Madam Speaker, it is indeed a pleasure to be able to join everyone virtually today and talk about a question that I first raised last week about another potential WE scandal the Liberals are trying to hide.
Members will know that we have national security exemptions in this country, which is a designation used around the procurement of national defence equipment. It is rarely used except when we need to make sure that we do not release any details of a situation or a piece of equipment that could compromise the security of Canada or members of the Canadian Armed Forces.
What I asked the Minister of Public Services and Procurement last week was whether or not the government was using the national security exemption designation to hide the details of sole-source contracts for personal protective equipment.
We have learned there is a $237-million sole-source contract for the procurement and production of Baylis ventilators, which are called the Baylis V4C-560. The V4C stands for Ventilators for Canadians. They are built by a consortium but the manufacturer is Baylis Medical. Of course Baylis Medical is owned by Frank Baylis, who is a former Liberal member of Parliament. The minister proclaimed in the discussion last week during question period that everything had been publicly disclosed, yet we know the department is still hiding the details of the sole-source contract to FTI Professional Grade Inc. under the auspices of national security. It makes no sense.
We know that the Liberal government likes to hide behind a veil of secrecy and it has used that iron curtain before through non-disclosure agreements with over 235 members of the Canadian Armed Forces, who are not allowed to talk about different procurement projects that are under way based on the idea that it might violate commercial proprietary rights. We also know that it has used non-disclosure agreements as a gag order, and I will use Vice-Admiral Mark Norman as the example of what happens if one tries to step outside of the chain of command, outside of the PMO, to discuss what is in the best interests of Canada and the Canadian Armed Forces. After it was proven that the government wrongfully accused Vice-Admiral Mark Norman, it made him sign a non-disclosure agreement so he could not talk about how he was abused and misused by the federal Liberal government.
We need to make sure that all the details of these sole-source contracts are widely available. We need to make sure that we are getting the best value for our taxpayer dollars. I do not begrudge the government for having to use a sole-source contract during a pandemic to access ventilators. I do not begrudge Baylis Medical, which is building our needs under contract for the Government of Canada. I think making sure that we get ventilators to Canadians is an important thing. However, the details of these transactions are not a matter of national security—