Madam Speaker, I am pleased to rise today to talk about this issue. I am going to read the motion first. It is important because it is a straightforward motion that is important for this debate and important for the vote that will come up. Instead of getting into the weeds on things, it gets to two specific areas that I will touch upon. The motion is this:
That the House: (a) call on the Prime Minister to waive solicitor-client privilege for the former Attorney General with respect to allegations of interference in the prosecution of SNC-Lavalin; and (b) urge the government to launch a public inquiry, under the Inquiries Act, in order to provide Canadians with the transparency and accountability promised by the Liberals in the 2015 election campaign.
Our leader, Jagmeet Singh, has been clear about the need for a public inquiry. As a criminal defence lawyer, I would argue that his skills are very much needed here in Ottawa. It is important that we get due process for this because this is touching some of the cornerstones of old political power and the colonial type of structure that still influences our democracy today.
It was interesting that when the issue of SNC-Lavalin first reared its head, the first things I heard were the catcalls and the heckling from the Liberals asking why we were against jobs. One of the most important things that I have noted, having been in the House for 16-plus years, is that before something goes into a media frenzy as this case has, especially with the Prime Minister's chief of staff Gerald Butts' resignation, there is the fact that the sensitivity of that thing gets to the magnitude it did already.
It is important to distinguish that, even through our local procurement projects in Windsor, what we are talking about here is, of course, concern about the jobs of the people at SNC-Lavalin and their innocence, but the reality is that those jobs still exist in the procurement field regardless.
One good example of that is the Gordie Howe international bridge being built in Windsor. Ironically, it is being built by Aecon Construction as part of a larger consortium and it was the New Democrats who fought against Aecon being bought by the Chinese government. We knew that this type of acquisition by a Chinese state-owned organization would lead to further complications. In fact, having them build an international border bridge between Canada and the United States, which we have so much dependency on in my region, the U.S. being 35% of our daily trade, would be hazardous and foolhardy.
Reluctantly, the government finally blocked that sale. Aecon eventually won the bid for the bridge being built between our two countries. The runner-up was SNC-Lavalin. The important lesson is that the jobs are going forward and the construction is taking place. We want to make sure that people in this situation are going to be protected, but there is a corporate culture problem at SNC-Lavalin that, if we do not deal with it now, will continue to re-emerge. There is a pattern of behaviour.
The government in an omnibus budget bill that is 600 pages long tried to bury a change. This is important for Canadians to understand. The government was trying to protect individuals from criminal liability who we know at the very least were doing business with Moammar Gadhafi that was sketchy. They were doing sketchy, despicable business with a dictator from Libya and the government was allowing people, basically, to pay a parking fine for the criminal convictions that could take place. The unbelievable truth behind all of these matters is that we would instill a process right now that would further encourage that. The reality is that it would reward potential criminal problems, rather than eliminating them, because people would know they could just buy their way out of it.
Imagine the Liberal government members, who talk about the platitudes of human rights, social justice and all those things, changing this in a budget bill. This way they avoided committee and avoided parliamentary oversight. They avoided bringing in witnesses, whether they were for or against this type of bill. They avoided that process. They avoided the public and the media having an opportunity to have that dialogue. They avoided this chamber having a discussion about that.
Therefore, we will let dictators and despots, basically those we were doing business with by some of corporate Canada, have a free pass and the people who were complicit in this behaviour, whether it be drug smuggling, human trafficking or arms dealing, and all of those things, can basically be let off the hook as if paying a parking ticket. That is what the Liberals have done with our democracy. That is what they have set as an example.
This is the first case to come forward that we know of, but this country used to stand for something. It used to stand for some international rules and standards that set us apart and made us an example. Instead, what the Liberals have done is what they usually do in a lot of different things. It is ironic that their scandal, which is leading to resignations in the PMO, is not over child care and the fact that they have not done anything on that. It is not over gender equality and the fact that we still have a gap between men and women on living wages and the problems that we have. It is not over the numerous issues we have with indigenous affairs and our communities. It is over the fact that the Liberals have a culture and a community of corruption that is part of the foundation of the Liberal Party.
In fact, the reality in this situation is that, from 2004 to 2011, Liberal candidates and Liberal members received over $100,000 in political donations by SNC-Lavalin that were illegal. We know that as a fact. We have people who are voting in this chamber to this day who could have received illegal campaign donations. I have been around this where we have seen Conservatives in the past, one even having to resign related to this in terms of illegal campaign donations.
Here we have, right now, a situation in front of our democracy where the Prime Minister will not even waive client privilege to get to the root and the facts of this. That is the reality. We still do not know where that $100,000 went to. Why should that $100,000 not be tracked down? When campaigns are won and lost on a few percentages and a few votes, that money matters. It makes a difference in local ridings. It is the ads they buy. It is the people they influence with regard to advertising or having volunteers who turn into paid staff working on different things and the muscle they can put behind their campaign. Money, unfortunately, in politics makes a difference.
Ironically, it was Jean Chrétien who ended some of the corporate attempts to influence government because at that time, and I was here in this chamber, we had the Martinites and the Chrétienites fighting each other, which led to the new law that we have, which is a good law, limiting corporate donations and union donations to the parties. The mere fact that we have our system today was actually to devolve ourselves from that.
However, here we have at this moment now an influence that exists in the House and we do not know who that is and why that is. We know the $100,000 is out there. I hope there is going to be more investigation into this because people either in the House or through campaigns are wandering around, having campaigned with dirty money either knowing or not knowing. That is crucially important as we go through the series of examinations as to how power and how influence take place. That is why a public inquiry is so important, as Jagmeet Singh has called for. He has called for that because the public inquiry would allow people to glance into the window of what should be shaking the foundations.
I was here for the discussions and the stonewalling that took place with regard to the Gomery commission with the Adscam, or sponsorship scandal, as it was known in the Ontario area. For months, the government denied that it was taking place. Finally, it ripped the band-aid off and our democracy got better from that public inquiry.
I would argue that we need the same thing here. When we look at SNC-Lavalin, there is a history of fines, penalties, political-donation schemes, lawsuits and a series of different things that shake the foundations of many people's lives, not only the people who work at the company but also the other people who lost jobs because they lost bids because of this behaviour.