Mr. Speaker, I am rising today to address the cover-up budget.
The Prime Minister attempted to cover up his SNC-Lavalin corruption by introducing $41 billion of new cash spending to paper over the wrongdoing that his former attorney general brought to light in her very courageous whistle-blowing over the last several months.
Today I rise to address one specific element of that cover-up, and that is the Prime Minister's repeated false statements to the Canadian people wherein he suggested that former attorney general had never brought any of her concerns to his attention prior to being moved out of the role of attorney general. His implication was that she was making the allegations against him out of sour grapes, that he really had done nothing wrong in interfering with SNC-Lavalin's criminal prosecution, but that the former attorney general had suddenly concocted a story about him after he moved her out of her dream job, and therefore she should not be believed.
Allow me to quote what the Prime Minister said to the Canadian people at a press conference on February 15. He said, “If anyone”, including the former attorney general, had issues with anything they might have experienced in the government, or did not feel that the government was living up to the high standards it set for itself, “it was her responsibility to come forward”, it was their responsibility to come forward, and no one did. Text messages, journal entries and audio recordings now prove the former attorney general did come forward, literally dozens of times, to the Prime Minister and his inner circle.
Let me go through the chronology of her whistle-blowing.
On September 16, 2018, there was a phone conversation between the Prime Minister's staff members, Mathieu Bouchard, Elder Marques, and the former attorney general's chief of staff, Jessica Prince. This is from the testimony of the former attorney general:
My chief of staff had a phone call with Mathieu Bouchard and Elder Marques from the Prime Minister's Office.
They said that they understand that there are limits on what can be done, and that they can't direct, but that they hear that our deputy of justice thinks we can get the PPSC to say “we think we should get some outside advice on this.”
In response, my chief of staff stressed to them prosecutorial independence and potential concerns about the interference in the independence of the prosecutorial functions.
In other words, at that moment, in early September, the minister's staff did communicate to the Prime Minister's staff that what they were asking for would constitute “interference in the independence of the prosecutorial function.”
That is the first piece of evidence I introduce, disproving the Prime Minister's claim when he said that it was her responsibility to come forward, that it was their responsibility to come forward, and no one did.
The next day, on September 17, 2018, the former attorney general came forward in person to the Prime Minister and to the Clerk of the Privy Council. From her testimony, we have:
This same day, September 17, I had my one-on-one meeting with the Prime Minister that I requested a couple of weeks earlier. When I walked in, the Clerk of the Privy Council was in attendance as well. While the meeting was not about the issue of SNC and DPAs, the Prime Minister raised the issue immediately.
She goes on to state:
I further stated that I was very clear on my role as the Attorney General, and that I am not prepared to issue a directive in this case, that it would not be appropriate.... At that point, the Prime Minister jumped in, stressing that there is an election in Quebec and that “and I am an MP in Quebec—the member for Papineau.”
She went on:
I was quite taken aback. My response—and I vividly remember this as well—was to ask the Prime Minister a direct question, while looking him in the eye. I asked, “Are you politically interfering with my role/my decision as the Attorney General? I would strongly advise against it.”
I have heard members across the way yell out that it is mere hearsay. In fact, today we learned it was not hearsay. In direct questioning of the Prime Minister, I asked him if this exchange occurred, and he confirmed that it did. In other words, he says, now, today, that back on September 17, the former attorney general did raise concerns about him “politically interfering with her role as attorney general” and that she also “strongly advised against it”. He admits now that she said that to him in September.
How is it then that he stood before 37 million Canadians in February and said that no one came forward with any concerns whatsoever? That is what he said. It was her responsibility to come forward. It was their responsibility to come forward and no one did.
She did and he now admits it, so it is no longer he-said-she-said. She said it and he now confirmed it. It is impossible to reconcile the Prime Minister's admission today that the former attorney general spoke those words to him in September with his public statement in February that she had never once raised any problem with him. Here we have it clear as day that she did, and he now admits that she did.
On September 19, there were conversations between the former attorney general and the current finance minister. She said in her testimony:
Still on September 19, I spoke to [the finance minister] on this matter when we were in the House [of Commons]...and I told him that engagements from his office—