Mr. Speaker, with respect to the legalization of marijuana, last November, the media widely reported some troubling facts suggesting that the work of the task force on cannabis legalization was leaked before it tabled its report. Coincidentally, this was a boon to the Liberal Party's CFO, the co-founder of a company that produces marijuana, who saw the value of his shares double in one week even though, as I said, the final report had not yet been released.
I do not believe it is ethical for a Liberal task force to be making liberal recommendations to legalize Liberal-friendly companies. To date, the Minister of Justice has not even had the decency to tell the House whether she will conduct an investigation to confirm that privileged information was leaked. The lack of a response indicates that there will be no investigation results.
Will the Minister of Justice don her minister's hat and assure us that a formal investigation into this discredited task force has been launched and that we will soon be apprised of all the details?
On December 8, 2016, I predicted that we had not seen the end of Liberal scandals, and here I am now, telling the House about another. This government takes the cake when it comes to failing to abide by its own ethics rules, which are set out in the document entitled, “Open and Accountable Government”.
I am thinking of the task force on cannabis legalization, as well as all of the other ethical lapses. Here are a few examples: the Prime Minister's family vacation to visit the Aga Khan, which cost Canadian taxpayers $127,000; the moving expenses for friends of cabinet, which cost taxpayers $200,000; the cocktail parties for the wealthy, where $1,500 bought access to ministers and the Prime Minister; and last but not least, the change to the criteria for the Canada 150 fund to give priority to celebrations in 87% of the Liberal ridings in Quebec.
The criteria and objectives of eligible projects set out in part G of the general application form for the Canada 150 fund were changed in the summer of 2016 without notice, meaning that all of the organizations that had submitted applications where they provided a 20-line description of their project in keeping with the established criteria before the summer of 2016 had their applications rejected. These organizations had already been working for two years on their plans to celebrate the 150th anniversary of Confederation.
Is the approach the Liberals took here ethical?