Public Accounts Committee on Nov. 27th, 2024

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Perkins, hold on for one second.

Ms. Khalid, please don't encourage him. We put him on a timer, a word counter, at the Atlantic caucus.

Mr. Perkins, if you can, please swerve back to the point.

Thank you.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

W.C. Fields was on his deathbed, and he was a known atheist. Just like the minister said he was on top of things, he was a known atheist. Someone walked into the room and found him reading the Bible. They asked him why he was reading the Bible, and he said that he was looking for loopholes. He had a deathbed conversion to the fact that there might actually be something after.

Here's how that compares to Minister Champagne. Minister Champagne is 40 months on the job, with an ADM in every meeting and with a deputy minister who's also about as connected to what's going on in his department as Mr. Knubley, Mr. Bains and everybody else. This is the warning about the water over there, because they all seem to forget things. Mr. Knubley remembered Annette Verschuren's and Mr. Noseworthy's résumés back to grade six, but he couldn't remember any meetings on this, for some reason. By the way, most of them are former employees now. That must have something to do with the green slush fund.

Minister Champagne said that he didn't know anything, just like former minister Bains and just like former deputy minister Knubley—

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Just like Sergeant Schultz.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

He's just like Sergeant Schultz in Hogan's Heroes. He's just like, apparently, most of the Liberal caucus. They don't know anything about this. They don't know anything about it. They've sat through hours of testimony, and yet their ears are closed. I know why they're closed. We'll come to that.

Minister Champagne says he acted. Well, let's see how he acted. We were about to have a witness here who met for three months, in 30 hours of taped conversations, with the whistle-blower, and we're expected to believe that at no time did anyone in the deputy minister's office or the minister's office know that was going on.

Of course, that's what they're going to claim, that they didn't know anything, just like Mr. Noseworthy, just like Mr. Knubley, just like Minister Bains, who can't remember whether he got on a private jet or not. He has to actually have somebody hold up a sign at the Ottawa airport with his name on it just in case he forgets he has a corporate limo picking him up from Rogers.

Minister Champagne says he acted; 30 hours of meetings taped and he does nothing. After six months of frustration for whistle-blower number one—he waited six months, thinking, “Oh, I'm sure they're earnest like me over at industry, and I'm sure the minister is just as concerned as I am about the loss of $400 million,”—there was nothing. There was dead air. There was absolutely nothing. He goes to The Globe and Mail. All of a sudden, the minister goes, “Oh, look, I just discovered this; I'd better hire somebody to come in and look at it.”

This was going on for six, seven and eight months. The department was being briefed. He had ADMs in every bloody meeting, where 82% of the things that happened in the meeting were conflicted. There were so many SDTC directors leaving the room and recusing themselves that Noseworthy was getting windburn because they were leaving. They were having trouble holding quorum in the board meetings there were so few directors who could actually vote on anything.

Apparently, as MP Cooper said, Mr. Noseworthy was busy eating chicken fingers as all of these folks were going in and out of the room. But he didn't see anything. He didn't see anything. It's deniability, right? It's covering your you-know-what. We have another word for it in Atlantic Canada. It's the “A” word. For some reason, he wants to be the fall guy, because everybody points to Noseworthy. He was in the room. It must be his fault. Let's point at this guy.

What is all this that happened that people sat there? You had nine directors named. Now, the government claims that they did this. Well, no, the actual first letter raising this went from our incredibly diligent ethics critic. It's funny, but they don't have an ethics minister over there, for any reason, in the government. But we have an ethics critic, and I have to tell you, he's a pretty busy fellow.

MP Barrett wrote a letter early on in this to the Ethics Commissioner and wrote to the Auditor General. This is how this stuff came about. It wasn't because Minister Champagne actually said to call in the Auditor General. No. He said to call in an accounting firm, and not to do a forensic audit: Let's see if there's some governance issues there and let's have a report. We'll get a draft. Then we'll alter it. Then we'll bury it and hope nobody asks for it.

Then he'd stand up and talk about it in the House: I'll take no lessons from anyone, including the whistle-blower who was telling me for six months that there was a problem. I'll take no lessons from him on the fact that I'm not in charge of my department. I'll take no lessons from him that I'm not on top of the game. I'll take no lessons from him. The fact is that I never read a contract I ever signed, even though I'm a corporate lawyer. I signed contracts to give us all these battery contracts, a whole 26 pages.

He then admitted in committee that he never read it. Boy oh boy, I'm sure he advised all his clients, when he was a corporate lawyer, that they should sign contracts without reading them, especially when they're spending $15 billion of taxpayer money.

That's the care this minister gives to the taxpayer dollar as he flies around the world in first class, hobnobbing with people, handing out big cheques, and then running around with the next one all at your expense. Let's not forget the big cheque he handed out to Northvolt, which has just declared bankruptcy. That's the diligence this minister puts on things. He's a failure. He's a failure because he doesn't care about the taxpayer dollars under him. He's shown that not only with this but also with other things.

These are directors Navdeep Bains put in. Do you know what Navdeep Bains claimed? He said, “I never called anybody who wasn't on a list from the Privy Council Office.” Everybody here knows who the Privy Council Office works for.

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

It's the Prime Minister.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

It's the Prime Minister's personal department. It was the Prime Minister's Office that told PCO to tell Navdeep Bains to appoint Annette Verschuren and these conflicted directors. They are hand-picked.

I know the Liberals like to say, “Well, they gave money to so-and-so, and you're saying this and that.” The Liberals appointed them.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

Mr. Perkins, excuse me.

I understand someone took some photos. Could they delete them, please. I know it's someone who works for another member. There are no photos, obviously, when committees sit.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

Who took them, Chair?

I remember being hauled through the grinder when somebody accidentally came into a room.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

It was the staff of a government member.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I would like to know who it was.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

If you insist, it's the staff of a government member, Ms. Khalid.

I'm just trying to move—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I would like to know who it was.

[The Chair, Conservative, John Williamson]

You can consult your colleagues.

Mr. Perkins, you have the floor.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

I'd like a warning next time you take pictures, so I can smile for the camera.

[Some hon. members]

Oh, oh!

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Here we have a minister who, like all of his predecessors, claims he knew nothing. He claims he knew nothing as the Prime Minister's hand-picked directors were put on this board, then went and funnelled money to their own companies.

Now, I know there are members around this table who question the issue of Minister Guilbeault's involvement. They say, “Why would we ever want to have Minister Guilbeault's involvement in this?” Come on, guys. I don't know whether you've been listening, but the ethics reports we all file require disclosure, even by ministers. This minister's ethics disclosures.... Anything over $10,000 in value—not $10,000, but over $10,000—has to be listed on our public declaration. Guess what's over $10,000 and listed on the public declaration of Minister Guilbeault? It's shares in Cycle Capital.

Now, the reason this is important is because we had the founder and CEO of Cycle Capital here, who was Minister Guilbeault's boss for 10 years, before he got elected. That's where he worked. That's why he got the shares. She sat here in this committee with her ignorant lawyer and said, “He owns nothing.” Either Minister Guilbeault was lying on his ethics committee report—which I doubt, because I don't think a member of Parliament ever puts, on their ethics report, that they own shares in something they don't so it can be scrutinized publicly—or Andrée-Lise Méthot was, yet again, lying before this committee by saying, “He owns nothing.”

There is a third option: She's just ignorant about who owns her own company, which I doubt.

We have pushed that. Why does that matter? Well, Cycle Capital, by that SDTC board member's own admission, got $10.7 million that she was aware of, or willing to admit to this committee. Apparently, for Liberals and Andrée-Lise Méthot, $10.7 million of corruption shouldn't warrant scrutiny by the police, and $10.7 million funnelled to your own company is just pocket change for the Liberals, the Prime Minister and their appointees. I don't know. Is it $40 million, $50 million or $100 million? What's the threshold where they say, “Okay, over this level of Liberal corruption we have a problem, but under that we're okay, so fill your pockets”? Apparently, $10,000 or more value in a company that received over $100 million from the green slush fund, whose minister of the Crown, the Minister of Environment sat in cabinet meetings while that cabinet allocated $750 million more of your money to that organization, which was giving the biggest beneficiary of that over $100 million.... It was the company he owned shares in. That company got $17 million more after Minister Guilbeault was put into cabinet while he still owned shares. Those are the reasons why.

I know he's from Quebec and some people don't want that exposed. The fact is that there's corruption, regardless of what province they're from. That company and that person abused their position on the board of the Liberal green slush fund. The minister is one of many beneficiaries of it. That's why he's been hiding. Perhaps that's the reason why 29,000 pages have black ink on them before Parliament.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Are there 29,000?

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Twenty-nine thousand is what the government House leader announced. Here's what happened, just for those who are asking what I'm talking about with regard to 29,000 pages.

It's been referenced that, believe it or not, in June the Bloc, the Conservatives and the NDP were together on something. It does happen more than people think. It happens a lot in committee. We were together on the issue that these documents need to be provided to Parliament, to be handed over to the RCMP. That's a majority of members of the House of Commons, representing a majority of the people. The issue going forward that this is about is that the government was given 30 days, on the orders of the majority of the people, to produce these documents. In the motion, it didn't say to censor them. The power of Parliament to order documents is the supreme power that Parliament has. It goes back hundreds and hundreds of years. The Crown is not more powerful than Parliament. King Charles I lost his head over that issue. Parliament made a demand, and after 30 days—

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

I still don't know what it has to do with our motion.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

MP Khalid wants to know what this has to do with the motion because MP Khalid and the Liberals are putting forward a closure motion on the study because they don't want to hear from more witnesses.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

No, we're not.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Yes, you are. The motion says “no more meetings”. That's called a closure motion.

[Iqra Khalid, Liberal, Mississauga—Erin Mills, ON]

It's absolutely not.

[Rick Perkins, Conservative, South Shore—St. Margarets, NS]

Maybe you should take a look and read it then.

The issue going forward is that this government was ordered to do this in 30 days, and it didn't do it. It provided a small amount, and they were all inked out in black. Then, in August, it supplied them again. On September 16, when the House of Commons came back, what happened? A point of privilege was raised by the opposition House leader.

[Francis Drouin, Liberal, Glengarry—Prescott—Russell, ON]

Mr. Chair, I have a point of order.

I understand that. How much longer do you want to move on with this? I just want to know when I should clap for Mr. Perkins' great performance out here.