Madam Speaker, the $40 million in ad scam was certainly no small sum, but that is one-tenth the amount of money we are talking about with this current scandal. When we look at the current scandal, we have a government refusing to turn over documents, as is the will of Parliament, to the RCMP. Back then, the ad scam was a scandal that actually brought down the government. There was the Gomery commission, which was set up to investigate.
It did not just question lower-level bureaucrats or party functionaries. It questioned high-profile individuals, the very heart of the Liberal government of the time, to explain their roles in the misuse of public money. Political operatives, heads of agencies, senior ministers, even the prime minister at that time, were dragged in front of an inquiry. That scandal actually brought down the Liberal government of the time.
We find ourselves here today talking on a motion of privilege about a scandal that has ten times the financial impact of what we saw back then. What we see from the current Liberal government is stonewalling. The Liberals refuse to hand over the documents that the House has ordered. We have to ask what they have to hide. How bad are the SDTC documents that they would require Parliament to grind to a halt rather than face the consequences of handing them over unredacted?
The Gomery commission exposed a culture of corruption within the Liberal Party that was deeply rooted at that time. This culture seems to have permeated to the current government, which puts personal gain over the interests of Canadians. Now, with the SDTC scandal, we see the same playbook. Liberal insiders are benefiting from the misuse of taxpayer dollars, while the government does everything it can to avoid accountability.
Canadians deserve transparency, accountability and leadership that understands the value of every taxpayer dollar. The government in the early 2000s, at the time of the ad scam, was held accountable for its misdeeds and faced the electorate, who sent a very clear message about the need for transparency. Just as the ad scam marked the end of an era for that Liberal government, we certainly hope it is the beginning of the end for the current government, so we can have a new type of government to lead this great country.
Let us not forget about another, more recent example of Liberals' rampant misuse of taxpayer money, the arrive scam scandal. An app that arguably could have been developed with a case of beer and a few techie people in the basement of someone's house over the weekend was going to cost taxpayers $80,000 but in the end ballooned to $60 million. That is what we know about so far.
At the centre of that scandal was, as we know, GC Strategies, which was a two-person IT firm that actually did not do any of the work but rather was simply a middleman, brokering contracts. Even the subcontractors did not perform a lot of the work or make an app that worked properly. This is, again, another example. The reason we raise this is because it speaks to a pattern.
Taxpayers deserve answers about what is happening here with the Liberal government and this particular green slush fund scandal. I wonder how Canadians can trust the government when it refuses to follow basic principles of transparency and hand over the documents, as requested by Parliament, to the RCMP. How can we believe in a government that has repeatedly put the interest of its ministers, insiders and friends above the interests of Canadians?
The SDTC scandal is just the latest in a long line of breaches, cover-ups and corrupt behaviour. The Liberal government has shown us time and time again that it will do whatever it takes to protect itself and its friends. We saw that in its proroguing of Parliament back with the WE Charity scandal, but also in its refusing to release documents with the Winnipeg lab scandal, and other cover-ups.
There is a very clear pattern. The government chooses secrecy over transparency, corruption over accountability, greed over public good.
Let me clear. The cost of this corruption is not just the billions of dollars of mismanaged funds. It is also the erosion of public trust. Canadians are struggling right now, and they are seeing $400 million going to line the pockets of Liberal insiders, all while small businesses are fighting to stay open, mortgage holders are renewing their mortgages and facing a whopping increase in their mortgage payments, and seniors are going to the grocery store. We have seen a 36% increase in grocery prices in Canada, which is ahead of what we have seen in the U.S., so grocery inflation is worse here. All of these things are happening, and our communities are struggling with the fact that money is being wasted and with the carbon tax. What we see from the Liberal government is our hard-earned tax dollars being wasted by going to the pockets of Liberal insiders.
The government has focused on protecting its friends rather than helping Canadians, and Canadians see this. Every dollar of that money that was misused by the government, every dollar that was funnelled to friends and insiders, is a dollar that could have went to a family to help put food on the table, to a struggling small businesses, to a community that is struggling with various issues or to defending our north, but instead it went to the pocket of a Liberal insiders. Canadians have had enough, and they are tired of the excuses. They are tired of the corruption, and they are tired of a government that refuses to be held accountable.
The Conservative Party is committed to restoring that accountability, and we believe that taxpayers' money should be respected and should be spent responsibly on projects that actually benefit Canadians, not enrich the pockets of insiders. Taxpayer dollars need to be monitored properly and conflicts of interest need to be eliminated. We have seen the Auditor General comment on the 186 cases of conflict of interest. Safeguards need to be put in place. It is time for a change.
Only a Conservative government would make the changes necessary to restore accountability and put Canadians first to ensure that taxpayer dollars are respected and spent on projects that actually make a difference. We will fight for that transparency. We will fight for that accountability. That is why we are asking that the will of Parliament be respected and that the documents be turned over, unredacted, to the RCMP.
Before I close, I would like to move that the amendment be amended by adding, after proposed subparagraph (a)(ii), the following: (ii.1) the Privacy Commissioner of Canada, who respected the order of the House and deposited unredacted documents; (ii.2), Paul MacKinnon, the former deputy secretary of the cabinet, governance. He was briefed by the Privy Council Office in the context of the Winnipeg lab documents, that in the event that parliamentarians press for the release of confidential information, the appropriate minister or ministers should take responsibility for the decision to provide or to withhold the information, and who, in turn, advised the government House leader that, consistent with the principles of responsible government, the ultimate accountability for deciding what information to withhold from or release to parliamentarians resides with the responsible minister.