Evidence of meeting #131 for Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was liberal.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
If you follow along, I can help. If you listen, I can help you if you follow along.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
I think Mr. Barrett will probably get to where he needs to go on the amendment.
Go ahead, Mr. Barrett.
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
I think I was just saying how the Liberals can't help but fall all over themselves when they whined about wanting fairness, but then when the opportunity was given, they scurried right back into the hole. It's not surprising. It's not surprising because this is what we've seen after nine years of the most corrupt government that this country's ever seen.
I think Mr. Cooper was right when he put it that we've seen that with Justin Trudeau being found guilty of breaking the law twice. This is while serving as Prime Minister.
Conservative
Conservative
Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON
That's right; it was obstructing investigations and hiding behind cabinet confidence. Here we have the same occurring.
I would have hoped that we'd see that this was a genuine ask by the Liberals for fairness, but it's never about fairness. It's always about enriching their friends. That's what they're doing. That's what they're looking to do today.
You would hope that, as I said before, when you have a subject like Mr. Carney as the example, and you have people who are repping companies that have pleaded guilty to price-fixing on food during a cost of living crisis, you could have expected that the NDP would have supported that in fairness—talking about fairness for people, fairness for people who need help—but the “yes” votes didn't come from those who were seeking fairness. That's not what the Liberals are about.
The letter I wrote to the lobbying commissioner lays out the real and apparent conflicts, because it can be seen, reasonably, that there's a sense of obligation towards a lobbyist. It details all of that.
First, though, I want to pick up on one thing Mr. Cooper said about Mr. Carney—that he's the head of a task force of one. I'm sure he's a difficult man to manage, but they found the right man for the job.
It's not about leading a task force. It's not about leading a group of people. It's about introducing a successor to a Prime Minister who is just.... As it was rightly put, it's about replacing the captain of the Titanic. Why Mr. Carney wants to take that on as the SS Liberal sails into the iceberg, I'm not sure. We heard that he's a real expert, as the Liberals say. Well, why won't you take expert advice? For anyone who joins that team at this point, all of their judgment has just been called into question. That's a question for Mr. Carney as well that would have to be asked.
Look, the Liberals have shown themselves for who they are. When we look at the options put in front of the committee today to have people come before committee to see what we could learn from the registered federal lobbyists—the lobbying shop owners who are inside behind the closed doors of the Liberal caucus room—it's interesting that the decision they took was to not support the motion. They voted it down.
What does that tell Canadians? It tells them that while Justin Trudeau promised to have the most open government by default, he's done anything but that. We've seen that over my time at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics. Not only did they intentionally break the access to information system; they used things like cabinet confidence to shield the Prime Minister from criminal investigations into him and his conduct. Under the Criminal Code we talk about, we've cited the Conflict of Interest Act. He's been found to have broken that law twice. When he was faced with an RCMP investigation for his conduct, he invoked cabinet confidence.
Now the wheels have ground to a halt in the House, because a majority of democratically elected members of Parliament voted that the government must turn over documents related to their green slush fund scandal. That's hundreds of millions of dollars going to Liberal insiders, overseen by a Liberal-appointed board chair who was found guilty of breaking the same laws as the Prime Minister. They're not doing it. They're refusing the will of the majority of democratically elected members of the House. That's their legacy. The Liberal members of the committee have taken that lesson from their government and put it on display here.
The amendment that we have to deal with is to deal with Mark Carney. It's to deal with this gentleman who is not registered to lobby federally but who somehow fell into great fortune.
Through his role as chair of Brookfield, this trillion-dollar megacompany's stock prices hit a six-month high because of decisions that the Prime Minister he is advising took immediately after he was hired as the Prime Minister's adviser.
Conservative
The Chair Conservative John Brassard
Mr. Barrett, I'm sorry to interrupt. As much as I have enjoyed today, unfortunately, we have run out of resources.
Before I adjourn, I will let everybody know that we will be having witnesses as we continue with our disinformation and misinformation study.
Mr. Bains, we will make every attempt to have that witness appear next week.
This meeting is adjourned.
