Debates of Oct. 10th, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Dan Mazier, Conservative, Dauphin—Swan River—Neepawa, MB]

Madam Speaker, I have about 10 more examples, but I think the member is really jealous that there are no NDP donations in them.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Madam Speaker, integrity, character and trust are what I ran on in my first election in 2014 and what I have run on in every subsequent election. Nothing means more to me than protecting my integrity and character and ensuring that my constituents in Foothills have their trust in me.

I have to question how my Liberal colleagues will go home for the Thanksgiving constituency week and look their constituents in the face and say they can still trust them and they have integrity and character, when they know there is a green slush fund of more than $400 million that the Prime Minister is doing everything he possibly can to hide from Canadians. That is a big number. There is no question about that. However, in my opinion, the size of the corruption in a scandal does not matter as much as what it says about the person involved in it, who is the Prime Minister.

He campaigned in 2015 about wanting the most accountable and transparent government in Canadian history, and he has certainly fallen well short of that goal. The epitaph of the government, when it falls in a very short amount of time, will be “Promises made, promises broken”, or perhaps “Here lies a government that took care of its friends despite the needs of its constituents”. I am not exactly sure if that is a legacy I would want my constituents to see in me.

The role of Parliament and all parliamentarians is to hold the government to account and oversee government spending. By refusing to comply with the Speaker's decision to produce documents, the government is undermining the principle and integrity of this House and is setting a very dangerous precedent for what I think Canadians expect from all of us in the House of Commons. Parliament is the House of the people, the people in our constituencies across this country who trusted and elected us to represent them, be their voice and ensure that we are good stewards of every single one of their tax dollars. Canadians, perhaps more than ever, as they struggle with the cost of living crisis and try hard every day just to put food on the table and pay their mortgage, deserve to know that their tax dollars are being spent prudently and on programs that will impact their lives in a positive way.

I often give constituents or stakeholders tours of the House of Commons and Parliament. We have a running joke, as my constituents have elected me as a Conservative member, to watch their wallets and hold their purses tight, because if they pass by a Liberal, they may ask for a donation or pick into their pockets. We do that as something fun, in jest, to have a little laugh, but unfortunately, the joke has turned into reality, as the government is reaching into the pockets of every single Canadian to fill the pockets of Liberal insiders and their friends.

Honestly, the level of this scandal is, in no uncertain terms, disgusting. It is enough to make most Canadians, and certainly the Canadians in my riding, quite sick to their stomach. Canadians deserve better. They deserve an honest, accountable and hard-working government that does not abuse their hard-earned paycheques, that fights for the people, that respects voters, that follows through with the promises it has given to protect and govern this prosperous country and that leaves it in a better condition and shape than when it got there. However, what is happening here flies in the face of what I think most Canadians would expect a government to do and steward forward for them.

The RCMP commissioner said quite clearly that the directors of this green slush fund, who were hand-picked by the Prime Minister, were abusing Canadian tax dollars at an unprecedented level. I would love to say that this is unusual for the Liberal government, but unfortunately, this is just the latest on the list of scandals the Prime Minister has wreaked on Canadian taxpayers.

The level of this corruption has Canadians outraged and disgusted because the Liberals have taken advantage of their position of power to enrich their friends to the detriment of Canadians. I would like to say that this level of scandal is unprecedented, but I cannot, and that is unfortunate. Scandal and corruption have become a habit with the Prime Minister. This is not a one-off.

Two million Canadians are going to food banks every single year and food insecurity is up 111%. That means millions of Canadian families are unable to feed their children and struggle from meal to meal. A quarter of Canadians are skipping meals just to make ends meet. At a time of very extreme financial difficulty, the Liberal government seems to have no problem pilfering the pockets of Canadians and wasting tens of millions of tax dollars just to ensure that political friends and insiders are well taken care of.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada, which was supposed to be managing a green energy fund for the benefit of Canadians, has abused Canadian tax dollars. What is interesting is that this did not happen once; it did not happen twice; it did not even happen three times. This has happened 186 times in just this one program. If there are 186 conflicts of interest in one Liberal program, imagine what else is out there. I think the Liberals are scared to table these documents because the level of scandal that will be uncovered is something Canadians have never seen before.

Let us go back in time. When I talk to my constituents about this issue and in the emails and letters I am getting, they compare it to the sponsorship scandal, which brought down the Chrétien-Martin government. The one similarity is they were funnelling tax dollars to enrich their friends and political allies. The difference is that the SDTC scandal is five times bigger, given the amount of money we are talking about, than the sponsorship scandal. If that scandal brought down a government, I hope Canadians will demand the same thing with the SDTC scandal.

We need to emphasize that this is not Liberal money. This is Canadian taxpayers' money. This is money that taxpayers have worked hard to earn. When they pay their taxes to the government, they expect those taxes to go to building bridges and roads, paying for hospitals and schools, hiring doctors and teachers and building important infrastructure and social programs, not to Liberal insiders. We know it involves $400 million, but it could be even higher. How many hospitals would that build? How many roads, ports and bridges would that maintain? How many meals would that serve? How many schoolteachers would that hire? How many people would that feed?

The former chair of SDTC, Annette Verschuren, who is the face of this disaster, was hand-picked by the Prime Minister despite warnings from a previous chair of her conflict. She tried to get $6.8 million for the Verschuren Centre in Cape Breton through the slush fund. She also tried to use her influence on the green slush fund to get a further $10 million for the centre from Industry Canada and ACOA. This is just one example of the many levels of corruption the Liberals are trying to hide from Canadians.

The Prime Minister's appointees were doling out taxpayer monies to companies that the board of directors of this fund owned. They did not think twice about abusing this program 186 times. However, despite warnings that the chair was in conflict, the Prime Minister, as always happens, got his way. Ethics and conflict be damned, he put this person in that role, and he is trying to hide the level of that scandal by withholding documents from the House.

As they always like to do, the Liberals are saying that there is nothing to see here. However, there is something to see here; there is a scandal of 400 million taxpayer dollars stolen from Canadians and given to Liberal insiders.

I was thinking about this a bit, and I know that some of my colleagues have been doing that as well. I find myself, now and again as we are discussing Liberal scandals and corruption, saying a lot of “Oh my gosh, I forgot about that one” and “Oh my God, there was that one.” I kind of get the feeling that the Liberals bring up another scandal as often as possible so we have to forget about the ones that happened in the past.

I do have to give the Liberals a bit of credit; I do not know how they manage all of these different scandals, keep them in line and remember which one is which, whacking this mole and that mole. I have to give them credit because I do not know how they keep track of the bag men. They are removing tax dollars from one friend in one alley and from one company to another. That has to be a lot of logistics. If the Liberals only put that effort into actually governing the country, imagine where we would be, but that is not what they are doing.

Maybe if I have time I will list off the incredible collection of greatest hits that the Prime Minister has had of the scandals under his watch. It is a very long list. However, I thought of something else. I mentioned earlier in my speech that the Prime Minister campaigned in 2015 on having the most transparent and open government in Canadian history. I will share some of the greatest hits of his quotes. He said, “I think we're going to have to embark on a completely different style of government. A government that...accepts its responsibilities to be open and transparent”.

In 2013, our Prime Minister claimed:

We will be coming out shortly with a way to open up and be more transparent about all our expenses in a way that will restore Canadians' confidence and trust in holders of public office....

We will certainly offer a level of transparency that hasn't been seen before.

Maybe it is our fault as Canadians, but when he said that we will have a level of transparency and accountability like we have never seen before, I was thinking the other way; however, what has happened is that he has kind of gone the opposite direction, and he has slammed the door shut on accountability and transparency when it comes to accountability for Canadian tax dollars.

Let us go back a bit further in time. I find this one very ironic. When the member for Papineau was just a sitting member of the third party, his first private member's bill as an opposition MP was a transparency act. He offered bold promises to revitalize the access to information system. Where is that wide-eyed parliamentarian now? He came in with all this gusto, saying that he was going to shed sunlight on the House of Commons. I guess he was practising very early on the idea that promises are made to be broken. He started trying to fool Canadians in 2013, but Canadians are not fooled anymore.

Even in a recent podcast with his Liberal colleague, the Prime Minister admitted that he courted the fair-vote folks, who are usually NDP supporters, promising them that he would change the electoral system, have electoral reform and make sure proportional representation was part of the discussion. Then he admitted in the podcast that he had no intention of ever entertaining proportional representation. He had only said that to win over NDP voters, and then when he got elected, it was pushed to the side and long forgotten. It was a promise made and a promise broken.

In 2015, after he was elected, the Prime Minister said, “Canadians voted for change, and we are committed to delivering that change. We are committed to being an open, honest, transparent government....all ministers, including the Prime Minister, [will] be held to greater account.” He is the same Prime Minister who is doing everything he can to skirt the rules on transparency and accountability just to hide his scandalous actions.

In 2016, the Prime Minister said, “Canadians can be reassured that we have always followed all the rules, and we always will, as well as upholding the principles and values under which Canadians have confidence in their government, principles like accountability, transparency and openness.” Ya, right.

He said:

The reality is that this system requires a high degree of openness, transparency, and accountability in order to maintain Canadians' confidence in our democracy and system of government.

I can assure Canadians that our party always follows all the rules and that it also supports all the values and principles associated with those rules.

He said, “The fact is, the Liberal Party is always following all the rules and the values that Canadians expect in terms of openness, transparency, and accountability, and we will continue to uphold the trust of Canadians.” Honestly, I do not know how he keeps saying this with a straight face.

He also said, “This is important to all Canadians, and we are following the rules because we know that people need to have confidence in their government, in their ministers, and in how political parties operate. That is why we are always transparent, accountable, and open about our fundraisers.” I think my colleagues have talked about the fundraisers and how well that has gone for him. The “cash for access” with business owners and millionaires from communist China is yet another scandal that has been a part of the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister said, “We in the Liberal Party and this government, have always believed that sunshine is the best disinfectant.” That is a classic. He went on to say, “That is why we have moved forward on openness and transparency in ways that, yes, perhaps open us to a few more attacks from the members opposite, but ultimately create the confidence that Canadians must have in their...institutions”.

He does not seem to be so excited about being held accountable by the opposition today, which is a lot different from where he was in 2015.

He then went on to say, “We will continue to take very seriously the trust that Canadians placed in us by remaining open, transparent and accountable to the opposition and to Canadians.” If he were so committed to working with the opposition, to ensuring that we had access to the information that our constituents are demanding, why has he had such a quick change of heart? Why is he trying to hide the documents that Canadians deserve to see?

The Prime Minister also said:

I believe in sunny ways. I believe in staying focused on Canadians, and that is exactly what we're doing. I believe that sunshine is the best disinfectant. Openness and transparency is what Canadians expect. That is always what we will always stand for.

I respect the member opposite tremendously for his responsibility to ask difficult questions, and to press the government on it. I am going to stay focused on doing the right things the right way, and ensuring our team is doing that....

I could go on. I have a long list of comments that he has made over the years.

I cannot pass this one up: In 2019, he said, “Under my leadership, we have raised the bar on transparency.” I have no idea how low the bar was, or he thought it was, if this is as far as we have gotten and this is what he thinks. In fact it was not as hard as I thought it would be, but I had my staff look up how many times the Prime Minister has said the word “transparency” in the House. In Parliament, he has said the word “transparency”, and talked about how important it is, more than 400 times.

However, now secrecy and obfuscation are the hallmarks of the Liberal government. Like I said, the Prime Minister's statement should be “A promise made is a promise about to be broken.” All of this begs the question, “What are the Liberals hiding?” How bad is this?

I know that the questions from my colleagues say that we are infringing on the Charter of Rights if we try to ask for the information. I would love for the Liberal members to go back to their ridings this week and say to their constituents, to their face, “Hey, you don't deserve to know how bad this scandal is because we're just here protecting your charter rights.” Give me a break.

I will leave members with this, a great thought from the member for Carleton: When I get robbed, I don't form a committee to discuss it. When I get robbed, I call the police.

The police deserve to see the information. Canadians deserve to see the information, because the level of the scandal and the robbery of Canadian taxpayer dollars needs to be brought to light. The Conservatives will continue to fight until it is found out.

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, once again we have to revisit what the debate is about. It is not about releasing the documents; it is about how it should be done in a way that protects charter rights. We have been advised by the Auditor General and the RCMP that releasing the documents to them is not the right way to proceed. There has been a ruling from the Speaker that said that the issue should go to PROC.

Could the member opposite please admit to Canadians that this is a filibuster by the Conservatives so nothing is getting done in the House? We have agreed to send the documents to PROC. We are not hiding the documents; we are simply ensuring that it is done in the correct way according to the processes we have in the House of Commons.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, again, I would encourage the member for Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill to go back to her riding during the Thanksgiving constituency break and explain to her constituents that they do not have the right to see these documents.

We are just trying to do this in the right way. If it is such a procedural issue, they should just table the documents. If there is nothing to be concerned about, if there is nothing within these documents that they are scared or frightened of Canadians seeing, they should put them on the table.

They should stop delaying and try to get this to committee. We know the truth. They do not want these documents to ever see the light of day.

[Simon-Pierre Savard-Tremblay, Bloc, Saint-Hyacinthe—Bagot, QC]

Mr. Speaker, my colleague mentioned several past Liberal scandals, including the sponsorship scandal, a well-known corruption case. However, he conveniently neglected to say that it was also scandalous not only because some people lined their pockets, but also because it involved a massive propaganda campaign to try to sell Quebeckers on a country that was never theirs. That was also part of the sponsorship scandal.

I should point out that there were also scandals under Harper. There were cost overruns under the Conservatives, whether it was McKinsey, GC Strategies or others. Does this not mean that the problem is more in the system, in the regime, in governance, rather than the colour of the hat of whichever party forms the Canadian government?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, yes, the sponsorship scandal was absolutely about propaganda. The Liberal Party was using its resources, taxpayer resources, to give itself an advantage at election time. That is why this helped bring down a government.

I was also very proud to be part of a Conservative government, under former prime minister Stephen Harper, that brought forward the accountability act. It established the Office of the Conflict of Interest and Ethics Commissioner, a public office that the government seems to have no problem abusing and ignoring, in terms of the rulings that it has been given. In fact, we have a Prime Minister who has been found in contravention twice. No other prime minister in history has ever been found in conflict. It shows the record. I would put the record of the Conservative government up against the Liberal government any day of the week.

[Mike Morrice, Green, Kitchener Centre, ON]

Mr. Speaker, Greens support the terms of the motion, in terms of sending it to committee. My understanding is that this would happen as soon as there is a vote on it. For this, all that has to happen is to no longer have speakers speaking to it. I think the member for Foothills and I agree about the importance of taxpayer money being used effectively.

I have done a bit of math on how money is being spent with respect to this debate. We have had about 49 Conservative speakers on the motion so far. If we add up their speaking time, it is just over 24 hours, at 1,470 minutes. If we look at what it cost for the House to operate over that time, the cost to taxpayers is just over $1.7 million for the Conservative speakers, not to mention all the other speakers who have also risen on this.

We could just have a vote right now if Conservative members stopped speaking to the motion. If the hon. member shares the concern for taxpayer money, is he not concerned about the dollars being spent to continue this conversation?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I have to give my colleague a lot of credit on that, to come up with that argument. They would rather use the cost of this discussion as a way to hide Liberal corruption and scandals. I guess the Liberal coalition has now grown to include the Green Party.

I will go home to my constituents this week and say that I am fighting for their rights every day, to ensure accountability for their tax dollars. I am confident that they will support what we are doing as Conservatives rather than trying to push this to committee.

Let us be clear: The Prime Minister could end this right now if he tabled those documents in the House of Commons and gave them to the RCMP. It would not cost Canadian taxpayers another dime.

[Doug Shipley, Conservative, Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my good colleague from Foothills for that great speech on this very serious issue. I know that, in Barrie—Springwater—Oro-Medonte, there are a lot of people struggling to pay their bills, to heat, to eat and just to live, quite frankly. We are talking about a huge sum of money here, as $400 million has gone missing.

Could the hon. member explain to me how much better this money could have been spent in his riding, on good programs to help the people of Foothills?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague brings up an excellent point. The fact that $400 million has been funnelled to Liberal insiders and friends and that this would happen at a time when Canadians are struggling through a cost of living crisis is troubling. I have a very rural riding, as my colleague does, and I have talked to the farmers and ranchers of my riding every week. They are paying $150,000 a year just in carbon taxes trying to get harvest off right now. They are seeing, at a time when every single dollar is stretched as far as possible, a government that should be the steward of their tax dollars is now abusing 400 million dollars of their money, which would be much better spent on building railroads, ports or bridges to ensure that their products get to market and we would once again be a trusted trading partner around the world. That is certainly not the case right now.

[Lisa Hepfner, Liberal, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Women and Gender Equality and Youth]

Mr. Speaker, I have to say that I also regularly speak to the member for Foothills' constituents because my sister lives in his riding. I know for my family one thing that is really important in Canada is the Charter of Rights and Freedoms. What the Conservatives are asking for is the right to violate the charter. I know the Leader of the Opposition has talked about using the notwithstanding clause to get rid of any laws he does not like.

I would like to hear from the member how he views the Charter of Rights and Freedoms and whether he would uphold it.

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, at least some members of my colleague's family are in the right place: They are in Foothills. I appreciate that.

To put this as a charter challenge for just asking to have documents made public, documents that are already public that Canadians deserve to see, I find to be such weak sauce from the Liberals. They are so desperately trying to keep these documents under wraps and to keep them redacted that they are trying to scare Canadians into thinking that if Conservatives take public documents and give them to the RCMP, we are somehow challenging and will bring the Charter of Rights down, crumbling among us. I think it is such a weak argument that I challenge the Liberals to go home to their ridings this week and make that same argument at home.

[Don Stewart, Conservative, Toronto—St. Paul's, ON]

Mr. Speaker, $400 million is a lot of money, and it is hard to comprehend how much that really is. It is 4,200 GMC Sierra trucks. It is 66,666,666 Girl Guide cookie boxes, that is, if you do not break the 0.6 repeating. For people in Toronto, it is 15% of the TTC budget.

If the government could not run this program, which had admirable goals, without basically giving the money away, how can we trust it with any programs we have in Canada?

[John Barlow, Conservative, Foothills, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I think my colleague puts this in a way that Canadians understand. Sometimes we talk about these big numbers. It is difficult to comprehend, but when we break these numbers down to things that Canadians really understand, they are disgusted by the level of scandal that is in here. I am not sure how many Blue Jays tickets we could have bought for that this year. He is right; this is hurting Canadians in the pocketbook when they are struggling every day with the basic necessities. This really hits home, when their tax dollars are being abused at this level.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Mr. Speaker, before I begin my remarks today, I would like to pay tribute to a special person in my riding, Sherrisa Celis, who recently lost her husband, Nick. During my by-election, both Sherrisa and Nick were dedicated volunteers, bringing a smile and a helping hand each and every day. I thank Sherrisa for everything she does. My heart is with her and her family. We will all remember Nick for his kindness, big heart, huge personality and extraordinary generosity. May he rest in peace.

I would also like to pay tribute to Michelle Mather, who serves on my board. In these difficult times, I want Michelle to know that we love her and her family. I thank her for everything she does.

I rise today to discuss the ruling of the Speaker with regard to the production of documents ordered by the House on the scandal involving Sustainable Development Technology Canada, also known as the Liberals' green slush fund. For those watching at home, I will give the facts.

The Auditor General found that the Prime Minister has turned SDTC into a slush fund for Liberal insiders, finding that SDTC gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that could not show an environmental benefit or development of green technology. There was $334 million, over 186 cases, that was given to projects in which board members held a conflict of interest, and $58 million was given to projects without ensuring contribution terms were met. Can we imagine? The very people who were trusted with safeguarding taxpayer dollars were funnelling money into projects they themselves were connected to. This is corruption, pure and simple.

This is not a fluke or some isolated incident. This scandal is symptomatic of a Liberal culture that puts political survival and self-enrichment ahead of the interests of the Canadian people. They shovel the working man's pay into the pockets of elitists who provide no value to the country. They have created a culture of enrichment for their well-connected friends, lining their pockets on the backs of the working class. This is the kind of governance that erodes trust. The Prime Minister claims to be a champion of the environment while handing out public dollars to his friends. We have seen this before. It is the same culture that brought us SNC-Lavalin, the WE Charity scandal and countless others.

Now, the House has ordered the production of the documents around the scandal to the law clerk and the transfer of the documents to the RCMP for unredacted investigation. The only problem is that the government refuses to hand them over. What is the Liberals' excuse? They hide behind the Charter of Rights, stating that the order forcing them to produce these documents is a potential violation of Canadians' charter rights. I say to the folks at home that, after burning taxpayers' dollars, the NDP-Liberals are now attempting to bypass the House of Commons to hide the information that Canadians need in order to truly understand how much of their money the government has actually wasted. Here is a wake-up call to the NDP-Liberals: The charter is there to protect the people from the government, not corrupt politicians from prison.

It seems that the government has forgotten its primary duty—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Edmonton Griesbach is rising on a point of order.

[Blake Desjarlais, NDP, Edmonton Griesbach, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I believe there was a small comment that was incorrect in my hon. colleague's speech when he talked about an NDP-Liberal insider. I think he meant to say “Liberal-Conservative insider”, since she is a donor to the Conservative Party.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

That is a point of debate.

The hon. member for Calgary Heritage.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Mr. Speaker, I always appreciate commercial breaks; I hope they are a bit more entertaining.

It seems that the government has forgotten its primary duty, which is to serve the people over itself as a servant, not a master. Today, we are witnessing a gross abuse of power by a tired, incompetent and corrupt government. The Prime Minister and his NDP-Liberals have turned SDTC into a playground for their cronies, using taxpayers' money to do it. They are more concerned with maintaining their grip on power than on the welfare of the citizens they claim to represent. Unfortunately, this is all a pattern Canadians have become way too familiar with. This is a government that chooses to count votes over taking a moral stand.

Today, as mobs march across our streets, inciting hate, inciting terror and chanting for the death of our country, Canadians see a weak Prime Minister, an incompetent foreign minister and a broken government. Our treasured Jewish communities, which are about to mark Yom Kippur, watched with shock as they saw the NDP-Liberal foreign minister tell Tom Mulcair that she is only concerned about the demographics of her own voters. For her own personal political gain, she fails to act when Canada is threatened. This is the same foreign—

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, I am questioning the relevance of what the member is saying to the matter we are debating.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

I always call for relevance at this late hour.

The hon. member for Calgary Heritage.

[Shuv Majumdar, Conservative, Calgary Heritage, AB]

Mr. Speaker, moral corruption and financial corruption come from the same source. They are a corruption of the soul and a rot of the government.

The foreign minister fails to act when Canada is threatened, for personal political gain. This is the same minister who refused to condemn genocidal, anti-Semitic hate chants on our streets like “From Palestine to Lebanon, Israel will soon be gone” and “There is only one solution: intifada, revolution”. Our common-sense Conservative leader asked her twice to condemn these chants and she refused. How does the foreign minister expect Canadians to trust her with their national security when her only concern lies with the vote count in the next election?

After nine long years, all Canadians have seen is incompetence and corruption from the NDP-Liberal government. Single moms at the grocery checkout are forced to put food they had gotten for their kids aside thanks to an unforgiving carbon tax. Seniors are watching as their pensions go up in smoke. Newcomers and young couples are seeing their dreams of home ownership being—

[Leah Taylor Roy, Liberal, Aurora—Oak Ridges—Richmond Hill, ON]

Mr. Speaker, on a point of order, it seems like this speech is getting further from the motion. I do not know if—

[Some hon. members]

Debate.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

A lot of leeway has been given to a lot of speeches in this House on different occasions. I will call for relevance again.

The hon. member for Calgary Heritage can continue.