I'm sorry to interrupt the member opposite's dinner plans, but I think this is an important matter. We have, as Mr. Cooper articulated, a situation that's extraordinary.
We can go back several months to lay out the situation that Canadians are facing. I would hearken members back to one of the debates during the election, when the Prime Minister, the former chair of Brookfield Asset Management, which is a major shareholder in Westinghouse Nuclear, said from the debate stage that Westinghouse—by name—was the preferred option for a government that he would lead.
Why on earth would that have been the Prime Minister's choice? This, of course, is the same Prime Minister who, before there was any type of ethics screen in place, before disclosures were made to the public or before there were finalized reports to the commissioner, was sitting at the cabinet table in March. It's also the same Prime Minister who said that he, himself, wrote the Liberals' election platform. That's before any of these screens were being administered or were in place and, again, before the disclosures were made public. People are rightly concerned that this Prime Minister has not been acting in their best interests.
As for the list of companies or individuals that was disclosed, we don't know whether it's the full list, and it wasn't proactively disclosed. If I'm not mistaken, it was only released after media questions and after Mr. Cooper moved a motion at committee. This is a matter on which we're dragging—kicking and screaming—a prime minister.
Look, this isn't my first day. I've been here for a few years. It's been demonstrated that just the existence of the rules is not enough for Liberal ministers and prime ministers to follow them. Justin Trudeau was a serial ethical lawbreaker, time and again, as were ministers in his cabinet. Some ministers who broke ethics laws are still in the Liberal cabinet. You'll have to excuse us if we can't just say, “My goodness, this is unbelievable. The Conservatives are doing politics here and they're not taking the right honourable Prime Minister at his word.” We haven't been given any reason to. Unfortunately, we have to force a disclosure from the Prime Minister. Give us the information. Disclose the information so that we can get on with it.
I think it's unreasonable, at best, to simply say that this is not something we would ask for, because the only reason the information we have exists in the public forum is that we moved a motion at this committee. We can backslap and congratulate ourselves on what a great job everybody is doing instead of just addressing the matter at hand, but that's not providing accountability and transparency to Canadians in the context of a study that's about strengthening Canadians' confidence in elected officials and our public institutions.
I think everyone should see this. We hear the refrain from the government, very often, that they're a new government. Well, the only reason there's been a branding change is the conduct of the old government, but it's the same: The same people are still there, and we saw what happened before.
As some of our witnesses testified to today, the absence of meaningful penalties means that people treat this just like a speeding ticket, as if it's no problem; they're in a hurry, so they're going to move fast and break stuff. That's not the integrity Canadians expect from elected officials. That's exactly what undermines confidence in our public institutions.
Time and time again, as we saw in the last Parliament and over the last decade, in this very committee room we've had members opposite say, “This is just politics, and there's nothing to see here.” What did we find out? We found out that we were right. When we said there were what we believed to be contracting irregularities and that there was insider dealing on things like the $60-million arrive scam, that is exactly what we found. We were told, “Do not investigate this. You're calling into question the good work of honest public servants.” Nope. We were calling into question grifting done by people who were adding no value to products that Canadian taxpayers were paying for but could ill afford and that provided no real safety or service to them. We were told, “Don't ask questions. This is just politics that you're doing.”
The House passed motions to recuperate and recover that money because those were ill-gotten gains. We have a real opportunity here to actually refurbish the confidence that Canadians have in their public institutions and public office holders. That is something we're able to do. We're not going to be scared off by the mere suggestion that we should be delighted the Prime Minister ran for office. We're not going to simply accept that because he says it's so, it is. Trust has to be earned. If this was, in fact, a new government, we would not see ministers who broke the very law we are reviewing at this committee in the federal cabinet today. There hasn't been that kind of repair done to the reputation of the government.
We're going to demand accountability, especially in the context of the law we're reviewing. We saw, from the time that Mr. Carney started as an adviser to Mr. Trudeau, decisions being taken by the Liberal government that aligned directly with the investments and financial interests of Mr. Carney and the company he represented.
I think about decisions on heat pumps and Brookfield's investment in Trane. I think about mortgage rule changes. Brookfield is the owner of the second-largest private mortgage insurer, if I'm not mistaken. We saw what happened when Mr. Carney was in the U.K., with exactly the same kind of heat pump scheme being peddled by the government there in response to a request that benefited him. The heat pump hustle is a perfect example of why we can't just take him at his word.
This is about the integrity of the system we have, and I don't need to relitigate the issues of Mr. Trudeau, but Mr. Carney seems to be accumulating his own issues at such a speed that if we don't slow down and take a look at some of them.... Take, for example, this list not being furnished to this committee. He didn't send it to us, but he knew the motion had been passed. He has a really big staff. It was not furnished to this committee as evidence for our consideration or as a response to Mr. Cooper being proactive and being open.
This is an opportunity that they passed up, that Mr. Carney passed up. Why is that, if this isn't about politics and he's just focused on doing a great job?