Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I'm glad to be back and to be with you today.
Once again, I believe we are talking about some things that are essential to our democracy, and those are transparency and accountability.
We proposed a motion that, all in all, is very simple.
I would like to give a brief history of what is currently happening and the proposals we've made. This will help us to better understand them. I also want the people watching us to know what's happening, to see a bit of how the situation is developing, and to understand, or not, why our Liberal colleagues are refusing our proposal.
We request that the Privy Council Office come once every three months to provide a summary of the situation each time the conflict of interest screen is activated.
Why was the conflict of interest screen activated?
It was activated because our Prime Minister holds shares in 2,000 companies with excessively significant connections in the Canadian economy and the international economy. We want to ensure that every decision made here at home is made in the interest of Canadians and not to benefit his portfolio. It is extremely important that, at such a critical moment in Canadian history, at a time when the international economy is undergoing major changes, citizens know that the decisions made by elected officials are made for them.
Why does the conflict of interest screen exist?
As I was saying, there are 2,000 companies involved, but unfortunately 1,900 of them are not covered by the screen. This is why we asked questions here, and we still don't quite understand why. There are 103 companies covered by the Prime Minister's conflict of interest screen.
I would also like to remind you that the conflict of interest screen is being implemented by employees who report directly to the Prime Minister. Here, we're an oversight committee. I believe it's normal for us to want to know when the conflict of interest screen was activated so that we can perhaps go over something again, ask questions, and ensure that everything was done properly. Furthermore, if the employees who report directly to the Prime Minister are the ones examining the Prime Minister's activities, that in itself leaves room for a potential conflict of interest.
Our proposal is really very clear.
Item (a) of the motion requests that the report be made here. We want to know when the screen was triggered, and we want to know the results of the analysis. Once again, I would like to say that this information should be accessible. We want to have access to documents, minutes and the exchanges that took place. We want the committee to have the opportunity to review this report. We do not want it to be me or any of the other members of the committee. We want the committee, everyone here, to be able to analyze it. It's important because we're asking for transparency.
Through point (b), we want the report to be made public. We want people to know what's happening.
Point (c) requests that the commissioner come to give us some of his time every three months, so that, ultimately, we can review our analyses.
We tabled this motion here, but it was immediately blocked once our colleagues' party became the majority on the committee. Now, they're trying to amend the motion.
Their first proposal is to remove 75% of what we proposed. We told ourselves that they clearly did not want to give Canadians and Quebeckers access to what is happening here and that they did not want to give them access to the analyses that are supposed to be done on their behalf and for them.
We were told here that the screen was activated, but they're not giving us any additional information under the pretext of national security—they even wrote that down. Basically, asking questions has become dangerous. It's serious.
However, it's not complicated. We have a Prime Minister who leads a country and makes decisions that have a big economic impact on the wallet of every Canadian and every Quebecker, but they also potentially have a big economic impact on his own wallet. All we want is clarity and assurance that the decisions that were made were made for the right reasons. However, we're told that, for reasons of national security, it's better for us not to know. Basically, it's like telling citizens that, for their own safety, they shouldn't know where their money is going.
Then, the Liberals proposed adding “as needed”. Ultimately, who will decide that the report from the Privy Council Office will come before us, the members of the committee? Adding “as needed” will ultimately allow them to decide what the committee should analyze.
That amounts to saying that it's not up to the neutral and independent oversight committee to decide what we should analyze. It is up to them to decide, on a need-to-know basis, when it's time to give us the information.
In order to collaborate and work together, we proposed a subamendment. Basically, we want to know whether the screen has been activated, because if it's up to the employees who report directly to the Prime Minister to activate the screen, then they're also the ones who decide that it doesn't need to be activated. However, if it did not need to be activated, we would like to know what mechanism was used, what considerations were made and what discussions took place.
Once again, it's important that we do our protective work. The opposition has an important role, which is to protect citizens and to balance power. It's important that we have our say in a decision-making process, especially when it involves billions of dollars being invested and we're being told not to ask questions. Even today, in the House, we were called conspiracy theorists just because we want to have access to information. When we ask questions, we're conspiracy theorists. That, I believe, is serious. I honestly think that people are really fed up with being taken for fools. They're tired of being told that when they have a question, it is not the right question and that they should ask the questions they want, otherwise national security or the national interest are compromised.
The tool was presented to us, and it is quite interesting. Thanks to this tool, the conflict of interest screen, we can see lots of really relevant things.
I just want to remind you of something quite relevant and important. From the beginning, we've been told that the screen is extremely effective, because the Prime Minister no longer knows what he owns. He placed his assets in a trust without any oversight rights. That is based on the premise that the person responsible for his account may have sold everything and he doesn't know it. Basically, this is the basis on which the Liberals say the Prime Minister is no longer aware of what he has, that he never gave any instructions, that it's impossible that he told people to pay attention to certain things in particular, and that he certainly never even gave his point of view on his intentions for the future, on what he wanted to do with his shares, and on his long-term vision for Brookfield. All of that apparently fell into oblivion from the moment he became Prime Minister. There is a conflict of interest screen in place, and he put his shares in a blind trust, so we are all protected, because he had instant amnesia, he no longer knows what he owns, and he has no idea where he was going with Brookfield.
We put a screen in place—actually, it's not “us”, it's clearly “you”—with the ethics commissioner. The role of this screen is precisely to activate when Brookfield enters the picture and when one of the 103 out of 2,000 businesses is part of the equation. That is always changing, because, as we know, Brookfield continues to invest in all kinds of things. The operations director even came to see us here to say that when Brookfield makes money, the Prime Minister gets richer. This means that the Prime Minister remains the holder of his shares without knowing it, and things continue to go very well for the business, because it's always being visited, three days before or three days after. While the Prime Minister is there, there are always interactions. Each of the projects—or most of them—that the Liberals are currently choosing are largely drawn from Brookfield's portfolio of companies, which is active and includes businesses in which it invests.
Okay, so we're going to study the screen. We recall that Mr. Sabia, the person in charge of the screen, himself sold his shares to ensure he would not be in a conflict of interest. This means that, initially, to be able to do the work that is asked of him and meet expectations, he thought it would be important to sell his shares.
It would seem that the present moment is a period of intense crisis because, in each announcement our Prime Minister makes, he tells us that the world is more dangerous than ever and that we are living through a time of uncertainty and unprecedented major changes in history.
However, it's not important enough for him to sell his shares and make it clear to Canadians that every decision is truly being made in their interest.
In this proposal, we're assured that everything will turn out well and everything will be done properly. I have an excerpt here. It's as if the Prime Minister were talking to us:
For the sake of convenience, the relevant sections of the Prime Minister's screen are as follows: The Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner and I have agreed that a conflict of interest screen is an appropriate compliance measure, aimed at preventing any opportunity to further my interests or to improperly further those of Brookfield Asset Management, Brookfield Corporation, and Stripe Inc., and any company owned or controlled by them (“the Companies”) of which I am aware on the date that my blind trust was established.
Already, the Prime Minister has told us here that it's only for what he is aware of at the time it happens. He said that we will be able to find them in Appendix A, but unfortunately, we do not have access to Appendix A. Therefore, we can't know all the companies that are owned and the related companies.
It's so easy to create documents that create a veil and throw dust in people's eyes to show others how well the government is doing things. However, in the end, we will never know if he is doing things right; we just have to trust him, because asking him questions puts national security at risk. What we are experiencing is a bit special.
To return to the amendment, I would say that what we're asking for is completely normal. We just want to know when the screen is activated and what the mechanisms are. We want to know when it was decided that it would not be activated. As a neutral committee, we want to have the right to ask relevant questions to inform Canadians about the decisions our Prime Minister makes and the billions of dollars spent each week.
I find it a bit unusual that even today, we're facing colleagues who not only refuse this but also propose to remove 75% of what we are proposing, using national security as an excuse and telling us that we're asking for too much and always exaggerating. Once again, they show that transparency is not what they want. In fact, they requested a closed meeting from the very first moments of their majority. The first thing they did was turn off the cameras so that people wouldn't find out. Moreover, when we come back in front of the cameras and propose things to have more clarity and to work on behalf of the citizens of Quebec and Canada, they refuse transparency, they don't want to take responsibility. They call us conspiracy theorists who jeopardize national security by asking questions.
Honestly, I think the situation is clear and that citizens are capable of forming their own opinion about what is happening here. I hope the Liberals come to their senses. In fact, they are not there for themselves, they are there for the people, and the people they represent do not all agree with them. They have the right to know why things are happening this way and why decisions are being made. It's not to be mean, it's to be neutral, efficient, and transparent. This is our role here. We're here to serve the public. Institutions are there to serve the people, not to serve themselves, and even less to be used by people seeking to gain advantages.
That has to be clear and straightforward for the public. That's how we will be able to earn its trust. Every witness who came here told us that this trust was eroding and that people had less confidence in institutions. The only way to regain trust is to drastically correct what is happening right now, to go completely in the opposite direction and to be entirely transparent.
That is what I have to say about our motion and the subamendment. I hope my colleagues will come to their senses quickly.