Debates of March 20th, 2019

Government Accountability

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The hon. member for Hull-Aylmer.

The Budget

[Greg Fergus, Liberal, Hull—Aylmer, QC]

Mr. Speaker, the budget presented by our government announces concrete support to ensure that Canadians have the skills and training they need to succeed, so that they can find and keep good, well-paying jobs.

Can the Prime Minister tell the House how budget 2019 will help Canadian workers?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, I thank the member for Hull-Aylmer for the work he does.

Since 2015, our plan has been working. Canadians have created more than 900,000 new jobs across the country. However, not everyone has access to the opportunities they need. Budget 2019 introduces the new Canada training benefit. This means that working Canadians will get four weeks for training every four years with up to $1,000 in income support.

Our job market is changing, and we are going to help Canadians of all ages keep up with those changes. We know this is crucial.

Government Accountability

[Leona Alleslev, Conservative, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the Prime Minister said that the unrelenting pressure on the former attorney general to grant SNC-Lavalin a DPA was all about jobs, and yet today we know that is not true, as the CEO of SNC-Lavalin says the firm never cited 9,000 jobs as a reason for deserving the DPA.

Will the Prime Minister tell the truth? Will he, instead of continuing to mislead Canadians, commit to the House to testify and tell the truth at committee?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, the member opposite mentioned jobs, and we are very proud that Canadians have created 900,000 good jobs across the country over the past three years. That is something the Conservatives were unable to achieve in their 10 years in power, because they just do not get it.

The Conservatives still believe that giving benefits and bonuses to the rich and cutting programs for everyone else is how to balance the budget and grow the economy. Their plan failed for 10 years. That is why the budget we presented yesterday and our approach are always—

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Order. The hon. member for Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères.

Government Priorities

[Xavier Barsalou-Duval, Bloc, Pierre-Boucher—Les Patriotes—Verchères, QC]

Mr. Speaker, we send 50% of our taxes to Ottawa, but the government found a way to ignore 100% of Quebec's demands in the federal budget. There is not one cent to pay back the $300 million it cost us to take in migrants. There is nothing for the blue line and nothing for health transfers, as though we could afford to neglect patients in Quebec.

Can the Liberals explain how it is possible to be $20 billion in the red after saying no to every one of Quebec's requests?

[Justin Trudeau, Liberal, Prime Minister]

Mr. Speaker, since the blue line goes through my riding, I am pleased to inform the hon. member that we made an announcement last year and that the money is already being invested.

As far as Quebec's requests are concerned, we know that dairy producers were concerned about the new trade agreements we negotiated. Budget 2019 offers concrete solutions to the problems that farming families are facing. We are taking action and investing in supporting supply management, in food policy, in cutting red tape and in rural broadband services. We will continue to invest in our farmers in Quebec and across the country.

Business of the House

[Ruth Ellen Brosseau, NDP, Berthier—Maskinongé, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there have been consultations among the parties and I believe if you seek it, you would find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That, notwithstanding any Standing Order or usual practice of the House, the deferred recorded division on the motion for third reading of Bill C-369, An Act to amend the Bills of Exchange Act, the Interpretation Act and the Canada Labour Code (National Day for Truth and Reconciliation), standing in the name of the Member for Desnethé—Missinippi—Churchill River, currently scheduled today, immediately before the time provided for Private Members' Business, be deferred anew until immediately after the opposition motion is disposed of.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

Does the hon. member have the unanimous consent of the House to move the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The House has heard the terms of the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

(Motion agreed to)

Government Response to Petitions

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to four petitions

An Act Respecting Certain Payments to be Made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund

[Jim Carr]

moved for leave to introduce Bill C-94, An Act respecting certain payments to be made out of the Consolidated Revenue Fund.

(Motions deemed adopted, bill read the first time and printed)

Interparliamentary Delegations

[Borys Wrzesnewskyj, Liberal, Etobicoke Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, three reports.

The first is entitled “Report of the Canadian Parliamentary Delegation respecting its participation in the Joint Meeting of the Defence and Security, Economics and Security, and Political Committees”, Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association, held in Brussels, Belgium, February 19 to 21, 2018.

The second is entitled “Report of the Canadian Parliamentary Delegation regarding its participation in the Standing Committee Meeting”, Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association, held in Vilnius, Lithuania, March 23 and 24, 2018.

The third is entitled “Report of the Canadian NATO Parliamentary Association respecting its participation in the 2018 Spring Session of the NATO Parliamentary Assembly”, held May 25 to 28, 2018, in Warsaw, Poland.

[Wayne Easter, Liberal, Malpeque, PE]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, three reports of the Canada-United States Inter-Parliamentary Group.

The first report concerns the 73th annual meeting of the Council of State Governments' Midwestern Legislative Conference, held in Winnipeg, Manitoba, from July 15 to 18, 2018.

The second report concerns the summer meeting of the National Governors Association, held in Santa Fe, New Mexico, U.S.A., from July 19 to 21, 2018.

The third report concerns the 42nd annual conference of the New England Governors and Eastern Canadian Premiers, held in Stowe, Vermont, U.S.A., from August 12 to 14, 2018.

[Yasmin Ratansi, Liberal, Don Valley East, ON]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 34(1), I have the honour to present to the House, in both official languages, four reports of the Canadian Branch of the Commonwealth Parliamentary Association.

The first concerns the bilateral visit to Pakistan, held in Islamabad, Pakistan, from March 30 to April 7, 2018.

The second concerns the bilateral visit to South Africa and Kenya, held in Capetown, South Africa, and Nairobi, Kenya, from August 31 to September 8, 2018.

The third concerns the 2018 Westminster Seminar on Effective Parliaments, held in London, United Kingdom, from November 26 to 30, 2018.

The fourth concerns the Expert Committee Meeting on Status, held in London, United Kingdom, from June 8 to 11, 2018.

Procedure and House Affairs

[Larry Bagnell, Liberal, Yukon, YT]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the 88th report of the Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs entitled “Question of Privilege Related to the Matter of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Publications Respecting Bill C-71, An Act to Amend Certain Acts and Regulations in Relation to Firearms”.

Pursuant to Standing Order 109, the committee requests that the government table a comprehensive response to this report.

While I am on my feet, I move:

That the House do now proceed to orders of the day.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

The question is on the motion. Is it the pleasure of the House to adopt the motion?

[Some hon. members]

Agreed.

[The Speaker, Liberal, Geoff Regan]

(Motion agreed to)

Opposition Motion—Resignation from Cabinet of the Member for Vancouver Granville

[Lisa Raitt, Conservative, Milton, ON]

moved:

That the House take note of comments from the Member for Vancouver Granville that indicated she has not been able to fully explain the events that led to her resignation; and that the House call on the Prime Minister to waive full solicitor-client privilege and all Cabinet confidences to allow the member for Vancouver Granville to address events that occurred following January 14, 2019, including her time as the Minister of Veterans Affairs, her resignation from that position, and her presentation to Cabinet that followed.

[Pierre Poilievre, Conservative, Carleton, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will begin by saying that I will split my time with the member for Lethbridge.

Today I rise on a motion to get to the truth in the SNC-Lavalin scandal. Here is a quick recap of how we got here.

A year ago, the Prime Minister had his finance minister introduce a budget amending the Criminal Code to allow powerful corporations accused of fraud, bribery and other forms of corruption to get the charges shelved by signing something called a deferred prosecution agreement. We were all wondering where this was coming from and who was advocating for such special deals. We found out in February of this year, when The Globe and Mail reported that the former attorney general faced interference, veiled threats, pressure, hounding and other inappropriate pressure from the Prime Minister and those around him to offer such a deal to SNC-Lavalin.

SNC-Lavalin is a company facing over $100 million in fraud and bribery charges. Among the charges are that the company bought prostitutes for the former Libyan dictator, Moammar Gadhafi, and that it bribed him and his officials to defraud among the poorest people in the world of hundreds of millions of dollars.

The Prime Minister was acting in a manner that was highly unusual. To take direct interest in a criminal trial of any kind would be strange on any day, but to try to defend alleged corporate criminals who engaged in malfeasance on this scale was particularly unusual. Of course, the Prime Minister said he did nothing wrong, that the story was false and that his attorney general was behind him all the way. The next day, she resigned. The Prime Minister dismissed her, saying that he was disappointed and surprised. We found out later, during her testimony, that he should not have been either. The reality is that she told him that she was worried about the level of interference by his office.

That brings me to numerous unanswered questions we now need to pursue. First, the Prime Minister said that she never raised any concerns with him at all and that if she was worried about the 20 times his office and his officials contacted her about this criminal prosecution, why did she not say something? It turns out she did.

Yes, she did, despite the heckling against her, again, by Liberal members across the way. Shame on them for heckling a fellow Liberal member. That is shameful.

On September 17, she asked the Prime Minister, “Are you interfering...with my role as the Attorney General?”, because if he was, she said, “I would strongly advise against it.” The Prime Minister was stating a falsehood when he said otherwise.

Then he said that it was all about jobs. If this powerful, Liberal-linked corporation did not get its charges shelved, 9,000 jobs would vanish into thin air. When his top adviser, Gerald Butts, appeared before committee, the Green Party leader asked him if he had any evidence that 9,000 jobs would disappear. His answer was that he had nothing specific. That was after two hours of testimony during which he claimed that he was tied in knots about all the families who would lose their jobs.

Then we asked Michael Wernick, the Clerk of the Privy Council, who had been involved in all the meetings and proceedings leading up to this interference, what reports he had to prove that 9,000 jobs would vanish. He said that he had nothing in particular. All of this aroused suspicion that the jobs claim was a bunch of nonsense, a suspicion that is supported by a lot of evidence.

Let me lay out that evidence. First, the company has the five biggest construction projects in Canada now, worth $52 billion. I want to offer a bit of a hint about how construction jobs work, for our friends across the way. They have to be done where the construction projects are. For example, in Ottawa, SNC-Lavalin has been retained to build the north-south mass-transit project, a $600-million project. It will lay track from near downtown Ottawa all the way out to deep in the south end of the city.

Rail cannot be built in Beijing or London, England and be dropped from a helicopter onto the nation's capital. It has to be built in the city. The same is true with all construction projects SNC-Lavalin is doing in the country.

The second claim the government makes regarding jobs is that if the company is convicted, then it will lose all access to federal contracts. We now know that is not true. The public procurement minister is already making revisions to the procurement policy allowing corporate criminals to continue to bid if they get an exemption. SNC-Lavalin already earned such an exemption, or at least was granted one, early in the days of the Liberal government. In fact, it was one of the very first acts the Liberal government rushed to take.

In December of 2015, the company, which had been banned from federal bidding after being charged with fraud and bribery, was then given an exception by the government so it could continue bidding, and it plans to do exactly the same thing even if a conviction occurs. In other words, if the government is just worried about protecting bidding opportunities for federal projects, it can do that without preventing the trial from going ahead. Therefore, that is fallacious excuse is as well.

Back in September, it was said that the Prime Minister told the former attorney general that if she did not immediately shelve the charges into SNC-Lavalin's corruption, the company would move its headquarters to London, England. He made that claim twice in that meeting. The Clerk of the Privy Council also made that claim in that meeting. The chief of staff to the finance minister would go to staff members of the former attorney general and say the same thing. Ben Chin said that the announcement of the move of the headquarters could happen within days and that it needed to be prevented because there was a Quebec election going on.

That seemed mighty suspicious, because a little research on doctor Google would prove that moving the SNC headquarters is impossible. A $1.5-billion loan agreement between the company and the Quebec pension plan requires that the headquarters stay there until the year 2024, another half-decade. The company just signed a 20-year lease on its headquarters there, and is in the process of spending millions of dollars to renovate specifically for the purpose of accommodating its 2,000 employees in that city. It is not only contractually impossible, it is physically unbelievable that the company would leave.

If people do not take any of that as sufficient enough proof, today the CEO of SNC-Lavalin made clear that was not going to happen. In fact, he was asked where this came from. He said that he did not know how people got ideas like that in their heads. Only the Prime Minister knows how that idea came into his head. Today he denied ever making the headquarters claim.

When one does not tell the truth, the problem is that it becomes very difficult to keep track of one's story. Unfortunately for him, we have him on tape, claiming that SNC would leave Canada altogether if it was convicted of fraud and bribery. He said it in his famous non-apology press conference, where he repeated that false claim that he had earlier said to the former attorney general. Therefore, we know he was going around stating that falsehood.

It is bad enough that the Prime Minister of Canada faces allegations of interfering with a criminal prosecution to get charges set aside. However, this scandal reaches a whole new level of criminal culpability if the Prime Minister or anyone around him deliberately stated a falsehood to a law officer in order to shelve criminal charges. It is an offence under section 139 of the Criminal Code to obstruct, pervert or defeat the course of justice. Lying to a law officer to get her to set aside charges would obstruct, pervert and defeat the course of justice.

It is possible that during her testimony, the former attorney general did not realize that this falsehood had been stated to her and that it was not true. However, these are the questions we need answered. That is why we need to end the cover-up, let the former attorney general complete her testimony and proceed with an investigation at the ethics committee.