Mr. Speaker, I appreciate the opportunity.
For the parliamentary secretary across the way, I thought he would be more grateful. A couple days ago I promoted him to deputy House leader, but evidently I got that promotion wrong. However, I assure him that these are indeed my words, and I stand by them with great confidence.
Canadians, who are barely scraping by, see this Prime Minister waste $400 million of their hard-earned taxpayer money, and he wonders why nobody has confidence in him or his NDP-Liberals. I look around. These same Canadians see crime, chaos, drugs and disorder on our streets. They see a Minister of Justice who offers up bail, not jail, for violent repeat offenders, causing violent crime to skyrocket 50%. Hate crimes are up 251%. More than 100 churches have been burned and synagogues have been firebombed. We do not even hear a pin drop from this government on any of this. It is a national disgrace.
Canadians see drugs flooding our communities and a government that offers up drugs rather than treatment and recovery. They watch a spiralling, flailing, out-of-control health minister go to war over nicotine pouches, but when it comes to fighting the drug overdose crisis, the leading cause of death for B.C. kids, he refuses. In fact, this government fuels the crisis further with its taxpayer-funded drug dens, and 42,000 lives have tragically been lost from the drug crisis in our country since 2015.
We recently saw at the health committee a parent of one of the victims who bravely spoke out against the government's so-called safe supply experiment. When asked what her message to this Prime Minister was, she asked, “How can you have 'safe'...and 'drugs' in the same sentence?” It does not make sense. Those two contradict each other deeply. How can this government continue to consciously fund this program? This disastrous experiment needs to be stopped before more lives are lost needlessly.
Canadians also see an environment minister who has delivered nothing to clean up our environment. He has only brought in higher taxes on working people. His policies are as weak as the paper straws he is forcing us all to use.
Sadly, as I return to discussing the government's ethics, I look around and see NDP-Liberals in this chamber who do not even recognize the damage they have caused. They truly believe they know best. They have all the answers, even when Canadians have to suffer because of it. They think they can wave a magic wand and undo these last nine years, promising the world and yet letting down Canadians each and every time.
Today we see NDP-Liberals paralyzing Parliament over documents showing Liberal insiders stuffing their own pockets with taxpayer dollars. This week, we saw the government House leader call this investigation a “witch hunt”. How is it a witch hunt when 400 million taxpayer dollars are at stake? If this government has nothing to hide, why not hand over the documents?
The story changes by the week. Last week, Liberals told Canadians they had already handed the documents over to the RCMP and not to worry at all. This week, they say the Charter of Rights will go down in smoke if they dare show a shred of transparency. It is funny how that works.
The Ethics Commissioner appointed by this government has found the chair of the fund in violation of the law. The Auditor General, also appointed by this government, says there were 186 conflicts of interest involving Liberal appointees giving millions of dollars to their own companies.
The Prime Minister would rather put all of his government business on hold to hide whatever is in these documents. This is corruption unlike we have ever seen before in this country. As I speak on Liberal corruption, I have to reflect on the current state of their leadership.
In quiet moments, even Liberal MPs admit they are counting down the days. They are just wishing this Prime Minister would take his proverbial walk in the snow. They know his days are numbered, and they are quietly placing their bets on the next man in line, Mark “carbon tax” Carney. Our friend from Red Deer—Mountain View likes to quip that every circus needs its carny, but Canadians know better than to fall for this bait and switch. They have seen this movie before, one corrupt Liberal swapped out for another, with the same disastrous results.
This is not a circus; it is the government of this country.
When this Prime Minister appointed Carney as a Liberal adviser, he made sure the role was shielded from any pesky conflict of interest rules. There is no accountability and no oversight, just Liberals protecting their own. However, this cozy arrangement is now facing some well-deserved scrutiny, especially after Carney's investment fund, Brookfield, where he serves as chair, has come knocking on the government's door for $10 billion in taxpayer dollars—