Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.
With the greatest respect to Mr. Masse and Monsieur Villemure, I see no reason why between now and when the House comes back this committee can't allocate two meetings totalling four hours. I don't think that's much to ask.
It seems like some members would prefer to take a vacation or be in their ridings. I'd like to be in my riding as well, but this committee has important work to do in the face of a very damning report from the Ethics Commissioner with respect to the conduct of the former chair of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which is better known as the Liberals' billion-dollar green slush fund.
I just want to say, before I get into why time is of the essence, that I am astounded by the remarks by my friend Mr. Badawey and his characterization of Conservatives playing politics and how this is about political games. He said the Conservatives have been on some sort of diatribe—those were his words—over the past year.
What is he talking about? Has he not read the Auditor General's report, which found that $400 million of taxpayers' money improperly went out the door? It found that $330 million in taxpayer dollars was funnelled from the green slush fund into companies of board members—$330 million. Of that, $76 million went to companies of board members as they deliberated and voted at board meetings to funnel money into their own companies or companies they have interests in.
Those were the findings of the Auditor General. On top of that, there were 186 conflicts of interest, and he says that it's political games, that it's politics. I'll tell you what it is. It's Liberal corruption. He should be embarrassed to be part of a government that has, over the past nine years, resulted in a culture of corruption that starts at the top, starting with the Prime Minister, but has made its way through all aspects of this government, including this billion-dollar green slush fund, which one department official characterized as sponsorship-level corruption.
We now have a report from the Ethics Commissioner, who found that the former chair, who was hand-picked by none other than former industry minister Navdeep Bains—the Prime Minister's best pal—