House of Commons Hansard #93 of the 43rd Parliament, 2nd Session. (The original version is on Parliament's site.) The word of the day was targets.

Topics

FinanceCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:55 p.m.

Liberal

Mark Gerretsen Liberal Kingston and the Islands, ON

Madam Speaker, I request that it carry on division.

FinanceCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

Is that agreed?

FinanceCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:55 p.m.

Some hon. members

Agreed

FinanceCommittees of the HouseRoutine Proceedings

8:55 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

I declare the motion agreed to on division.

A motion to adjourn the House under Standing Order 38 deemed to have been moved.

EthicsAdjournment Proceedings

8:55 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON

Madam Speaker, we find ourselves here following from the questions I posed to the Prime Minister with respect to the ongoing cover-up we have seen the government undertake, which came out of the very early days of the pandemic.

Early on we saw all parties profess to want to take a team Canada approach and to really want to make sure helping Canadians was the first thing we did, but the first thing the government did was propose legislation that would have given it the ability to tax and spend without parliamentary oversight for almost two years, so that definitely got the radar up of opposition parties and the parliamentary press gallery.

We learned of course that the Prime Minister had dealings with the WE Charity. Later we would learn that this organization had paid members of the Prime Minister's family about half a million dollars in cash and other benefits. What we learned in the very early days of the pandemic, just over a year ago, is that the government was prepared to give a half-billion-dollar, sole-source contribution agreement to the same organization, which would have benefited that organization by more than $40 million.

Tough questions were asked last summer, and we saw unprecedented interest during these committee hearings. We saw the Prime Minister testify, and we had massive document requests of the government. On the eve of those documents being delivered, and they documents that would have given us information about speaking fees paid to members of the Prime Minister's family, the Prime Minister shut down Parliament.

We have this pattern, which has developed with the government since it first came to office in 2015. As revealed in the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner's report entitled “The Trudeau Report”, with the ill-fated trip to billionaire island, and with the SNC-Lavalin scandal in the Ethic Commissioner's report entitled “Trudeau II Report”, we saw that the Prime Minister does not believe the rules of this place, the laws parliamentarians are expected to follow, apply to him and to his government.

Here we are again, with the Prime Minister under investigation for a third time, awaiting a report from the Ethics Commissioner. The House ordered, by a majority vote, that witnesses appear at the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics and at the Standing Committee on National Defence. What did those witnesses do? They were instructed by their employer, by ministers of the Crown, to defy an order of Canada's Parliament.

It is unbelievable, but that is the lengths the Liberals will go to in order to hide the truth from Canadians. It is one set of rules for them and one set of rules for everybody else. They want us to believe they are following ministerial accountability, but what the Liberals have subjected us to is anything but that.

My question tonight is this: Why is it that the government and these Liberals think the rules do not apply to them?

EthicsAdjournment Proceedings

9 p.m.

Winnipeg North Manitoba

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux LiberalParliamentary Secretary to the President of the Queen’s Privy Council for Canada and Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs and to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons

Madam Speaker, nothing could be further from the truth. The Prime Minister is very committed to accountability and transparency. He was committed to those principles even before becoming the Prime Minister of Canada.

Since the 2015 federal election, the Conservatives have left no stone unturned as they continue to look for any possible way to be critical of the personalities within government. We have seen that virtually from day one. One might think that during the pandemic the Conservative Party might refocus and demonstrate more concern about Canadians.

At the beginning, it looked pretty encouraging. Thirteen or fourteen months ago, we saw a Conservative Party with a higher sense of co-operation, wanting to be a part of that team Canada taking on the pandemic. However, it did not take too long for the Conservatives to fall back into the ditch, with character assassination as their primary focus.

No matter what the Conservative game is, I can assure Canadians that the Government of Canada, and in particular the Prime Minister, will continue to focus on them, first and foremost, with priority one being minimizing the negatives of the pandemic, ensuring they are getting the vaccine and that we are able to build back better. One only needs to look at the most recent budget to get a better understanding of the environment we are in today, in good part because the Prime Minister, over a year ago, took that team Canada approach, bringing together provinces, territories, indigenous leaders and many different stakeholders, and challenging members of Parliament on all political sides to come together and be there in a real and tangible way for Canadians.

The Minister of Health, the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Health, the Minister of Public Services and Procurement and the Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister of Public Services and Procurement work day, day out to ensure that Canada and Canadians are well served by ministers and parliamentary secretaries, who are prepared to put in the sacrifice, working with other stakeholders, in particular other jurisdictions.

I would invite the Conservatives to get on board once again, to get out of the ditches and the gutters, and support what Canadians want us to be talking about, and that is the pandemic.

I always appreciate the opportunity to share a few words and thoughts in hopes that my friend will see the benefits. When he talks about the thousands of questions during summer, it is too bad some of those questions were not on the vaccines. We would probably be a little better off if the Conservatives would have put more priority on the pandemic and less on character assassination. That is the bottom line.

I have no problem comparing performance of the current Prime Minister to any prime minister in the last 30 to 40 years. He has been there for Canadians in a very real and tangible way, whether it was putting money in the pockets of Canadians through CERB, or protecting jobs through the wage subsidy program or the whole suite of programs that the government introduced with the support of Canadians and working with civil servants.

EthicsAdjournment Proceedings

9:05 p.m.

Conservative

Michael Barrett Conservative Leeds—Grenville—Thousand Islands and Rideau Lakes, ON

Madam Speaker, I appreciate the spirited response from the parliamentary secretary. It was creative, and I am sure it would be a good bedtime story for some.

I also wish more time was spent on vaccines in the summer by the government, instead of partnering with the Communist China-owned CanSino. Instead, it could have developed domestic vaccine production capacity, like our friends in the UK.

What we have seen with the government is that it first looks to help its friends instead of helping Canadians. That is what is disappointing. The Prime Minister is the first one found guilty of breaking the Conflict of Interest Act, the first Prime Minister in Canadian history. He would say that there has only been two. One or two, he is the only one who has that distinction.

We expect better. We expect answers from the Liberals. Canadians expect better from their government. When are they going to get it?

EthicsAdjournment Proceedings

9:05 p.m.

Liberal

Kevin Lamoureux Liberal Winnipeg North, MB

Madam Speaker, every day good government, transparency and accountability are practised by this Prime Minister, his ministers and indeed all Liberal members of Parliament, and I suspect a good number of members of Parliament, no matter what their political stripe is. It is a relatively smaller number of the official opposition who seem to be so focused on the negatives and the character assassinations.

The member talked about how we should have been producing vaccines domestically, but it was the Conservative government that destroyed our capacity. The member talked about the agreement with China, but Pfizer, Moderna and AstraZeneca are the companies that are delivering. We are getting the vaccines. We will have 50 million doses before the end of June. We are the third best in the G20. We are on track. We are very grateful for all the support we are getting from—

EthicsAdjournment Proceedings

9:05 p.m.

Liberal

The Assistant Deputy Speaker (Mrs. Alexandra Mendès) Liberal Alexandra Mendes

The hon. members for Regina—Lewvan and Dufferin—Caledon are not present to raise the matter for which adjournment notice had been given. Accordingly, the notices are deemed withdrawn.

The motion to adjourn the House is now deemed to have been adopted. Accordingly, the House stands adjourned until tomorrow at 10 a.m. pursuant to Standing Order 24(1).

(The House adjourned at 9:07 p.m.)