Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill.
I do appreciate the opportunity to rise and speak to the motion put forward by my hon. colleague, the member for Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes. The purpose of the motion is to support the authority of committees in their important inquiries of public interest with instructions to the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics regarding questions of conflict of interest in relation to pandemic spending, and to the Standing Committee on National Defence addressing sexual misconduct issues in the Canadian Armed Forces.
The member has been stalwart and unwavering in his pursuit of accountability and truth, despite the constant attempts from Liberal members to impede his efforts. When all is said and done, I am hopeful that my colleague will be able to count on support from every party in this House, especially the governing party, given that the Liberals have said many times that they are committed to being transparent. What better way to be transparent than to allow committees to do their work in calling on witnesses to appear and answer questions on the important matters before them?
We have repeatedly heard the government claim it is committed to transparency, yet trying to get to the bottom of what has happened with the WE scandal has been like trying to see through a glass of mud.
Over this past year, Canadians have dealt with loss and faced much uncertainty as our country locked down in an effort to stop the spread of COVID. Their lives have been upended, as they have struggled to comply with public health orders in order to do their part. In return, they have gotten a government that has grown exceedingly comfortable with being evasive and unaccountable when it comes to its actions and decision-making during this time. From border closures to PPE procurement, and from vaccine procurement to government support programs, Canadians have paid a high price for the government's failures. Every time the government introduced a program, it was obvious it was thrown together haphazardly, resulting in Parliament being recalled several times to address the shortcomings.
On this point, I want to be clear. Conservatives have always understood that financial aid had to be provided if businesses were being shuttered and Canadians were being told to stay home. However, even during a pandemic, parliamentarians have a job to do. We on this side of the House always sought ways to improve the various support programs that were being proposed in order to ensure they were effective and targeted, and that they enabled people to get back to work when it was safe to do so.
When opposition members raise the concerns of Canadians regarding issues with legislation or the process, our insistence on due process and parliamentary oversight is characterized as playing politics and using delay tactics to slow down legislation. However, I ask members, who is playing politics and using delay tactics? Take, for example, the government's proroguing Parliament at the end of last summer. Why did they prorogue during a summer recess to a date already set for the fall session to resume? Quite clearly, it was an attempt to either end or delay the inquiries being made and cover up the WE scandal.
Another example is when Parliament resumed last fall and we were put on a time crunch to extend benefits such as CERB. When issues were raised about the system the Liberals had implemented, Conservatives were accused of holding up vital legislation. It is no secret that throughout this pandemic there has been continuous mismanagement by the government. Now, we need to get to the bottom of this serious breach of trust.
While Canadians are struggling to make ends meet, Liberals have been struggling to shovel hundreds of millions of dollars into their friends' pockets. While, thankfully, they were not ultimately successful, this is not something that can just be swept under the rug and forgotten about.
Canadians want answers. Canadians deserve answers. As I noted earlier, they have been hit hard by the pandemic, and this has been exacerbated not only by the ineptitude but also the unethical behaviour of the Liberal government. While the government has allowed the deficit to balloon during this pandemic, large deficits and unethical behaviour are not a product of it. The Liberals were running deficits prior to the pandemic. Their financial mismanagement has simply reached new heights.
While increased spending during the global pandemic is one thing, refusing to be transparent about how much they were spending, how they are spending it and why they are spending it in certain ways, is quite another. Now, when the government is being confronted on a very clear conflict of interest that involves hundreds of millions of dollars of taxpayers' money, it is conducting a coordinated cover-up campaign to block witnesses from testifying at all costs.
As I stated earlier, it should be no surprise that we are here today discussing another possible ethics violation from the government. This is not a product of the pandemic, but rather an area where the government has some consistency. If colleagues recall prior to the pandemic, there was the whole debacle with SNC-Lavalin. Even further back was the Christmas vacation in the Bahamas that the Prime Minister took to the Aga Khan's private island.
It would seem the government thought a global pandemic would provide great cover to continue with its financial management, clear disdain for Parliament and lack of respect for the use of Canadian tax dollars, which has now led to these scandals and our attempts to get at the truth.
We are here today because the Liberals have made repeated attempts to block critical witnesses from testifying at both the ethics and defence committees. It is obvious to anyone watching that these are the actions of a government that has something to hide, or maybe they simply believe they do not have to abide by the same rules as everyone else. The Prime Minister and his government must be reminded that Canadians' hard-earned dollars are collected to benefit Canadians, not the Liberals, Liberal insiders or their friends.
It is unacceptable that a government would so flippantly grant a contract worth hundreds of millions of dollars to an organization that had paid hundreds of thousands of dollars to the Prime Minister and his family. We can add to that the government's efforts to cover-up the sexual misconduct allegations against the former chief of the defence staff, which they found out about in 2018.
Conservatives must not and will not allow this unethical behaviour to go unchecked. That is why this motion from my hon. colleague is so important. It requires the testimony from multiple witnesses at the appropriate committees so that we may get to the bottom of these scandals and offer answers to Canadians.
The contempt the government has for Parliament, its procedures and, by extension, Canadians, is on clear display. It would prefer to do everything behind closed doors, while proclaiming its transparency and, when questions are asked, to accuse the questioner of playing politics and not caring for Canadians. Conservatives will not allow the truth to remain hidden.
