Debates of May 2nd, 2022

Economic and Fiscal Update Implementation Act, 2021

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

It being 3:14 p.m., pursuant to order made Thursday, November 25, 2021, the House will now proceed to the taking of the deferred recorded division on the motions at report stage of Bill C-8.

Call in the members.

And the bells having rung:

The question is on Motion No. 1.

A vote on this motion also applies to Motions Nos. 2 to 10.

(The House divided on Motion No. 1, which was negatived on the following division:)

Vote #64

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I declare the motion defeated.

[David Lametti, Liberal, LaSalle—Émard—Verdun, QC]

moved that the bill, as amended, be concurred in.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

If a member of a recognized party present in the House wishes to request a recorded division or that the motion be adopted on division, I would invite them to please rise and indicate it to the Chair.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Mr. Speaker, I would request a recorded vote please.

(The House divided on the motion, which was agreed to on the following division:)

Vote #65

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

I declare the motion carried.

Government Response to Petitions

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Mr. Speaker, pursuant to Standing Order 36(8)(a), I have the honour to table, in both official languages, the government's response to one petition. This return will be tabled in an electronic format.

Transport, Infrastructure and Communities

[Peter Schiefke, Liberal, Vaudreuil—Soulanges, QC]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the third report of the Standing Committee on Transport, Infrastructure and Communities, entitled “The Canada Infrastructure Bank”.

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Pat Kelly, Conservative, Calgary Rocky Ridge, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have the honour to present, in both official languages, the fourth report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, entitled “Collection and Use of Mobility Data by the Government of Canada and Related Issues”.

Indigenous and Northern Affairs

[Marc Garneau, Liberal, Notre-Dame-de-Grâce—Westmount, QC]

Mr. Speaker, there have been discussions among the parties and, if you seek it, I believe you will find unanimous consent for the following motion. I move:

That the Second Report of the Standing Committee on Indigenous and Northern Affairs presented on Monday, April 25, 2022, be modified to substitute the name of the organization “First Nations Finance Authority” with “First Nations Financial Management Board” on page 16 of the report in English, and page 20 in French.

[The Deputy Speaker, Conservative, Chris d'Entremont]

All those opposed to the hon. member's moving the motion will please say nay.

The House has heard the terms of the motion. All those opposed to the motion will please say nay.

I declare the motion carried.

(Motion agreed to)

Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

moved that the third report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022, be concurred in.

Mr. Speaker, as always, it is an honour to be able to stand in this place and enter into debate on such important subjects.

Let me first state that I will be splitting my time with the member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.

Once again, we find ourselves in this place, debating what has become the trend of the Liberal government, the trend of corruption, lack of ethics and failure on the front of integrity time and time again.

I rise today not to talk about ancient history, as the Liberals would often like to suggest the Conservatives want to talk about. I rise today not to talk about something that does not have direct impact on Canadians. I rise not to simply have character assassinations as in question period we heard the Liberals suggest is all Conservatives were worried about. I rise today to talk about the integrity and the trust that Canadians need to be able to have in their institutions.

When it comes to the report and the amendment that has been brought forward by my hon. colleague, we have an opportunity as parliamentarians to once again discuss the fact that there has been a significant erosion of trust in our public institutions within the country. I would suggest, and the reason I make this suggestion is that I hear it each and every day from constituents, that there has been a significant erosion of trust in our democracy within the country.

I rise today to speak to what is known as the question of conflict of interest and lobbying in relation to pandemic spending, something that most Canadians would know as the WE Charity scandal, where the Prime Minister awarded a massive contract to his friends.

I had the honour during the first session of the last Parliament to sit on the ethics committee in the midst of what was an unprecedented time in Canadian history, certainly, and in the world, facing a pandemic, and the fact that supports were needed. Conservatives did support, contrary to what the Liberals would like to suggest, some of those supports that Canadians needed so much.

What we saw transpire over the year 2020 was that there was an unprecedented level of, obviously, lobbying that resulted in a massive contract being awarded to an organization with very close ties to the Prime Minister and his family and other central members of the government.

What was supposed to be $800 million to go toward students finding summer employment during what was a very challenging year for all Canadians ended up being bogged down in scandal. Not only is there the question of ethics and integrity, but certainly, I would suggest, the government met the definition of corruption. I would suggest today in this place that it did show itself to have an unprecedented level of corruption, whether in this program or the many other scandals that we have seen from it.

We saw that Canadians suffered. We saw students not getting the supports and resources that they need. We saw the fact that, as I mentioned before, questions were being asked, with more Canadians questioning each and every day the fact that they do not know if they can trust our institutions. They do not know if they can trust our democracy. On and on it went.

There was a prorogation, even though the Liberal Prime Minister promised to never prorogue Parliament. Well, he broke that promise. We all know what that means. He broke that promise. The timeline for breaking that promise, I might add, and I know this authoritatively because I was on the committee, was within a number of days of when documents that very well may have been very revealing of the Prime Minister's relationship with this organization were supposed to have been submitted.

The Prime Minister participated in a hundreds of millions of dollars coverup. The Liberals' defence quite often was that it was not $800 million, that it would have only been about a $400-million scandal. Well, $400 million is beyond the imagination of most people, the number of dollars that have been wasted by the government in terms of corruption.

Let me first thank the committee. It did get back to work. I was involved in the first session of that Parliament. Something the Liberal government certainly does not like is the fact that it does not have a majority, although it seems to have bought one here more recently. It was faced with the fact that the committee did decide to do good work. The Liberals filibustered that committee for countless hours. I know because I participated in many of those hours of filibuster. They tried to teach committee members Latin. They had a whole litany of excuses. It will go down as one of the most unprecedented coverups in Canadian history.

We saw that the committee did good work. It brought forward 23 recommendations. A number of months ago, I moved the motion in the ethics committee, which I now have the honour of sitting in again in this Parliament, to retable the report, the good work that the committee did, along with those 23 recommendations, the significant research and testimony and even the admissions of contempt. In a parliamentary democracy, contempt is a significant allegation, but there were admissions of contempt on the part of the Prime Minister.

Last year, at the end of the summer of 2021, we saw something which unfortunately is not that uncommon. We saw the Prime Minister flip-flop. He misled Canadians on a whole host of issues. He stood in this place, with his integrity being shown and then a few months later called an election. He promised not to do that. The definition of the word for that is not allowed to be said in this place, but Canadians know what it is.

It is an absolute shame that we find ourselves in this situation once again. Now we have seen over the past couple of weeks that once again the integrity of our Prime Minister is showing. This time it is not simply a contract being given to friends of the Prime Minister, but the possibility of criminal charges.

I do not know if the Prime Minister simply goofed up when he admitted to the fact that he did not give himself permission to absolve himself of criminal charges, but that is a big deal. The fact is that we have a Prime Minister in this place that seems to have admitted to criminality.

In the last couple of minutes of my speech, I'll mention that I hear from Canadians often. They ask questions. They ask how he can get away with this. They ask how we can have a government with the litany of scandals that litter the path of our Prime Minister as he jet-sets from coast to coast to coast. It could be for surfing vacations or for friends to get lucrative government contracts or the fact that during a pandemic there was significant evidence of sole-source contracts for ventilators, as one example, that were never delivered. There are serious questions that Canadians need answers to.

Canadians need answers to these questions because there has been a significant erosion of trust, not to mention all of the political and policy differences. Coming from a rural east central Alberta riding, I can say there are a lot of policy differences. I could go on and on about those things.

At the heart of it, it should not be about politics when it comes to the integrity of our democracy. Over the course of the next number of hours, I hope we get to once again seek clarity for Canadians, but not for political interests or so-called character assassinations as the Liberals simply like to pivot to when they are afraid to answer questions.

All of us have the responsibility to ask the questions when it comes to ensuring that tough questions are asked of our elected officials, in this case the government and the Prime Minister as the leader of that government, that the answers are given and that accountability can be brought back to this country, because I am fearful that the damage that is being done to our democracy is putting it in great peril.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, to say that I am disappointed, I would say yes. To say I am surprised, I would say no. It is unfortunate that the Conservative Party continues to demonstrate to Canadians its willingness to play games. We are actually supposed to be debating Motion No. 11 to ultimately see parliamentarians be able to sit longer for a debate, in order to accommodate more debate. Now the Conservatives take yet another tactical report, something that focuses on their interests, not the interests of Canadians, and that is what they want to debate, as opposed to debating other, more substantive issues, such as Motion No. 11, Bill C-8 and so forth.

Does the member not see the hypocrisy that is oozing from the Conservative caucus on the whole issue of credibility in standing and addressing the issues that Canadians are facing today? It is shameful.

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, what is shameful is the fact that the member is complicit in a government that is so corrupt that it refused to even allow the conversation of accountability within this place.

Specifically when it comes to the government's legislative agenda, it is nothing short of incompetence to the extreme that the Liberals cannot seem to manage anything: government, their ethical conduct, let alone their legislative agenda. I look forward to debating Motion No. 11. Unfortunately, the government, in what is the height of hypocrisy, moved closure to limit debate on what is a motion that would limit the ability of MPs in this place to have their say.

This is incredible. Motion No. 11, which the member just referred to, would give the Prime Minister unilateral ability to shut this place down on his whim. That is not democracy. That is tyranny and certainly lands pretty close to the allegations I hear often from constituents who suggest that this is not a Prime Minister but rather a dictator.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, those are huge words that are being hurled around in the House by the Conservatives yet again. Many Conservative MPs, not all, fortunately, were very supportive of the so-called “freedom convoy”, which sought the overthrow of democratic government in this country. It sought the ripping away of all democratic values and traditions that we know in Canada.

The member says this is an important issue, but he has to answer a very simple question. The Conservatives are now presenting the same concurrence report this week that they presented last week. The House dealt with it last week. They are coming right back and presenting the same motion this week. They talk about the time that needs to be spent in the House to ensure that we actually get in place legislation that would help teachers, that would help farmers. I know the member, like everyone else in the House, has been hearing from teachers in his riding because of the delays that the Conservatives have caused around Bill C-8. I know that he has heard from farmers in his riding who have said the same thing, that the Conservatives are blocking all pieces of legislation. Now they are doing it by running a rerun, running a redebate of what was already debated last week and will be debated in an evening session once all parties come to an agreement.

Why is the member presenting exactly the same thing, exactly the same debate, when the House already considered that last week?

[Damien Kurek, Conservative, Battle River—Crowfoot, AB]

Madam Speaker, that is a little revisionist history from the member, so let me correct the record. We had indeed endeavoured to move this last week, but the government simply moved to orders of the day, which restricted the ability for members of this place to actually enter into discussions on this incredibly important matter.

When it comes to the coalition or confidence and supply or the fact that the Prime Minister bought his majority, my simple response is this. I encourage all NDP members of this place to go to their constituents and be honest with them when they try to explain and justify the fact that they are involved in a cover-up of unbelievable proportions each and every day, that they are enabling the incompetence of a government that cannot manage not only its legislative agenda, but government itself. The fact that they seem more than happy to play games—

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

Resuming debate, the hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I want to thank the member for Battle River—Crowfoot for splitting his time with me and for his great intervention.

We brought forward this concurrence motion last week, but because the government does not want to discuss the WE scandal in any more detail, it moved a motion to go to orders of the day, which essentially shut down the debate on the concurrence motion.

I want to thank the ethics committee from the 43rd Parliament, second session, which tabled the report “Questions of Conflict of Interest and Lobbying in Relation to Pandemic Spending” in June 2021. I also want to thank the current ethics committee, in this Parliament, which has now tabled it on March 31.

It is important that we have a chance to revisit what happened in the WE Charity scandal, why this is important and why we need to continue to look at how we can improve upon our officers of Parliament, like the Commissioner of Lobbying, the Ethics Commissioner and the Privacy Commissioner, and ensure we have better oversight of government officials who are being lobbied and entering into certain contracts that oftentimes put ministers of the current Liberal government into a conflict of interest. We have now seen multiple reports done by the Ethics Commissioner, both the previous Ethics Commissioner, Mary Dawson, and the current Ethics Commissioner, Mr. Dion.

I do not think we need to spend a lot of time reminding everybody of the unethical behaviour of the current Prime Minister. Again, during question period I asked him about the criminal investigation the RCMP had started with respect to the luxury vacation gift he got on a tropical island. Not only was he found in violation of the Conflict of Interest Act by the former Ethics Commissioner Mary Dawson, contravening sections 5, 11, 12 and 21 of the Conflict of Interest Act, but we also know that the RCMP investigated him under paragraph 121(1)(c) of the Criminal Code for fraud in relation to the government.

We also know the Prime Minister was found guilty of contravening section 9 of the Conflict of Interest Act over the issue of SNC-Lavalin and the prosecution going on there with respect to influence. He essentially had a concerted campaign against Jody Wilson-Raybould, our former Attorney General, who refused to offer a plea deal to SNC-Lavalin, what we call a deferred prosecution agreement, and stood on her principles as the Attorney General of Canada to ensure that it faced the music. However, she lost her job because she stood up to the Prime Minister and stood up for the principles of justice. We know that the Treasury Board president of the day, Jane Philpott, who sided with Jody Wilson-Raybould, was also fired from cabinet, and ultimately the two of them were kicked out of the Liberal caucus. That scandal in itself had huge overarching impacts on the Liberal Party of Canada. The principal secretary to the Prime Minister at the time, Gerald Butts, had to resign. The Clerk of the Privy Council at the time, Michael Wernick, also resigned. They both resigned in disgrace.

The Prime Minister is not the only person who has acted unethically. I want to get to former finance minister Bill Morneau right away, but when the current Minister of Intergovernmental Affairs, Infrastructure and Communities, who is the MP for Beauséjour, was Minister of Fisheries in the last Parliament, he was caught up in a lucrative clam scam because he practised nepotism and made sure that family members received lucrative $24-million contracts for clams.

Then we come to Mr. Bill Morneau, our former finance minister, who was found guilty of violating the Conflict of Interest Act when he failed to disclose to the Ethics Commissioner that he had a luxurious villa in the French Riviera. It took him two years to disclose his property, when all members of Parliament, and especially public office holders, whether members of cabinet or parliamentary secretaries, are required to submit all of their financial information to the Ethics Commissioner for review and public disclosure so that people will know if there is any way members of this House, and public office holders in particular, can be influenced.

As I mentioned already, the Prime Minister was found guilty on four different charges for the luxurious vacation that he took on the private island and he has been investigated for fraud, but it is important to point out that both the Prime Minister and Bill Morneau failed to recuse themselves from discussions around WE Charity. We know that We Charity was offered a chance to develop a program for summer students and to support students during the pandemic. That was over half a billion dollars.

Both Bill Morneau and the Prime Minister had relations with the Kielburger family, as well as with WE Charity. Bill Morneau's daughter worked for it. Bill Morneau and the Prime Minister had received benefits directly from WE Charity. They were both close personal friends of the Kielburgers. Because they failed to recuse themselves from the discussions at the cabinet table, awarding a sole-sourced contract to WE Charity, that is what was found to be in contravention under the Conflict of Interest Act. We know that because of it, Mr. Morneau was removed from cabinet and resigned as a member of Parliament.

We also know that WE Charity produced 10 videos of the Prime Minister, which were essentially campaign-style videos. They were valued at over $217,000. To make the point, in one of the videos, the Prime Minister said he pledged to work hard for all Canadians, something that we hear from him in question period. Then he went on to say that he is going to invest in our youngest leaders: the students. This is a campaign-style promise by the Prime Minister to these future voters. It clearly was a political message.

We also know that the Prime Minister's wife had received a $20,000 getaway vacation to speak at a WE Charity event in London, England, and that was just a week or two after the Liberal government awarded the Kielburgers and WE Charity the half-billion-dollar sole-sourced contract.

As we dive into this report, we find out that there were multiple people in Morneau's office and the Prime Minister's Office, as well as the member for Waterloo, who were working directly with the Kielburgers on how to design the program. Why did they have to work with WE Charity to design the program? It was because WE Charity had never done a program like this, ever. It did not have the capabilities to offer this program and it was designed specifically for it to orchestrate this program. Because of the hand-holding that took place, we know, as the member for Battle River—Crowfoot just said, that public trust in our democratic institutions was eroded.

On Thursday, March 25, 2021, some of those staffers who worked in the Prime Minister's Office and Minister Morneau's office were asked to appear at committee by a House order. Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh were all ordered to appear. Ben Chin was senior adviser to the Prime Minister and directly messaged with Craig Kielburger of WE. We know that Rick Theis, who worked in the Prime Minister's Office as director of policy and cabinet affairs, met with the Kielburger brothers from WE as well, and then Amitpal Singh, who worked for Bill Morneau, also worked directly to make the tailor-made program for WE Charity. All these people failed to comply with the order from the House and are in contempt of Parliament. Because we had an election and we are in a new Parliament, that does not purge them of their contempt of Parliament. We also need to dive more into the role of the MP for Waterloo.

I wish to move an amendment to the motion. I move:

That, the motion be amended by deleting all the words after the word “That” and substituting the following: the Third Report of the Standing Committee on Access to Information, Privacy and Ethics, presented on Thursday, March 31, 2022, be not now concurred in, but that it be recommitted to the Committee for further consideration, provided that (a) the committee be instructed (i) to make every effort possible to receive evidence from Ben Chin, Rick Theis and Amitpal Singh, the witnesses who did not comply with this House's Order of Thursday, March 25, 2021, to appear before the Committee, (ii) to consider further the concerns expressed in the Report about the Member for Waterloo's failure “in her obligation to be accurate with a committee”, and (iii) to report back by Monday, October 17, 2022; and (b) the committee be empowered to order the attendance of the Member for Waterloo, from time to time, as it sees fit.

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

The amendment is in order.

Questions and comments, the hon. parliamentary secretary to the government House leader.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Government in the House of Commons]

Madam Speaker, I am wondering if the member sees any hypocrisy when the official opposition members say that they would like to be able to have more debate on issues, and then they filibuster concurrence reports to prevent debate from happening and are voting against the government's Motion No. 11 to extend debate time so that members would have more time to debate. On the one hand, the government is providing the opportunity to debate and, on the other hand, the opposition members are saying that they want to be able to debate but are denying any opportunity for yourself. It is almost as if you want the chamber to self-destruct in terms of debate.

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

Just as a reminder, I do not want to self-destruct.

The hon. member for Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman.

[James Bezan, Conservative, Selkirk—Interlake—Eastman, MB]

Madam Speaker, I think we all sit here and witness every day the member for Winnipeg North self-destruct on an ongoing basis.

When we really want to get down to it, the member for Winnipeg North stands in here every day to help with the cover-up of government corruption and unethical behaviour. We know that we just voted on a closure motion to ensure that there was a vote on Motion No. 11. Motion No. 11 is going to be coming into force whether we like it or not. The government, with its unholy alliance with the NDP, will get its Motion No. 11 through, and we do not feel like it is necessary to sit here and debate this in a long, drawn-out process.

What is important is that we have committees that have been doing important work here on the ethical behaviour of the current government. We need to refer this back to the committee so that we can dig in deeper and the committee can do its work and report back to the House on those who actually held this place in contempt by refusing to appear before committee. The member for Waterloo perjured herself in committee by refusing to share information with the committee and lying about it, or misleading us. We have this opportunity to bring those people back and get down to the bottom of what actually happened in the WE scandal.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Madam Speaker, I like the member. He is very experienced in the House, and I get along with him well, but I do not understand the Conservatives' strategy.

The official opposition House leader, just a few hours ago, was saying that the Conservatives do not want to delay things. They said that they understood the fact that teachers and farmers are trying desperately to get access to the tax credits, which the Conservatives have held up by refusing, in any way, to allow consideration of Bill C-8.

It is also the disinformation from Conservatives that concerns me. I mean, our Standing Orders are very clear. Standing Order 66 means that the concurrence debate that the Conservatives brought up last week, as the member well knows, is subject to a debate next week. That is in the Standing Orders. It is obligatory. The fact that they are doing their summer reruns by reintroducing a motion, reintroducing the same amendment that they did last week, does not allow the House time to actually get the legislation through that teachers and farmers and so many others are looking for.

I just do not understand the Conservatives' strategy. They seem to be blocking all legislation of all types at all times, and then they introduce a rerun when they know, and the member knows, that next week all of this will be considered, because the Standing Orders require it.

Why are they taking time from the House now when they know very well that this debate will be held next week and they can reintroduce, for a third time, the same amendment?