Clearly, I will support my colleague Mr. Nater on the proposed amendment, because it does away with the whole concept—I'm glad Mr. Nater used the concept appropriately—of a guillotine motion. That's precisely what it does. Are we surprised? Should Canadians be surprised about yet another scandal rocking the Justin Trudeau government, after nine years of abject failure in delivering results, broken promise after promise—of transparency, accountability and responsibility, which are completely out the window—and actions, like those of my colleague Monsieur Drouin, to shut this completely down and not call out all the bad actors? Where have we heard that before—“bad actors”?
We heard that from Justin Trudeau. Justin Trudeau and various ministers have always championed how those responsible for misusing taxpayer dollars, not following the rules and padding their own pockets ought to be held responsible. Well, no one has been charged yet. We have all of these RCMP investigations, but it's never Justin Trudeau's fault. It's never a minister's fault. I'm glad to hear that Minister Champagne is part of the Liberals' motion. He's certainly still part of our amendment to the motion, because he has a significant amount of answering to do.
He's been accused not once but up to three times publicly, in the press, by Witness 1, who testified here on a couple of occasions. I apologize if my math is wrong. I'm not a sitting member of PACP, but I have participated from time to time over the last year and a half, since this scandal has been percolating. He publicly called out Champagne for lying to committee. That is a serious allegation that warrants a full investigation by this committee. There are potentially not only civil but also criminal consequences if it's proven to be accurate that he deliberately misled committee. The evidence, according to the whistle-blower, is that he took concrete, active steps to soften or water down the initial RCGT report, that he lied to Canadians both inside and outside the House, and that he didn't know about the full extent of the shenanigans going on at this green slush fund until September, when the evidence proves that, as early as June of the same year, he was briefed by the deputy minister.
We had Assistant Deputy Minister McConnachie here in the committee room. Although he did his best to distance himself from his taped conversation with the whistle-blower.... You know, in my old career, we used to always rely on the best evidence. The best evidence rule is maintained not only in civil but also criminal proceedings. You don't get much better evidence than a taped conversation. The conversation wasn't softened. It wasn't speculative. He claims he was set up, which is complete garbage. That, in and of itself, is an absolute lie. He laid bare his true, unvarnished thoughts on how completely disgusted he was by the shenanigans going on at this billion-dollar slush fund. These are taxpayer funds, when we have families struggling to feed themselves, house themselves and clothe themselves. They are lining up at food banks and—