I have to say, on the subamendment, that it is quite rich for, in this case, Mr. Al Soud to assert himself as the arbiter of what constitutes a waste of time for this committee and what doesn't. He characterized my submissions as “rants” and said that I am wasting the committee's time in calling for the Liberals opposite to support a subamendment that would provide transparency on whether the Prime Minister's ethics screen is being appropriately invoked. If the member opposite thinks that's a waste of time, I guess it's par for the course with these Liberals, who think transparency or accountability are one big waste of time. This speaks to the absolute arrogance of the Liberals and underscores their total contempt for accountability and the oversight role of this committee.
That's ironic given that we had to put up with more than 24 hours of filibustering from Liberal MPs to block accountability with respect to Alto and the Minister of Finance's apparent conflict of interest. He introduced, spoke to and voted for legislation that gives billions of dollars to Alto, notwithstanding that his spouse is a VP at Alto.
When we called on the finance minister to come before this committee to answer some questions about what on its face is a conflict of interest, we had to listen to 24—it seemed like 100—hours of filibustering from Liberal MPs. I didn't hear Mr. Al Soud talk about wasting time at that point. I didn't hear any Liberal MPs talk about it being a waste of time. Now that the Conservatives are insisting that Mr. Barrett's subamendment be adopted and are imploring Liberal MPs to join us in getting the subamendment passed so we can have transparency around the ethics screen, it's somehow a waste of time.
Again, on accountability and transparency, the Liberals treat this as one big waste of time and one big inconvenience. That was the position of Madame Lapointe. She said, “I don't really care about transparency.” I'm paraphrasing her, but that's what she said. “I don't need transparency because I trust the Prime Minister's chief of staff, Mr. Blanchard, and the Clerk of the Privy Council, Mr. Sabia.”
I'm not going to in any way impugn the integrity of either Mr. Sabia or Mr. Blanchard, but I don't think most Canadians would consider simply saying, “I trust them” to be adequate or good enough. It's simply not good enough to say, “We trust you to make decisions on a matter that relates to the Prime Minister and conflicts of interest.”
Mr. Al Soud talks about a big waste of time, yet the fact is that we had to endure 24 hours of filibustering at this committee by the Liberals as they dragged proceedings out. They said the minister couldn't come the week of May 6 and that he could come on May 23. Now we're in the week of May 23, and we were told on Monday that the minister can't come before this committee until sometime in June. I can't recall exactly the date, but it's in about two weeks from now that he'll finally make himself available to answer questions about his apparent conflict of interest in relation to Alto.
The Liberals talk about wasting time. They talk about the work this committee could be doing. Maybe they should ask themselves why they put this committee through a 24-hour filibuster to provide us with a window during which they claimed that the minister would be available to come before this committee to answer questions about an apparent conflict of interest, and now he's not coming for another two weeks. Did they put us through a big waste of time?
For Liberals, who claim that they value the work of this committee so much, they sure don't seem very excited or enthusiastic about having the minister come to this committee to answer questions about a conflict of interest. Again, for Liberals, transparency and accountability are just one big waste of time.
They think they're above the rules. They think they're above the law. They think nothing applies to them. They will lecture. They will speak in the most condescending and sanctimonious ways possible, but when it comes to conflicts of interest and questions about the Prime Minister and the conflict of interest screen, they will act holier than thou, all the while basically thumbing their noses, saying, “To hell with providing transparency.” I'll just say that I won't accept any lectures from Liberal members opposite talking about what is a waste of this committee's time and what isn't a waste of this committee's time.
I know that Mr. Al Soud and Madame Lapointe listed a number of items that they thought this committee should study. I don't have any objection to the items they listed, but none of the items listed actually deals with the core function of this committee, which is to provide oversight around the Lobbying Act and the Conflict of Interest Act. Instead, we saw a 24-hour filibuster and a date on which the minister was supposed to come but didn't to answer questions about a conflict of interest.
Ms. Church, who thinks this is so funny, said that the Minister of Finance would be at the committee of the whole for four hours. He was at the committee for four hours, and I think he didn't answer a single question in the four hours he was there.
In fact, I asked him some questions about the spaceport and why, for example, the lease was backdated. He said that maybe he would put me in touch with some astronauts. That was his explanation. He said that it was all very exciting work being done to launch a spaceport, and maybe he'd put me in touch with some astronauts.
Why am I attacking the space industry? That was his question. That was his answer, instead of addressing the very real issue of $20 million being funnelled to Maritime Launch Services, on a backdated lease, to bail out a nearly bankrupt company. The chair of the board has been fined $100,000 for securities infractions and walked away with $1.8 million when he sold three million shares after the $20-million infusion of cash. The minister's response was that this is an attack on the space industry. That's the best he could give in the way of an answer. Give me a break. It just speaks to their contempt.
I hope that when the minister comes before this committee, if he comes—I hope he doesn't find another excuse not to come before this committee, but we'll see—he does a better job of answering questions than he did for four hours during the committee of the whole. He provided no answers and treated the process as one big joke in answer to very specific questions about how the government is spending taxpayers' money.
I spoke about the Prime Minister's litany of conflicts with respect to Brookfield. I would also note, as conceded by Mr. Beber, the chief operating officer of Brookfield, that when Brookfield does well, the Prime Minister does well.
In the last year that the Liberals have been in office, Brookfield has done very well under the government. This is a Liberal government that has fast-tracked a Brookfield-owned LNG project. This is a Liberal government that handed half a billion tax dollars to a foreign space agency—the European Space Agency. I know the Prime Minister calls himself a European, so maybe that's how he justifies sending half a billion tax dollars to the European Space Agency, which is connected to and owned by Brookfield.
Then there is the multi-billion-dollar investment in carbon capture, with Pathways Alliance. The premier carbon capture company associated with Pathways Alliance is none other than Entropy. Who owns Entropy? It is Brookfield, of course. What fund at Brookfield invested $300 million in Entropy? It was the global transition fund I.
Who set up the global transition fund I? The Prime Minister did. Who stands to make tens of millions of dollars in carried interest payments, a.k.a. the future bonus pay from the global transition fund I? It's Mark Carney. He stands to make tens of millions. Here you have a multi-billion-dollar investment from Mark Carney's government into Entropy for carbon capture, a company that is owned by Brookfield and by the very fund that Mark Carney stands to make tens of millions of dollars in future bonus pay from.
Madame Lapointe, with the greatest respect, says that we should just trust Mr. Sabia and Mr. Blanchard. What we see is a Prime Minister who in a lot of respects may be ignoring the conflict of interest screen altogether and is landing in a very good position from all the money that is being doled out by his government to various Brookfield companies and interests, including interests that benefit the very investment fund that he stands to make tens of millions of dollars from.
I provide that background to say that Mr. Barrett's subamendment does not come in a vacuum. It comes in the face of a lot of conflicts that the Prime Minister has with Brookfield—a lot of taxpayer dollars that are going to Brookfield and ultimately benefit the Prime Minister and his future bonus pay and stock options. It comes in the face of a Prime Minister who has basically said that he's quite comfortable helping to see that Brookfield does very well because he will do very well. All we're asking is for the Prime Minister's Office and the Clerk of the Privy Council to show us their analysis of when they think there isn't a conflict of interest in relation to Brookfield. In that respect, this subamendment is actually very narrow in scope.
There are a whole lot of other areas to explore around Brookfield, around how the Prime Minister is benefiting directly or indirectly, whether it be with the fast-tracking of the LNG project, the half a billion dollars to the European Space Agency or the multi-billion-dollar investment that is going to benefit Entropy, which is going to benefit Brookfield and specifically the global transition fund I. All of those things fall outside of this issue of the conflict of interest screen perhaps—or perhaps not. I really wonder. For example, was the ethics screen flagged? Was it flagged when the government announced a multi-billion-dollar investment in carbon capture with Pathways Alliance, with the beneficiary being Entropy? Was there an analysis done on that?
Was there a red flag? Was there an analysis done? Did Mr. Sabia and Mr. Blanchard say to the Prime Minister, “There's no problem here. We'll make a multi-billion-dollar investment that benefits your investment fund and your bonus pay”?
If an analysis was done and that was the decision, then there are some questions to be asked. If there was no analysis done, then the question is, why? Why wasn't an analysis done? To what extent are matters involving the Prime Minister, where he has a conflict of interest or a potential conflict of interest, being missed by this tool that we were told is the be-all and end-all by Mr. Blanchard and Mr. Sabia?
I would ask the same question about the European Space Agency. Half a billion dollars benefited Brookfield. Was it flagged? Was an analysis done? If the decision was made that the Prime Minister had no conflict there, then, again, some questions need to be answered, and if an analysis wasn't done, well, that raises questions about what kind of a tool the ethics screen really is.
The Liberals say that all of this is one big waste of time. I'll tell you that demanding transparency and working to see that this committee fulfills its responsibility of providing oversight of the most conflicted Prime Minister in Canadian history are not a waste of time. It is the responsibility of this committee and every member of this committee, and it's a responsibility that I certainly will not shirk as a member of the official opposition. The core responsibility of the official opposition is to hold the government to account. That's what we're doing here. Now, it may not be what Liberal members on the committee necessarily like to see or like to hear, but it is our core responsibility, and that's not a waste of time.
We're going to continue to press this matter. We had the benefit of Mr. Al Soud and Madame Lapointe making submissions, and I respect the points they made to the extent that they've said that they consider accountability and transparency to be a waste of time and that we should just trust Mr. Sabia and Mr. Blanchard. In both of those submissions, what was totally missing was any explanation for what the problem with Mr. Barrett's subamendment is.
I've spoken at length on the merits of this, but what I have not heard from Liberals opposite is exactly what they object to with Mr. Barrett's subamendment. I know that Mr. Al Soud stated that where the ethics screen was triggered, reports would be provided to this committee.