Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister is covering up his corruption under $41 billion of brand new spending, which he will pay for with higher taxes if he is re-elected. This must be the biggest and most expensive cover-up in the history of cover-ups. It is the new Liberal two-step: Use massive deficits to get out of a big scandal before Canadians vote, and then hit them with tax hikes after they vote.
It is interesting, the irony that is in the air today, because it was a year ago that this Minister of Finance stood in this place to introduce a budget and failed to mention a tiny little detail that he wanted to sneak into the eventual 600-page omnibus budget bill that he would introduce. That was an amendment to the Criminal Code. It was discovered in the finance committee as members from all parties were leafing through this massive tome of paper and stumbled upon an amendment to the Criminal Code.
The reaction was astonishment by all sides. In fact, the Liberal member for Hull—Aylmer said it left a bad taste in his mouth. He said that he had the impression, in reading the amendment, that if he stole just $10 he would be in trouble, but that if he stole $10 million he would be just fine. That was how he interpreted the finance minister's amendments to the Criminal Code.
What boggled us all was the question of who was asking for this. We had travelled around our communities and we had not stumbled upon a single person who was interested in helping corporate crooks get off without conviction, so why would the finance minister slip such a measure into that budget? We found out, did we not?
In February of this year, The Globe and Mail broke a story that the Prime Minister had personally and politically pressured his attorney general in order to shelve the charges against a Liberal-linked corporation, SNC-Lavalin. Lavalin was known to everyone as the company that gave $100,000 of illegal donations to the Liberal Party, having been caught and having to return that money. It was known for prominent links through its massive army of lobbyists, who swarm around the Hill and spend inordinate amounts of time, according to the public lobbyist registry, with people like the finance minister and the staff of the Prime Minister.
The Prime Minister said that none of it was true, that it was all a lie. As proof that it was all a lie, he said that his attorney general was in his cabinet, and if she was so upset, why did she not leave? The next day she did. She resigned from his cabinet.
Eventually, we learned more. After a massive pressure campaign to let her speak, the Prime Minister backed down and lifted—partially—the gag order on the former attorney general. He allowed her to appear before the justice committee and to speak, but not too much. She was only allowed to testify about events that occurred before she was removed as attorney general. Anything that happened after that period was to remain a secret. She did not have legal authorization as a former minister to say anything.
Therefore, when the former attorney general was asked why she resigned, she indicated she could not say. When she was asked about her meetings with the Prime Minister in January and February, she told us she could not say. She did name seven senior officials in the current Liberal government who she says “interfered”, “made veiled threats”, “hounded”, and “pressured” her to shelve the charges into SNC-Lavalin. She even went as far as to compare it to the “Saturday Night Massacre”, a reference to Richard Nixon's Watergate firings.
What did the government do then? Soon afterward, there were attacks on her. Senior Liberals, including a former deputy Liberal Prime Minister, attacked her for her indigenous roots and for her gender.
The Liberals then sent out Michael Wernick to give a partisan speech. This is the Prime Minister's supposedly non-partisan top public service official. He turned the top public service official into a partisan actor, and we have seen the scandal unfold from there.
So far, it has been an incredible spectacle. The former attorney general has resigned. The Treasury Board president has resigned. The top public servant in the Liberal government has resigned, and the Prime Minister's principal secretary and best friend, his most important adviser, has resigned. Everyone has resigned, but no one did anything wrong, the Liberals assure us.
Today, just to make sure, the Conservatives put forward a motion at the justice committee to continue the investigation, to allow the former attorney general to complete her testimony and to call the full list of top government officials she says pressured her so that they could be questioned under oath. The Prime Minister sent his majority members and shut down the investigation to make sure that the truth would not come to light.
We know that the justifications the Liberals have given for all these cover-ups and scandals make no sense. They claimed that it was all about jobs. The Prime Minister claimed that the headquarters of the company would leave immediately if the former attorney general did not interfere and shelve the charges. We now know that this is impossible. The company must stay headquartered in Montreal on the basis of a $1.5-billion loan agreement with the Quebec pension plan.
We also know that SNC-Lavalin is responsible for the five biggest construction projects in Canada, worth $52 billion, which physically can only be done here in Canada. We cannot have a rail transit system for the city of Ottawa built in London, England, or in Beijing and then dropped out of a helicopter onto the nation's capital. It obviously has to be done here, and therefore, the jobs not only are going nowhere but can go nowhere.
Furthermore, we know that the public procurement minister is working on an exemption so that even if the company is convicted, it will still be allowed to bid on federal contracts. Therefore, this is not about jobs. This is about protecting corporate cronies of the Prime Minister.
Today the Prime Minister carried out another abuse of power. The first was when he tried to interfere with the justice system, and today he interfered with the justice committee to shut down the investigation and cover up what is to be—