Evidence of meeting #132 for Industry, Science and Technology in the 44th Parliament, 1st Session. (The original version is on Parliament’s site, as are the minutes.) The winning word was meeting.
A recording is available from Parliament.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
I've ruled on this many times before. I give quite a bit of leeway. I've done that for you, MP Badawey, and I'll do the same for Mr. Brock. You can pursue this.
Just as a reminder, colleagues, we're on the subamendment. I think we know where every party stands. In the interest of time and efficiency, we could probably let this debate go to a vote at some point.
Mr. Brock, the floor is yours.
Conservative
Larry Brock Conservative Brantford—Brant, ON
Without further interventions from the Liberals, Mr. Chair, I'm sure I can finish my remarks in a minute to two minutes.
To get to my point, I hear constantly about the government misusing taxpayer money. The comments I receive on social media daily are, “Great. You've exposed the scandal, as you continue to do, but when are we going to get our money back?”
The Liberals have already passed a timeline in which to report to the House as to how they were going to recoup the monies with the arrive scam scandal. That deadline has long passed. It was in the month of June. It's close to $60 million. We have close to a half a billion dollars of wasted money that went to the preferred interests of a chair hand-picked by Justin Trudeau, who should have known better and should not have relied upon the advice of a lawyer who was also conflicted. She should have obtained advice from an independent legal counsel. She did not. Given her business acumen, she should have taken the appropriate steps. She wilfully and deliberately chose to break the code of ethics as set out under that particular act. She was found guilty not once but twice. Now, this will be another debate for another time and perhaps in a different committee, but the penalty is $500 per infraction, so $1,000 for essentially stealing close to half a billion dollars.
This is what happens when you are closely connected to the Liberal Party of Canada, and more particularly when you're closely connected to Prime Minister Justin Trudeau. You get rewarded with zero consequence.
On the issue of consequence, I hope the RCMP are following this meeting very carefully. I hope they have reviewed the Ethics Commissioner's report very carefully. I hope they review the Auditor General's report very carefully, because there's criminality involved here.
When Ms. Verschuren appeared before the ethics committee several months ago, I warned her point-blank at that point, without even getting into all the details that had been uncovered but just the stories that had come out in the national news about the breaches of the ethics rules and the conflicts of interest that were overlooked, that she should lawyer up. I advised her about the potential criminal charges involved in the actions she has taken—the breach of trust, the fraud, the potential forgery. All of these issues are live issues that need to be explored. We need to find out how deep the rot really is at SDTC and what that number really is in terms of governmental waste.
That is why we will support the motion brought by my colleague Mr. Perkins. We believe two meetings are appropriate, two hours each, for those two witnesses. There is a high degree of urgency here. It cannot wait until Parliament resumes in the middle of September. The public needs to know exactly what the true value is and what steps we will take as a committee to ensure accountability.
Mr. Chair, accountability and good governance do not and should not take a vacation.
Liberal
Conservative
Bernard Généreux Conservative Montmagny—L'Islet—Kamouraska—Rivière-du-Loup, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
According to what the Liberals are saying, they agree that there have been some extremely serious breaches in the management of Sustainable Development Technology Canada by its chair and the members of its board of directors. They recognize that. The Bloc Québécois also recognizes that these are extremely serious ethical breaches. In fact, the Ethics Commissioner tabled his report, which is very clear on the matter. The Auditor General did the same thing in June.
Now we find ourselves in a dilemma as we are about to vote on a subamendment on which we do not agree at all, because Ms. Damoff proposed that we reduce this to a two-hour meeting with the Ethics Commissioner and the former chair of the fund, at one hour per witness. Mr. Villemure, from the Bloc Québécois, is proposing that we continue our vacation, no problem. We're suggesting two two-hour meetings, for a total of four hours.
I don't think it's too much to ask all parliamentarians to do this before the end of August, to shed light on the extraordinarily significant breaches of this fund. That's been proven and everyone agrees on that. No one is questioning that. It's therefore important that we vote as quickly as possible so that we can hold these meetings as soon as possible and get to the bottom of how this fund was managed, and how funds were wasted and provided to businesses with which members of the board of directors, including the chair, were associated.
I therefore call the question, Mr. Chair.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Unfortunately, Mr. Généreux, we still have members who want to speak. We have to wait until everyone has spoken before we go to the vote.
Mr. Villemure, you have the floor.
Bloc
René Villemure Bloc Trois-Rivières, QC
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I've been listening to the debate for a while now, and sometimes people are using different words to say the same thing. We all agree that something needs to be done and that this is important, but we don't agree on how to get there. I'd just like to make a friendly suggestion, and my colleagues may or may not agree with me.
We'll be hearing from the Ethics Commissioner and Ms. Verschuren and, based on my Conservative colleague's comments, I understand that we have a lot of questions to ask him. My friendly suggestion would be to hold a three-hour meeting, with one hour for the commissioner and two hours for Ms. Verschuren. It's a friendly suggestion to satisfy all parties. Obviously, the meetings would still be held when we come back from vacation.
To answer the member for the Lower St. Lawrence, it's not a matter of being on vacation or not; it's a matter of having our constituents be more attentive to a very important matter. Holding these meetings now, during the summer holidays, would be tantamount to saying that we're going to act in secret. When Parliament resumes, we'll have everyone's attention.
I think we can agree on a three-hour meeting as I just proposed, with one hour for the commissioner and two hours for Ms. Verschuren.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
Thank you.
I always appreciate what Mr. Villemure brings to the table, and I also appreciate what Mr. Masse was saying about getting to this quickly.
I would ask for the unanimous consent of the committee to withdraw my subamendment and put forward what Mr. Villemure has suggested, which would be one hour with the Ethics Commissioner and two hours...so it would be a three-hour meeting—
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Ms. Damoff, we'll proceed step by step. I understand what you're trying to do. You're seeking UC to withdraw your subamendment.
Liberal
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
I would put forward then, Chair, that we subamend Mr. Villemure's amendment to have one three-hour meeting, which would mean one hour with the Ethics Commissioner, and I don't think the other part needs to be amended, because it already says two hours.
It would just be one three-hour meeting. Amend it to one hour with the Ethics Commissioner, instead of two hours. It would remain a meeting in September.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you.
We've all heard what MP Damoff is proposing to amend the amendment by MP Villemure to have one three-hour meeting. Basically, it will be one hour with the Ethics Commissioner and two hours with Ms. Verschuren.
I see no more speakers, which I'm quite happy about. We can now proceed to a vote on the subamendment. If it's all clear, we are voting on the subamendment proposed by MP Damoff to Mr. Villemure's amendment.
(Subamendment agreed to: yeas 6; nays 4 [See Minutes of Proceedings])
This brings us back to the amendment to the motion. The amendment proposed by Mr. Villemure essentially puts this three-hour meeting on SDTC as the first item of business when we come back in September. I see no speakers, so I would like....
Mr. Perkins.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
There's been a lot of discussion since I introduced the original motion. I'll just briefly say, without repeating everything that's been said by my colleagues, that the lack of urgency on this large corruption scandal is appalling to me.
Every time there's a report, whether it's the investigations by various parliamentary committees, whether it's new documents produced by the whistle-blowers or whether it's the then new testimony from the former president of SDTC, who declared a number of shocking things about the way the board operated.... Then we had the incredible Auditor General's report finding of almost $400 million misappropriated. Every time there's an investigation, now from the Ethics Commissioner, we uncover a deeper and deeper and deeper level of conflict of interest self-dealing and, frankly, feathering their own nests for their financial interest in the nine Liberal directors appointed by the Liberals that were outlined in the Auditor General's report.
The minister, who cares so much about this, unfroze the funds. The fund, the slush fund, is now open again. The only difference is that they've moved the slush fund to another group headed by a bunch of former retired bureaucrats, which, in their testimony before this committee, or before another committee, gave zero confidence that they had any ability or idea of how to stop this corruption that's gone on, or that there will be any new processes.
There should not be any spending in this fund going on right now. It shouldn't be happening until all of these reports are delved into and we have more shocking testimony. We need to get on this, because what's happening is that as the Liberals, the Bloc and the NDP don't want to bother doing this for another month and a half to two months, the money of taxpayers is going out the door to these same companies, in all likelihood, in stage three, stage four or whatever. Former Liberal directors now are still benefiting from their insider job of being on this committee.
I know that everybody has lots of other things to do. We all do. But I don't think there's anything more important than dealing with the fact that this is 10 times the size of the sponsorship scandal during the Chrétien Liberal government. That was $42 million. This is almost $400 million so far on every investigation, and every time there is a report the number grows.
It's shocking to me that members of Parliament in this committee think that this isn't of the greatest urgency to delve into now with the Ethics Commissioner and that we can wait until the House comes back in September and maybe spare a single meeting. We'll spare a single meeting when $400 million and growing of taxpayer money has gone to conflicts of interest and has been spent illegally, according to the Auditor General, outside the terms granted to the green slush fund. There isn't a sense of urgency in people here to stop this, fix it and get to the bottom of it. They want to wait until the middle of September to give one whole meeting to it.
Come on, guys. This is why we opposed the amendments to the meetings. It was because of our desire as Conservatives. Why are we having an emergency meeting today? We're having an emergency meeting today because we put forward a request to have these urgent meetings. It was because of the Ethics Commissioner's report that came out last week. I thought the Bloc and the NDP thought it was also urgent, because they co-signed the letter, but now, apparently, they come to the meeting and it's not urgent: It can wait.
I would urge members to reconsider their change of heart, that's happened in this meeting, that supports the Liberals in their hiding and covering up the corruption in the green slush fund, because that's what it is. More delay is more cover-up. If you vote for this amendment, in my view you're voting to continue the Liberal cover-up in the green slush fund.
NDP
Brian Masse NDP Windsor West, ON
Thank you, Mr. Chair.
I would like to speak to this, especially after that intervention, which is rather unfortunate because the Conservatives actually talked themselves out of one meeting that they would have had earlier had they actually moved appropriately on this.
First of all, I want to acknowledge that what we're talking about here specifically, when you do the math, which has always been the Conservatives' mortal enemy, is there are actually nine business days as the difference here, because if we can't get the witnesses in the next four weeks, the time between that time period ending and when we resume our responsibilities back here in the House on the Monday is nine business days. That's what we're talking about as the difference here.
I think it's pretty rich to come here and then chastise us and the Bloc for agreeing to have a meeting to sit down with responsibility and in earnest to try to find a path forward like we promised. When we dealt with this issue last in Parliament, we promised that we would return to this once we got the reports, and we did so immediately. When I was contacted, I came over here right away. Just because the Conservatives are insisting on spending tens of thousands of dollars to have this nine business days in advance, and they are trying to chastise us and the Bloc for trying to make Parliament work, that's terribly unfortunate, especially given the fact that these members also filibustered days of this committee in the last Parliament. For all their sanctimony about having to get to this right away, we could have been doing this work in the last Parliament, but what we had in the last Parliament was the Conservatives filibustering on auto files and other things like that and chewing up this committee and chewing up other committees on a regular basis, and not just on an individual aspect here, but submitting multiple motions in multiple places and multiple times. They did so consistently.
If we want to talk about scandals, I've been around here long enough to see a lot of scandals. I could list a whole series of them here. There have been Liberal scandals on certain things, but there were also the Harper administration scandals on everything from electoral fraud to the whole series of different interventions when it came to Airbus and former prime minister Brian Mulroney. I could go on and on. We could speak to the relevance of all those different things, but at the same time we want to get to the subject matter here. That's why we sat down here.
The request that we have in front of us to have the two meetings in this time frame was a little bit optimistic in trying to guarantee that we can get two independent witnesses, that we can get prepared, that we can get the House of Commons resources to restart. At the same time, we're looking at basically a week and a half's difference of when it can take place.
I don't think it's very unreasonable, and I don't think the Bloc is playing games on this. I think they came to this meeting prepared to find a solution with an alternative. I've been in discussions with different people, and to be publicly chastised by the Conservatives to come here and then have them say we're in cahoots in trying to stop accountability is wrong for every single time we've agreed to have these meetings. I won't let that stand on the public record, because the public record shows that we've been pushing this issue even when I couldn't get the things that I wanted for the workers.
When we talk about the workers here, the Conservatives have not put forward anything on the whistle-blowers. When we had testimony the last time we were here, not a single one of the organizations even mentioned the families and the whistle-blowers. On that, I tried to work to get an amendment in the House of Commons on one of the official opposition day motions, but it was worded in a way that wouldn't allow for that. It was nobody's fault; it was just the way that it was, but we have families of these members. They just basically talk about the Liberals and the scandals and so forth and try to tar them with that, but what about all the workers who had to leave their jobs and had to sign non-disclosure clauses that still haven't been dealt with today? What about the workers who couldn't carry their pensions over and had to cash out? What about the workers who had to find different types of employment, and then the new system they have in place still didn't give them the ultimate protection that I want, which is full public service protection as whistle-blowers? We have all of those issues there.
Mr. Chair, I take offence to the characterization that this committee is not working. I take offence to the characterization that the NDP and the Bloc are playing games with this when we came here to do the proper work and do the right thing. Over a few business days, they want to cheapen this entire process, which is entirely significant. Even if we actually had those things take place and we did it within their time frame, do you know what would happen? We wouldn't be able to do anything as a committee until the House resumes anyway. There's very little that we can do with regard to this until the House resumes. We can't bring it to the chamber, and we can't do any of the things that are necessary. Now we have a chance to prepare, get ready and do something that is actually meaningful. I think it's unfortunate that they characterize us as they have. I guess what the Conservatives want is to go back to a dysfunctional House of Commons. On an issue right here, when you look at it, even the Liberals have voted consistently to actually have hearings on this. Yes, there have been differences about how we approach it, who gets to come at certain times and what the amount of time is, but they are on the record, as well, as looking at this issue.
To do that as we warm up to get back here in September to do the hard work that's necessary, and to poison the well right away when there are sincere efforts to do so, well, fine. They'll get their moment of glory, their clips and all of those things they want, but at the same time, they will not get what they want at committee unless they actually co-operate and try to make sure that things are going to be done with sincerity, because that's the history of this committee.
I'm sticking with it, when I go back, to make this place work. If they want to come here and use these types of cheap tactics and games for serious issues, shame on them. Just because they didn't get a few days of business time that they could actually have.... It is whining, complaining, sad and irresponsible, and it shows a lack of class for a party that's supposed to be saying it's going to be the next government.
Conservative
Rick Perkins Conservative South Shore—St. Margarets, NS
I appreciate what the NDP member has said, but let's be clear. Our original motion, as he's well aware, was to have the meeting within two weeks. To accommodate him, we provided some generosity by going with four weeks to get it in his schedule. It could happen in two weeks. I'm willing to have this meeting tomorrow, but the member has a busy schedule, as we all do. We're trying to accommodate that. It's totally incorrect to say that we weren't trying to accommodate that.
What the member has voted for, what the Liberals have voted for and what the Bloc has voted for is to turn two meetings, or four hours of hearings, into one meeting almost two months from now, and to cram it all together and then move on. You can disagree with that classification, but that's the change to our motion that the NDP, the Bloc and the Liberals are supporting. That's what I oppose.
I'll leave it there, because I still believe this needs to be dealt with now, not some time in the distant future.
Conservative
Michael Cooper Conservative St. Albert—Edmonton, AB
Mr. Chair, I'm a bit taken aback by Mr. Masse's comments. He talked about nine business days' difference. What is he talking about? The motion the Conservatives put forward provides for two hearings, involving both the Ethics Commissioner and Ms. Verschuren, within the next two weeks.
This notion that there's nine business days' difference is simply not true. He says Conservatives have difficulty with math. It seems that he has difficulty with math, with the greatest respect.
He talks about being sad and irresponsible. I'll tell you what is sad and irresponsible: the fact that the NDP takes its orders from its boss, named Justin Trudeau.
Liberal
Pam Damoff Liberal Oakville North—Burlington, ON
On a point of order, the motion I was sent, which Mr. Perkins submitted, clearly says “four weeks”. I don't know what Mr. Cooper is talking about, but Mr. Perkins' motion says “four weeks”, which takes us to August 28. If you add up the days, it is, in fact, nine days.
I know the Conservatives like to deal in misinformation, but let's stick with the facts. The motion clearly says “four weeks”.
Liberal
The Chair Liberal Joël Lightbound
Thank you, MP Damoff, for your point of order. I tend to agree. Looking at the calendar, it calls for four weeks.
Mr. Cooper.
