Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
We have Justin Trudeau's Minister of Employment, Randy Boissonnault, who for months has been under an ethical cloud involving shady business dealings with his shady company, Global Health Imports, which is embroiled in allegations of ripping off clients. It's a company that has been ordered by Alberta courts to pay more than $8 million back to clients who were ripped off. It's a company that was involved in a shakedown, a half-million dollar fraudulent shakedown, of a client who had purchased PPE equipment. Someone named Randy was involved, based on text messages, in the shakedown and was involved in what may amount to wire fraud.
Now, Minister Boissonnault says he's not that Randy, yet for months no one can find Randy. According to Mr. Boissonnault, only a handful of people worked for Global Health Imports. If the Randy in the text messages involved in the shakedown is not Randy Boissonnault, then who's Randy? Where's Randy? We need to find out. It should be noted that we now have at least nine text messages in which Randy was named, including one text message that situated the Randy in the text messages in Vancouver, which just happened to be, I'm sure by coincidence, at the very same time Randy Boissonnault was in Vancouver as part of the Liberal cabinet retreat.
Why is that relevant in terms of Randy Boissonnault's involvement or potential involvement in this half-million dollar shakedown and potential wire fraud? To begin with, it's very concerning that Justin Trudeau has in his cabinet a minister who was involved in a shady company that has been ordered by Alberta courts to pay $8 million for ripping off clients. I think that ought to be a fireable offence. But if Minister Boissonnault was the Randy in the text messages, then Minister Boissonnault violated Canada's ethics laws. He violated the Conflict of Interest Act. The Conflict of Interest Act is very clear that ministers cannot be involved in the operations of a private company.
There's more. We have recently learned that this very same company that Randy Boissonnault up until last month had a 50% interest in entered into a contract with Elections Canada. This is in violation of subsection 13(2) of the Conflict of Interest Act, which says that no minister shall have an interest in a partnership or private corporation that has a contract with a federal department or agency “under which the partnership or corporation receives a benefit”.
The bottom line is that, after months, the ethical cloud over this minister continues. Every week there are more questions, more allegations, and we still don't know who Randy is and where Randy is. This motion I believe is timely to expand the scope of the study and to call in additional witnesses so that we can get answers for Canadians and we can hold this minister to account for his potential corruption.