Procedure and House Affairs Committee on Dec. 3rd, 2024

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

We have ministers of this government who were found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act. That's a serious matter. That should be grounds for being immediately fired from cabinet, but the Prime Minister has a problem, because he's been found guilty twice. The Prime Minister is a serial lawbreaker. What is a serial lawbreaker going to do about ministers who have also broken the law? Well, I guess he'd have to fire himself if he were to fire them. Canadians would very much look forward to the opportunity to fire the Prime Minister, if we can finally get on with having a carbon tax election.

Speaking of the culture of corruption in this government, I alluded to what I thought, and many Canadians thought, was the disgraceful performance by the Liberal member for Edmonton Centre, Mr. Boissonnault, when he insulted Jody Wilson-Raybould when she gave her powerful testimony before the justice committee in the spring of 2019. I can tell you that his performance at that committee hearing certainly contributed to his defeat in the 2019 election by the voters of Edmonton Centre. If he puts his name on the ballot going into this next election, he'll be fighting for third place.

Needless to say, Mr. Boissonnault resigned from cabinet in disgrace two weeks ago. Mr. Boissonnault has, nonetheless, a lot to answer for. We're going to demand that He should come to committee and sit in front of committee to answer questions about some very serious matters. Indeed, now that he has resigned from cabinet, he has gone into hiding. He was scheduled to appear before the ethics committee on the very day that he resigned from cabinet.

Is that a coincidence? I think not. I think it was very well timed. He made the decision to resign because he didn't want to appear before the ethics committee. This is why we were debating yesterday in the House a concurrence motion asking that Mr. Boissonnault appear before INAC. It was specifically relating to the fact that his shady pandemic profiteering PPE company falsely and fraudulently held itself out as being a wholly indigenous-owned company.

Mr. Boissonnault's company held itself out as such with respect to two federal government contracts. The Liberals said when Mr. Boissonnault was still sitting in cabinet that there was nothing to see there because Mr. Boissonnault's shady pandemic profiteering PPE company didn't receive any contracts from the federal government. Well, that's good. I'm glad that his company, Global Health Imports Corporation, didn't receive contracts, but that misses the point, or at least part of the point. It misses what is really the main point, which is that Mr. Boissonnault's company misrepresented itself as being wholly indigenous-owned. That raised questions about his suitability, his fitness, to serve in cabinet.

Let's be clear about why Mr. Boissonnault's company held itself out as being wholly indigenous-owned. It was in a blatant attempt to give it an advantage in the government's procurement selection process. In short, what Mr. Boissonnault and his business partner Mr. Anderson sought to do was steal contracts that would have gone to legitimately owned indigenous businesses bidding on federal government contracts. That is about as low as it gets. It is cultural appropriation in its most offensive form, or among its most offensive forms, and it's fraud.

The Prime Minister stood behind Mr. Boissonnault in the face of that. The Prime Minister kept him in cabinet. The Prime Minister even went so far as, when he was at a conference in Brazil, to publicly affirm his confidence in the then minister Boissonnault. He did so notwithstanding that it had been more than a week since Global News reported that Mr. Boissonnault's company had held itself out falsely and fraudulently as being wholly indigenous-owned.

It's not as if Mr. Boissonnault denied that this happened—not at all. It's not in dispute. That's what his company did while he was active in the company, while he was one of two partners working at the company and handling its operations on a day-to-day basis. This was before he was returned to the House of Commons in 2021. This was sometime in 2020 or 2021 but prior to his return to the House of Commons. It was only when—

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

I have a point of order, Mr. Chair.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Yes, Ms. Romanado.

[Sherry Romanado, Liberal, Longueuil—Charles-LeMoyne, QC]

While I allow my colleague to have a sip of his coffee, I just want to say that this is not relevant to the motion at hand. I wanted to give him a chance to take a sip of coffee.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I would agree.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

On a point of order—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Give me one moment, Mr. Duncan.

I read through the motion again, Mr. Cooper, as you were speaking. I'm not sure I see relevance to Mr. Boissonnault given the motion you've presented. Perhaps you have an explanation, which we'll certainly give you the opportunity to share.

On this same point of order, we have Mr. Duncan.

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. If I could, I'll contribute to that.

I respectfully disagree about relevance. What Mr. Cooper has been doing for the last several minutes.... Sadly, it takes some time because there are many examples of the culture of corruption and secrecy and of not having access to the full information when it comes to the actions and conduct of the Liberal government—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You're venturing into—

[Eric Duncan, Conservative, Stormont—Dundas—South Glengarry, ON]

It may take some time, but these points are relevant in soliciting support for the motion.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Duncan, you are venturing into debate now.

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

It does take a long time. Mr. Duncan is quite correct that when we look at the record of this government, there's a long list of scandals. In fact, I had my staff go back and look at all of the scandals of this government over the past nine years. My team, after going back and chronicling the various scandals, came up with a list of 78 scandals. While I want to continue on with Mr. Boissonnault, I think it's important to perhaps identify what some of those scandals are, but I will do that later.

What I will say on Mr. Boissonnault is that only when the Edmonton police announced that they were launching a criminal investigation and only when Mr. Boissonnault was to appear—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Cooper, I'm going to interject given the point of order raised by Mrs. Romanado a moment ago. I'm going to ask you to get to the point you're making about Mr. Boissonnault and the relationship you see between those affairs and the motion at hand.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Where I'm going is that Mr. Boissonnault is the latest example of misconduct on the part of ministers and represents the type of corruption and lack of ethical behaviour that we see on the part of this government, which speaks to the need for an election.

While Bill C-65 pushes the election back, we need to move the election ahead, and we need to understand why the NDP, in collaboration with the Liberals, drafted a bill to push the election back. In that regard, Mr. Boissonnault has resigned from cabinet, but the Prime Minister, as part of his culture of corruption, defended him, not just for about a week but for months, on the matter of his company falsely representing itself as being indigenous.

Notwithstanding that there were very serious allegations against Mr. Boissonnault, as we've seen with a number of ministers in this government, including the Prime Minister, he almost certainly violated the Conflict of Interest Act. He almost certainly violated the Conflict of Interest Act when text messages revealed that someone named Randy at Global Health Imports was involved in the operations of the company—

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Cooper, I'm going to interject again. I don't want to be forced into a situation between you and me where I have to make a more stern ruling on relevance. I would ask that you get back to the motion.

You have indicated that you believe relevance is founded in the connection to the corruption that you allege has taken place by government officials and Mr. Boissonnault. However, again, I'm reading very clearly the terms of the motion you put forward, which is what we are debating at the moment, and I would ask that you get there. There will only be so many times that I'll afford you the opportunity to say, “I'm getting there”, so I would ask that you get there. Of course, the floor is always yours to speak with relevance to the motion, but you are skirting that territory pretty clearly.

Thank you, Mr. Cooper.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

I have a point of order, if I may.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

You may, Mr. Calkins.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair.

Mr. Chair, I, for one, am enjoying the comments by Mr. Cooper. I think you'll find that relevance is rooted in the notion of trust and corruption. The government and its friends have been implicated numerous times in matters of self-interest, and this bill directly has in it a clause that can be and has been widely interpreted as a matter of self-interest.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Mr. Calkins, I'll ask that you get to your point of order. Just for your benefit, we're not debating a clause in a bill; we're debating a motion. Unless you can speak specifically to a clause that you think is relevant to the motion that I'm telling Mr. Cooper he's veering away from, then I don't see a point of order here.

[Blaine Calkins, Conservative, Red Deer—Lacombe, AB]

My point, Mr. Chair, is that Mr. Cooper is bang on with his notion that we need to hear from more witnesses to establish whether or not the intentions behind the clauses in the legislation have been duly heard by members of this committee. I'm looking forward to Mr. Cooper's continued testimony.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

Okay. I am not hearing a point of order. I appreciate your interpretation, Mr. Calkins.

Mr. Cooper, the floor is yours.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

Thank you, Mr. Chair. I take your point.

I submit that I have wide latitude, but at your request to move closer to the text of the motion, I'll note that the bill was drafted behind closed doors with the NDP. The bill would push back the date of the next election. It was purported that the basis for pushing the date of that election back was to avoid a conflict with a cultural holiday. As I stated before, there was no reason the election couldn't have been moved ahead rather than back to avoid that conflict.

An official from the PCO said the election could not be pushed ahead by one week; if it did, it would conflict with Thanksgiving. I think most Canadians would agree that they don't want to see an election over the Thanksgiving weekend. However, if the election were pushed ahead a week or two weeks before that, Mr. Sutherland from the PCO, the Prime Minister's department, said that would go into the summer.

As I cited with the example of the 1990 Ontario election, there are plenty of examples of elections that took place over the summer. Indeed, my first election in 2015 started in late July and concluded in October. One can question whether it was the best decision to have an election at that time, but nonetheless, the election was called in the summer. There's plenty of precedent for it.

It is most ironic that this government is using the summer as an excuse to push the date of the election back one week to avoid a summer election is. When was the last time we had an election called in the summer? I don't know if anyone can remember, but those who can't remember obviously have short memories, because every member sitting at this committee contested a summer election. It was the last election called by the Prime Minister, as part of another cover-up relating to the national security leak at the Winnipeg lab.

The Prime Minister hid documents and refused to turn over documents ordered by Parliament. Does that sound familiar? He took the then Speaker, the Liberal member for Nipissing—Timiskaming, to court to stop those documents from being turned over to Parliament and called an election to cover up the massive national security leak at the Winnipeg lab.

It's quite unbelievable that a Liberal government that as recently as three years ago called an election during the summer—the most recent election—now says we can't push the date of the election ahead to avoid a conflict with a cultural holiday because it might encroach on part of the summer. It simply doesn't stand up to basic scrutiny. It is simply not credible. It's not credible because it wasn't the reason the Liberals, with the support and collaboration of the NDP, picked the date provided in Bill C-65, which moves the election back, not forward.

There was another reason cited by the minister for the need to change the date and move it ahead: The current fixed date would conflict not only with a cultural holiday but also with municipal elections in the province of Alberta. I understand that could potentially be an issue and might best be avoided, hence the need to change the date, but if that is the reason, why did the Liberals choose a date that conflicts with the territorial election in Nunavut? If the objective is to avoid having two elections on the same day, as was purported to be a secondary reason for the change in date, why would the date the government chose as a substitute for the current fixed date be one that does exactly that—conflicts with a territorial election?

It seems to me this is just the latest effort to try to provide reasons that were not in fact the reasons for the date the government chose. The date the Liberals chose, with the assistance of the NDP in drafting the bill, just happens to be the date when MPs elected in 2019 would suddenly qualify for their pensions.

Why would the Liberals and the NDP want to do that? Very simply, we have a Prime Minister who is the most unpopular prime minister in a generation. One would have to go back to the early 1990s, or back, frankly, to Pierre Elliott Trudeau. In fact, I stand corrected. I think polling might suggest the last prime minister who was more unpopular than the current Prime Minister was Pierre Trudeau. We have a very unpopular Prime Minister and an NDP that for more than three years has been part of the coalition with this unpopular Prime Minister and has at every opportunity propped up the costly and corrupt Liberal government.

Accordingly, the NDP is not doing well in the polls either. Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau can certainly see where things are headed whenever an election is held. It doesn't look good for either Justin Trudeau or Jagmeet Singh.

Jagmeet Singh and Justin Trudeau have a problem on their hands with respect to the current fixed date: Many Liberal and NDP MPs will face almost certain electoral defeat. I don't want to be presumptuous, but based on every piece of information one can gather that assesses where the mood of the public is and where the mood of the public was when this bill was drafted, there's a very strong probability that many Liberal and NDP MPs elected in 2019, who wouldn't qualify for their pensions, will not be returned to the House of Commons whenever the next election is held. By moving the date back, the Liberal and NDP MPs who face almost certain electoral defeat will suddenly qualify for their pension.

Canadians are not unaware of this. Canadians immediately recognized the change in date for what it is. This bill, this fake elections bill, is a pensions bill. It is a desperate attempt by the Liberals and NDP to pad their pockets on their way out. It is cynical and dishonest, and frankly, it speaks to why the sooner we can have an election to replace this government and its coalition partner, the better.

Canadians are not buying the pretexts offered by the Liberals about why they changed the date, because we have heard their excuses, their justifications, of why they changed the date. They said it conflicted with a holiday. Then they said they moved the date to avoid conflict with a municipal election, but the date they chose conflicts with a territorial election. They said they moved the date back a week to avoid going into summer, yet they were happy to call an election in the summer when they wanted to cover up the national security breach at the Winnipeg lab.

With a straight face, despite the explanations they offered having no credibility and not making any sense, they say unequivocally that the date has nothing to do with pensions. It was just a coincidence. Come on. No one believes the Prime Minister, no one believes the Liberals and no one believes Jagmeet Singh on this one.

I think it would be helpful to get a sampling of some of the feedback I've received from Canadians outraged at this NDP-Liberal pension grab.

One Canadian wrote the following to me:

As a tax paying citizen of this Country (technically your boss) it has come to my attention that the Trudeau government wants to delay the next scheduled election by one week so that he can give dozens of politicians a taxpayer funded pension to the tune of $120 million. This may not seem significant to the Trudeau government given how he [has] taken our tax dollars and spent [them] on initiatives that have zero to no value to us (the tax paying citizen). All of you need to do the right thing and stop this disrespectful plan by the Trudeau government to take our hard earned dollars ($120 million) and give [them] to politicians that do not deserve it. The Trudeau government has proven over the past 9 years that they do not care about the well being of Canadian citizens...only themselves and this is just another example of that. Do the right thing and don't allow this plan to happen.

[Ryan Turnbull, Liberal, Whitby, ON]

I have a point of order, Chair. There are over 40 amendments in our amendment package that deal specifically with the date of the election, all of which this side has said they would support a change to. If Mr. Cooper would stop his filibuster and let us move on to clause-by-clause, we could deal with the very issue he's filibustering about.

[The Chair, Liberal, Ben Carr]

I appreciate your commentary, Mr. Turnbull, but I will remind you, as I did our colleagues on the other side of the table, that this is not a legitimate point of order.

I ask members to please make sure that points of order are consistent with the rules.

Mr. Cooper, go ahead.

[Michael Cooper, Conservative, St. Albert—Edmonton, AB]

It's fine and well that there are amendments to the bill. Conservatives have submitted all kinds of amendments with respect to the date of the next election to move it so that we can have an election as soon as possible. I would hope that we don't even get to those amendments and that we simply have a vote of non-confidence in the House of Commons following the Conservative opposition day motion for there to be a carbon tax election. The ball is very much in the court of the NDP, because it is the NDP that has said, Jagmeet Singh—