Mr. Speaker, the House of Commons has been ground to a halt for over two weeks because the Liberal government refuses to comply with an order of the House to permit the distribution of the documents concerning a $400-million corruption scandal. These are heights we have not seen in quite some time, with a scandal of epic proportions. The Liberals have gone to extraordinary lengths to ensure that the public, the RCMP and the House do not gain access to the critical documents that would show what really went on in this so-called green slush fund scandal, which I will get into momentarily.
It is really important to note that the Auditor General of Canada, which is a non-partisan auditor of the House and of government spending, found that there was almost $400 million in misused taxpayer money, as well as, notably, 186 conflicts of interest for nine board members from this green slush fund. There were nine people who had 186 conflicts of interest, totalling about $400 million. The House has been ground to a halt because the Liberals refuse to reveal the documents that you yourself, Mr. Speaker, and the House ordered them to distribute, and they failed to comply. They have used a whole magnitude of different excuses. In fact, they cannot quite seem to get their story straight in terms of why they do not want to give those documents to Parliament as it has ordered, and we will get into that as well.
All parliamentary business has been ground to a halt for two weeks because of the refusal to comply. I want to talk a bit about what exactly went down at this green slush fund. It is quite interesting, and the tendrils into Liberal insiders go quite deep.
What we have been calling the green slush fund refers to something now defunct, a foundation of government called Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC. It was a foundation set up by a previous Liberal government in 2001; in essence, its purpose was to provide taxpayer funds to green technology. It has since carried on for a number of decades, and it is now defunct. It is just another foundation, another group, another organization that is in the graveyard of Liberal corruption. It is another fatality of Liberal insider behaviour.
The government of the day appoints a number of the board members for this fund, as we will call it. Certainly, the Prime Minister would have signed off on a number of the board members from the cabinet discussion, and that is important to remember. The Prime Minister appointed many of the board members on this fund. After the Liberal government was elected in 2015, things really took a turn in this foundation.
The Auditor General of Canada found that the Liberal government turned this foundation into what is, in essence, a slush fund, where Liberal insiders appointed to the board funnelled hundreds of millions of dollars to their own companies, into their own pockets. This totalled $400 million, with 186 conflicts of interest proven by the Auditor General. That is what we are talking about.
Just to get into a few more details, the Auditor General found that the fund gave $58 million to 10 ineligible projects that did not fall under the scope of what the fund was supposed to provide. They should not have received a penny, let alone almost $60 million. Of course, there was $334 million given to projects where board members had conflicts of interest. Notably, nine of the directors of the board had these 186 conflicts. They were very busy during the few years they were on that board.
Again, $58 million went to projects without ensuring contribution agreements were made. Not only were there conflicts of interest, but the Liberals were not even doing their due diligence on the ones who were not enriching themselves. It is just an utter mess. It shows no respect for the hard-earned taxpayer dollars the Liberals were just throwing out the door, with no regard for what it would mean to the ethical behaviour of government.
The Auditor General did quite interesting work here. Over a five-year period, there were 405 transactions approved by the board. The Auditor General sampled 226 transactions, so just over half, and found 186 conflicts, which ultimately works out to 82%. Therefore, 82% of the transactions she looked at were conflicts in which someone benefited from their own decision to sign over money. She made it very clear in her report that the blame for this scandal falls on the Liberal government's industry minister, who “did not sufficiently monitor” the contracts that were given to Liberal insiders.
Again, this fund was responsible for almost a billion dollars, but, according to the Liberals, they were not really paying attention. It is as if a billion dollars is the sort of change we would find in the bottom of a Liberal pocket and nothing to really be concerned about. Of course, now they have ground the House to a halt for two weeks because they are so concerned about it.
I want to talk a bit about some of the conflicts of interest that were found. They are quite interesting.
There was a board member named Andrée-Lise Méthot. She was appointed to the green slush fund in 2016. She runs a venture capital firm called Cycle Capital. We should remember that name. It is in the green technology field. I believe it is some sort of venture capital investment fund that gets investment dollars from government and elsewhere and then invests in other green technology companies and the like. Before and during Ms. Méthot's time on the board, her company received a quarter of a billion dollars in grants from the green slush fund to Cycle Capital. Some of that was before she was on the board, but while she was on the board, $114 million went to green companies that she had herself invested in. She personally approved this, enriching herself. She was appointed by the Liberals. Interestingly, during her time on the board, the value of Cycle Capital tripled. Again, it certainly pays to be a Liberal insider. It is no wonder; with a stamp of approval from the federal government, a company has gravitas, showing that it is a trustworthy company in a certain sense. Others can invest in it because the federal government has. Therefore, with these investments from taxpayers through the green slush fund, her company tripled in value.
I want to talk about some of the lobbyists for Cycle Capital because members may be familiar with them. I am sure we know who the environment minister is for the Liberal government. He is quite a notable or notorious, whichever word we choose to describe him, member of the Liberal cabinet. Before he was elected, he lobbied the Prime Minister's Office and the Department of Industry 25 times for Cycle Capital. At that time, Cycle Capital received $111 million. To his full credit, the minister was a very successful lobbyist for this company. Of course, when he was part of the company, he received shares for Cycle Capital, which he still holds today. That is good for him because the shares of that company have tripled in value in that time. It sure pays to be a Liberal insider. Again, it is reasonable to assume that he has made quite a bit of money. However, I think that what is very odd for taxpayers is the idea that a person can lobby the government dozens of times, bring in millions of dollars to a company, get elected and be at the cabinet table where these appointments are approved. Then, the people they know and used to lobby for go into this green slush fund and funnel more money to that company, and the shares in that company triple in value.
If any of the Canadians or Québécois watching are thinking about how they can get ahead in this economy, I do not know about other members, but I would say that all they have to do is start a tech company. As long as they are Liberal insiders, they can get hundreds of millions of dollars from the Liberal government. We are all in the wrong business if we want to get ahead in this country under the Liberals; they are doing a very good job lining their own pockets.
What is more interesting is that Ms. Méthot, the head of Cycle Capital, left the green slush fund in 2022 and went on to another Liberal board, the Canada Infrastructure Bank, which members will be very familiar with. It is ultimately a failed board that has taken in billions of dollars to build infrastructure. I do not believe it has completed one project in the almost 10 years that the government has been in power and has been talking about this Infrastructure Bank. It has had a whole host of problems, such as CEOs coming and going. However, Ms. Méthot went over to that one after she approved all that money for her own company and others that she had financial interests in. While she was at the Infrastructure Bank, she voted to give $170 million to a company owned by the recent chair, Annette Verschuren, who was appointed to the green slush fund by the Prime Minister. They are all connected, these folks, all the Liberal insiders. It is a great little rich party of people taking a lot of taxpayer money. That is what I found when researching this topic.
Annette Verschuren was found guilty of giving her own company money when she was on that board. We had both the Auditor General and the Ethics Commissioner of Canada saying that this was not good. The Ethics Commissioner found Ms. Verschuren guilty of breaking ethics law; again, this is a running theme with the Liberal government. We know the Prime Minister himself was found guilty twice. Other Liberal ministers were also found guilty. Their friend, whom they appointed to the green slush fund, funnelled money from taxpayer dollars to her own company and, ultimately, was found guilty of doing so by the Ethics Commissioner. She broke the law. Her company also received $12 million from other government funds and $50 million from Natural Resources Canada.
When people ask how the Conservatives are going to fix the budget, this is how: The gravy train will come to an end for Liberal insiders. We are talking about $400 million. That is a good place to save taxpayers some money and look to balance the books. This happens time and time again. This is, by far, not the first time we are talking about a misuse of taxpayer dollars.
There really are a number of these very shady individuals, or maybe they are good individuals; they are certainly good at getting money for themselves when they get appointed to this board. There is another guy I will talk about just briefly because he is interesting. Guy Ouimet was on the board, and he admitted in committee testimony that $17 million of green slush fund money went to companies in which he held financial interest.
What was really interesting about this is that these people are so rich they do not even understand what $17 million is. He said that it was a small amount of money. Meanwhile, we have two million Canadians going to food banks, and Liberal insiders are saying, “Well, it's just a small amount of money. I don't know what the big deal is.” It is quite embarrassing. The value of that company, since it got government funds, went up 1,000%. It sure pays to be a Liberal insider.
How about the green slush fund director, Stephen Kukucha? He is from British Columbia. He was a political staffer to a former Liberal environment minister. He was also an organizer for the Liberal Party for the Prime Minister in British Columbia. As a reward, he got a board appointment to this green slush fund. During his time on the board, companies he held financial interest in received $5 million. Again, at committee, he also said, “That's just a small amount of money, not a big deal.” I am laughing because it is just so outrageous that millions of dollars would be seen as not a big deal. Again, it pays to be a Liberal insider.
We know Liberals are using a lot of different excuses for why they should not have to obey an order from Parliament. I wanted to get into a few of them. They talk about how the idea that Parliament will compel documents that may have the names of all the other people who have received money, which may really bring to light the magnitude of this beyond even what we know from the Auditor General, is a violation of their charter rights. Demanding the documents might hold people accountable for possibly defrauding the government or bringing corruption into the government, but there is the idea that Canadians have no right to know how taxpayer dollars were funnelled into these people's pockets.
If their names are on those papers and they are found to have defrauded the government, then they should be held accountable. That is really what this whole place is about. The reason we are not a dictatorship is not just that we go to the ballot box every few years and get to freely choose our governments, but it is also that we have a system of democratic principles, rules and procedures that hold power accountable. Ultimately, Parliament is supreme, and Parliament has ruled, demanded and ordered the production of these documents.
Again, what we are debating is that the privilege of the House was violated because the Liberal government refuses to hand over all the documents. Of those that they did hand over, many were blacked out, or redacted. Ultimately, the rules that govern parliamentary privilege are constitutionally on par with the charter. If Parliament rules that we need to see those documents, the Liberal government has to comply.
I found that argument interesting. It almost seems as if the Liberals sort of default to saying “the charter” whenever they are in trouble, as if the charter is supposed to protect Liberals from their own corruption. I do not think so. The debate will go on and on in this place until they obey the ruling of the House and, ultimately, of the Speaker.
Andrew Coyne actually said this really well today in The Globe and Mail. He said, “The right of Parliament to send for ‘persons, paper and things’ is one of the most ancient...parliamentary privileges. It is crucial to the Commons' ability to act as a check on the executive.” Again, the thing that is keeping us from a dictatorship is the fact that we have checks and balances on power.
I would ask that the Liberals be reminded that they have a constitutional responsibility to the checks on power that we apply to them. That is the reason we are all here. If they do not have to obey an order of Parliament, we might as well all just pack up and go home. We might as well let the Liberals be a dictatorship in which they can decide whatever they want.
The opposition parties in the House, collectively, are demanding these documents. The Liberals have a minority government, so they have to comply. The Speaker has ruled this. I do find that that argument is quite a dangerous territory for the Liberals. What are they suggesting? Are they suggesting that we have no rights as parliamentarians? Then what are we doing here?
They go on and on. They are using tons of different excuses. One of the ones I found funny is when they say that this fund existed under former Conservative prime minister Stephen Harper, so how could we be criticizing it? The Auditor General herself looked at the green slush fund back in 2017, before it was a slush fund, and gave it a clean bill of health. Under Harper, it was well managed, but as soon the Liberals started to appoint the board members, that is when it went downhill. That is when Ms. Verschuren came into the picture and funnelled money to herself. She was found guilty of violating ethics laws, which is a running theme.
Before I conclude, I want to talk a bit about how the Liberals really do not have a leg to stand on. Even if this were the first time, it is unbelievable that we are talking about $400 million and the Liberals somehow do not have to give up the documents that Parliament has ordered. However, it is not the first time. This is a running pattern in the last nine years. I would like to talk about a few of those other instances.
Right when I was first elected, it was the WE Charity scandal. Do members remember that? It feels like a very long time ago, but that was a $1-billion scandal, where Liberals looked to give one billion taxpayer dollars to what was found to be quite a slimy organization that, prior to getting that $1 billion, promoted the Liberals at length, particularly the Trudeau family. The organization paid them money for various appearances. The former finance minister, Bill Morneau, was given a free trip, and I think his daughter received some sort of benefit. Therefore, a very tight-knit, almost fangirl-level organization to the Trudeau family was given $1 billion. That got so heated that summer that the Liberals prorogued Parliament just to avoid it, so maybe that is coming. Let us watch for that. If the Liberal government prorogues Parliament, then we know we have almost got them on something of true corruption because the same thing happened back in 2020.
Then, the following summer in 2021, we had the Winnipeg lab documents. For the first time in a century, an individual was called to the bar because Liberals were so desperate to avoid revealing the Winnipeg lab documents. There were two scientists from the Chinese Communist Party working in a high-ranking Winnipeg lab, who looked to be taking very secret information from Canada and who were marched out of that building. There were all these documents about it. The Liberals were so desperate to stop the public from finding out, they called a snap election. Therefore, they do not have a leg to stand on when they say, “We did nothing wrong. There is nothing to see here,” because we have seen this before. In fact, I could probably go on another 20 minutes about all the ethics violations of the government.
We, of course, remember the Aga Khan's billionaire island. Our Prime Minister loves his tropical vacations, and in December 2017, the Ethics Commissioner found he had violated ethics laws by taking a very hoity-toity fancy trip to a billionaire's tropical island with his family. That was just the first time.
Members will remember as well the second time, which was SNC-Lavalin. It was quite the scandal. The brave Jody Wilson-Raybould spoke out against the corruption she saw going on with the Prime Minister. He was found guilty of breaking an ethics law at that time. He was inappropriately pressuring the Attorney General. It was a very serious matter. In fact, the election that came a few months later was when the Prime Minister lost his majority and never recovered. The public has been really starting to see what is going on here.
We talk about $1 billion, $400 million and all these big numbers. What does that really mean to an individual person? I have a difficult time understanding how much $1 billion is. It is just such a shockingly high number. If we look at it, the average Canadian earns about $58,000 a year. Some earn more, and some earn less, but the average is about $58,000. In a two-parent household with two average incomes, that family pays, on average, about $18,000 in federal income tax. They work months of the year away from their families. They have to deal with office politics and all kinds of things to go to work. They have to pay their bills and support the public services, so they pay about $18,000 in federal taxes. Do members know how many families have to work an entire year to pay federal income tax so that Liberal insiders can enrich themselves with $390 million? Twenty-two thousand Canadian families had to work their butts off so Liberals could line their own pockets. That is unacceptable, and we are going to hold them accountable for it.