it was an arm's-length organization and they did know anything about it. Then they said we were violating people's charter rights. Now they are saying this is grinding the House to a halt. We agree that this is grinding the House to a halt, but the privileges of members of Parliament are an important thing to debate. An easy solution for the impasse we see today would be for the government to release the documents so we can hand them off to the RCMP.
What is the crux of the matter? A board of directors was responsible for $1 billion of grant money being handed out, and these board members appeared to have made proposals to the board they were associated with for companies to get grant money. The Auditor General said that in 10 of these cases, there were no grounds whatsoever for these companies to get money, and in 180 other cases, the Auditor General said there was a conflict of interest in the companies getting the money.
We have studied the minutes of these meetings, and what appears to have happened is that folks affiliated with particular companies would make a pitch that the company they were affiliated with should get some money from this fund. Then, in most cases, they would recuse themselves from the decision. They would leave the room; the decision would be made, “Yes, we should give the company some money”; and then they would come back. Then it would be the next person's turn, and they would propose that their company should get some money, and they would say, “Due to a conflict of interest, I will not vote on it.”
The point of putting a board in place is to ensure accountability and oversight. Members of that board were colluding among themselves to hand money to each other, and the quid pro quo was, “we will vote for your company to get money with the understanding that you will vote for our company to get money.” That is what happened. We see over $330 million, a lot of taxpayer money, voted on by a board to be given to its members' own companies, when boards are generally there to provide oversight.
To go back to the beginning, this board seems to have been appointed to reward loyalty to the Liberal Party. If that is not enough of a connection to the Liberal Party, I do not know what is. There is also ministerial oversight: The deputy minister was in those meetings ensuring that things were going along as the minister would like them to and were also being reported back to the minister. This goes right back to the Liberal corruption we have seen over and over again with all of the other scandals along the way.
Another element to this scandal has not been highlighted as maybe it should have been. Several of the folks on the board not only secured funds for organizations they were affiliated with, but in many cases they also owned shares in those companies. We have one case of a company that one of the board members was affiliated with that saw a dramatic growth in its stock price because it had secured funds from the SDTC board. He admitted in committee there had been a thousand-fold increase in value for himself. Not only did he secure taxpayer funds for a company he was affiliated with; he personally became extremely wealthy from it because he owned stock in that particular company.
The conflicts of interest, the corruption and the abuse of the taxpayer debit card know no limits with the Liberals. When we see the amount of waste and the lack of concern around financial controls, it is no wonder that this country is suffering an inflation crisis. We see that food, gas and housing prices are up dramatically, and we are calling for the government to axe the tax. When the government taxes the farmer who grows the food and taxes the truck driver who transports the food, Canadians cannot afford food.
We think it is time for a carbon tax election so Canadians can see hope on the horizon, a return to normalcy and a government that understands that the privileges of governing and controlling the country's debit card, and the PIN that comes with it, are important. We need to ensure that our finances are respected and that we are not allowing entities to enrich themselves off the taxpayer dollar with no benefit to the public good.
I look forward to the carbon tax election. I know it will be coming soon. All of my colleagues and I have heard from our constituents over the last week, those who are struggling under the carbon tax, going to the food bank and things like that. They are calling for an election and they hope it can happen sooner rather than later. After the election I am certain we will axe the tax.
Mr. Speaker, the opposition Conservatives continually want to play the game, at a great cost to Canadians but to the benefit, I suspect, of the Conservative Party.
My question is related to a previous member standing in his place clearly calling into question the letter written by the RCMP commissioner. This is the far right of the Conservative Party coming out. Its members are talking about how the RCMP is discredited now, which is part of this ongoing game they are playing. This all goes to the leadership of the Conservative Party.
Can the member explain to Canadians why the leader of the Conservative Party feels no obligation to get a security clearance in order to find out what is happening in foreign affairs as opposed to discrediting the RCMP?
Mr. Speaker, I know that after the carbon tax election, the leader of the Conservative Party will get his security clearance, as he will be the Prime Minister of the country. At that point, we will be able to look into many of these things that have gone on. I imagine the shredding has already begun. When the Conservatives are in power, we will bring accountability to the Department of Finance. We look forward to ensuring accountability, and rooting out corruption is something the Conservatives will take very seriously.
The Liberals love to decry the lack of trust in institutions in this country while they have caused that very destruction of the institutions by using them for their political ends. We have to look no further than the horrific tragedy in Nova Scotia, when the Prime Minister was pressuring the commissioner of the RCMP to release the models of firearms that were used, in order for him to get a political win. We have evidence that the Prime Minister is not above pressuring the RCMP, and I hope the Liberals have come to their senses on this, but I doubt it.
Mr. Speaker, the member said the leader of the Conservative Party will get his security clearance when he becomes Prime Minister. There is foreign interference happening right now. His party's members may be implicated, but he refuses to get his security clearance now to protect the integrity of his party and to protect our democracy. Richard Fadden, the former director of CSIS, publicly said the Leader of the Opposition will not be gagged. Even if he was concerned about that, he could ask for just specific briefings on his party.
Why will the Leader of the Opposition not get his security clearance?
Mr. Speaker, the debate we are having today is about documents the government has failed to produce. We have called for the release of the names that the member is concerned about. I do not know why the NDP member continues to prop up, defend and use the same talking points as the Liberal government. I thought the supply and confidence agreement was over. It appears it is not.
Mr. Speaker, I am still trying to understand how much $400 million really is and what it represents. I think Canadians at home would also like something more relatable so they can put this into context.
What could that money actually buy? It can buy 80 million cheeseburger Happy Meals, which is about two for every Canadian; 161 million double-doubles, which is a week's worth for every adult Canadian; or, for the good people of Toronto—St. Paul's, 170,000 months of rent, or about five months for every renter in St. Paul's.
If the government used taxpayer money to give away the equivalent of 80 million cheeseburgers, how can we trust it with any of our funds?
Mr. Speaker, I want to congratulate the member for Toronto—St. Paul's on his recent election. I know the people of Toronto—St. Paul's are well represented. He has hit the ground running and has been doing yeoman's work in this place.
The member's cheeseburger analogy is one I had not thought of, but I have used a Big Mac conversion as a way to see the value of money over time. We have seen the McDonald's menu items go up in price dramatically because of inflation. I also use the McDonald's analogy to see what its value is in relation to other countries. We have an official exchange rate, but it is always interesting to see the McDonald's menu around the world and how it compares from one country to another.
The member brought up McDonald's and how many cheeseburgers $400 million would have bought, and I really appreciate that analogy.
Mr. Speaker, it is always a pleasure to rise on behalf of the people from Kamloops—Thompson—Cariboo.
We have been hearing a lot from the NDP. I value the contributions from everybody in this House. One thing they have not addressed is that many of them served under Thomas Mulcair. Now, Tom Mulcair has said on many occasions that he absolutely would not do what the Liberals are asking of the member for Carleton, the leader of His Majesty's loyal opposition. In fact, Mr. Mulcair would in no way do what the NDP members are right now asking the member for Carleton to do.
How do we regard someone from the NDP who is saying, “Don't take the bait; prosecute this government. Name them and let's get on with it”? We should not have people in our midst who are wittingly helping foreign states.
Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more with my colleague, who always has a way of summing these things up.
It is concerning to me that the NDP continuously seems to be propping up the Liberal Party, not only in terms of policy initiatives but particularly around this corruption issue. It is fascinating that the NDP continues to prop up the flailing government.
[Translation]
Mr. Speaker, I have held back from making comments for some time. After what I just heard, however, I have a question. South of the border, a presidential candidate has just aired an ad on social media featuring his appearance at a McDonald's restaurant. Here, the Conservatives are talking about cheeseburgers and the same restaurant chain.
Do we have to take our lead from what happens south of the border? The Conservatives have reached a point where they are trying to copy what is going on in a US election campaign. All of this is almost surreal. I think a more serious approach would be appropriate.
[English]
Mr. Speaker, I just had to check the Google machine to see which presidential candidate was at McDonald's. I was not aware of that, so I guess I am pleasantly surprised. I am happy to continue to use McDonald's references in the House of Commons.
I look forward to some more spirited debate with the hon. member