Madam Speaker, I am going to be sharing my time with the member for Brandon—Souris this afternoon.
I would like to offer a quick snapshot of what we are talking about today. We have a very simple request, and that is that the former attorney general be allowed to speak.
This is not a nothing burger or a distraction, as the Liberal government has claimed it is. We had a veterans affairs minister who resigned after she lost confidence in this Prime Minister. We had the treasury board president resign after losing confidence in this Prime Minister. We had the Prime Minister's best friend and principal secretary resign. We had the Clerk of the Privy Council resign. We had five former attorneys general call for an RCMP investigation. We had a former Liberal attorney general say that if what is alleged to have happened had happened while he was the attorney general, he would have dialed 911. This is a criminal act, he said. We have the OECD anti-bribery and corruption unit watching very closely, concerned that Canada has breached its international obligations.
If all of that is not enough, we had the Liberal-dominated justice committee slam the gavel and pull the curtains shut when we called for the former attorney general to be able to rebut the testimony that was given and to be able to speak without her hands being tied behind her back. The order in council that has been given does not grant sufficient latitude for her to speak about everything that we are talking about today.
We have heard the government say that other people have spoken about a time that is not covered in the order in council, and nothing has happened to them. However, we know what has happened to Vice-Admiral Mark Norman. The former attorney general has very able legal counsel. She has obviously been well advised to tread very carefully and to operate only within the exact confines of that order in council.
The justice committee meeting was adjourned last week when a non-member, the member for Glengarry—Prescott—Russell was trotted in, put his hand up, moved to adjourn, and the meeting was adjourned 24 minutes into the meeting. It was unbelievable.
While Canadians demand answers and the opposition seeks the truth, we have a government that is committed to a cover-up. It is no surprise, though, and it was reaffirmed for Canadians and members of the justice committee when just yesterday the last meeting of the justice committee to study this very serious matter was closed to the media and closed to the public. Government members said that there was nothing more to see here. They said that because that is exactly what the Prime Minister's Office told them to say.
In this very place, we have asked for a public inquiry and we have given all members of this House the opportunity to support that call for an independent and non-partisan, non-PMO-controlled body to hold that public inquiry, where surely the former attorney general would be allowed to speak and where surely we would get to the truth, but no. The government said no. The Liberal members in this House denied that request.
We asked for the Prime Minister to appear at the justice committee. That request was also voted down as part of the Liberal cover-up of this very serious matter.
A claim about jobs has been lobbed in response to our concerns, over and over again, by the government. With respect to these 9,000 jobs that Liberals allege to have been jeopardy, there is not a shred of evidence. Not a single line of text or a 140-character tweet, as the government often communicates their messages in, was offered as evidence of a risk to jobs.
In fact, evidence has been mounting that quite the opposite is true, that no jobs are at risk. Through covenants with the Quebec pension fund and back-ordered work in the billions of dollars, in the CEO's own words, the company has no jobs at risk.
This was very much an effort by a Liberal-connected company to receive one kind of justice while the rest of Canadians are able to receive a very different kind.
Since the former attorney general gave her shocking testimony, there have been constant claims of “he said, she said”. In reality, he said, and what the Prime Minister will let her say, is the case. That is because the Prime Minister will not let her speak. The gag order is in place.
Let us look at this “he said, she said”. It began with a Clerk of the Privy Council, Michael Wernick, appearing before the justice committee to testify to his involvement and knowledge of the political interference. According to Mr. Wernick's testimony, the Prime Minister and his department continued to pressure the former attorney general even after she told the Prime Minister she would not overrule the decision to allow SNC's case to proceed to trial.
Mr. Wernick said:
The question that I think you're going to have to come to a view with, as will the Ethics Commissioner, is inappropriate pressure.
Michael Wernick continued:
There's pressure to get it right on every decision: to approve, to not approve, to act, to not act. I am quite sure the minister felt pressure to get it right. Part of my conversation with her on December 19 was conveying context that there were a lot of people worried about what would happen—the consequences not for her, the consequences for the workers and the communities and the suppliers.
While acknowledging that there was, in fact, pressure on the former attorney general to overturn her final decision, we also now know that the Clerk of the Privy Council also gave unregistered access to a lobbyist from SNC. The chair of the board was able to make a call directly to the Clerk of the Privy Council on this issue.
It was only after a second appearance at the justice committee that we got that answer. As members can see, sometimes these second appearances bear very interesting fruit.
The account given by the former attorney general detailing many meetings, calls and electronic correspondence included a cast of very interesting players from the government, including the Prime Minister, the finance minister, the Privy Council clerk, the Prime Minister's chief of staff and more. However, the justice committee members have not heard from many of these witnesses, because it would be inconvenient to the government's narrative.
The Liberals were very happy to allow what, in many cases, amounted to smears on the former attorney general, saying that perhaps she experienced it differently and that if she did not like what was happening, she should have resigned. We heard from one of the witnesses the parliamentary secretary referenced earlier, a former judge. That judge said that the job of the attorney general in that instance is to stay in place and to maintain the independence of our judicial system by not resigning and by withstanding that pressure.
Canadians are rightly concerned about what has happened, and Canadians continue their calls to hear from the former attorney general. The question that has been asked is what they could be afraid of her saying. If she has testified, and they say she has given a full account, what more could she add? We would like to find out. The former attorney general has said that she has more to add. We are calling on all members of this House to allow that gag order to be lifted and to let her speak.