The Alto high-speed rail project is the largest infrastructure project in the history of our country. Its current estimate is up to $90 billion, but evidence from other jurisdictions where they've pursued projects of this kind have seen the costs rise by many orders of magnitude, and there's a lot of concern.
I have a boutique set of concerns from my region with respect to this project and the impact that it will have on members of my community—the damage to the environment, the destruction of heritage sites—as well as the consultation process, but that's not what this motion is about. The issue that's come up arises from a revelation about a week ago that the Minister of Finance has a partner, a spouse, in the executive offices of Alto.
The minister revealed last week, once this information was publicly available, that he had informed the Prime Minister in the fall that he had imposed a conflict of interest screen on himself, that he had identified the potential for a conflict of interest based on his relationship with this Alto vice-president and that he had recused himself.
No formal recusal has been published on the Ethics Commissioner's website and no conflict of interest screen has been established with the Ethics Commissioner's office.
The minister has identified this risk of a conflict of interest, and when we have a scenario like this, which is governed by the Conflict of Interest Act, the act tells us that the minister can't participate in decisions, discussions, debates or votes on the matter, but the problem is that the minister has done all of those things. We can infer from the absence of recusals published online that the minister also participated in cabinet decisions that concerned Alto.
There were specific votes in the House on including this in the BIA. The minister is not the Minister of Transport, but in his bill he included a measure that was very specifically transport-focused, and we had a standing vote in the House on removing the creation of the high-speed rail network act from the BIA. The minister voted against removing it. He voted to keep it in place.
What this motion seeks to do is have three individuals testify at the committee, including the Ethics Commissioner, who can officially and directly speak to this matter. I think it's important that Canadians understand the rules and why what he is saying is contrary to what the minister is saying.
It's the minister who has raised the prospect that there is, in fact, the risk of a conflict of interest. The motion is to have the minister come and address that with the committee and, importantly, also to have the CEO of Alto.
The motion says “executives”, plural, and I previously did note that the conflict arises, as the minister has said, because his partner is an executive at Alto. She's a vice-president. Unless another member or other members have a compelling reason, I don't see why that particular vice-president would need to speak to the committee.
However, it does give bandwidth for the committee to invite the CEO. If the CEO wanted to bring another member of his executive team with him, then that makes sense, but it should be the CEO who comes to speak at the committee.
Why do we need to have someone from Alto come? First of all, this is Alto-specific. It's this $90-billion project, but, also, the enabling effect, the creation of that high-speed rail network act in Bill C-15, which the minister had put forward, and which Conservatives and Bloc members voted against, what would that have meant for Alto had it not passed? This is something that the minister took an active decision to involve himself in.
It presents an opportunity for this committee to further examine the impacts of the act and how effective it is at doing the thing it's supposed to do. We need to protect the confidence that Canadians have in all of the different levels and parts of our system, including the executive, including Parliament, and this allows that to happen.
It's rather narrow in that it's not seeking to strike the special committee on the examination of potential conflicts of interests with the $90-billion Alto project. It's very narrow, and that's why I've looked to establish what our rationale is in seeking to have these specific witnesses appear at committee. I've observed the public interest in this matter to date, and what precipitated the minister responding wasn't Parliament, and it wasn't a committee. It was the online sleuthing which discovered this connection that forced a response from the minister.
Let's just re-establish the transparency; get an understanding of why the minister took the decisions that he did; find out how the act should be applied and understand why the commissioner is interpreting in the way that he has, is or will; and also get an understanding of what the impacts are, based on the decisions that have been taken to date, and how they do impact this Crown corporation. That's what we're looking for.
I think that, as a measure of transparency, Chair, it's something that could conceivably be dispensed with quickly today, and over the next two weeks in....
Pardon me?