Debates of Oct. 2nd, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Julie Vignola, Bloc, Beauport—Limoilou, QC]

Madam Speaker, I am going to take the liberty of refocusing the debate on the subject at hand and not on name dropping, which may or may not be harmful depending on the situation.

My question is about Sustainable Development Technology Canada, or SDTC. Should the processes for appointing people to government positions not be reviewed? This would ensure that there are no conflicts of interest. It would also pave the way for preventive action when there is a potential conflict of interest, instead of having everything blow up and always having to play catch up with those mistakes.

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, should the rules be revised to triple emphasize that there should not be these kinds of conflict of interest? If there were ambiguity before, should additional measures be taken? I think probably, yes, there should be. I would also say that someone once told me when I was younger that the primary function of a lock is to keep an honest man honest. What was meant by that is that, if we have someone who has clear dishonest intent, they are going to try to circumvent any locks that are in place.

As such, I would say to the hon. member that, yes, we need to work on providing those clear protections for conflict of interest, but we see clearly with the government how they are consistently looking for ways to get around any kind of rules, and I think we need to have both good rules and good character-informing decision-making.

[Don Davies, NDP, Vancouver Kingsway, BC]

Madam Speaker, throughout this debate, the Conservatives continually do not want any focus on their last time in government, which just ended in 2015. They were the government before this one.

What happened in that government? Twice the Conservatives were found in contempt of Parliament, for the first time in history. They had a multi-billion-dollar loss of taxpayer dollars in the Phoenix pay scandal. Former cabinet minister Tony Clement directed a $50-million slush fund, funnelling millions to his Muskoka riding, including a $100,000 gazebo, only to leave the House after a sexting extortion scandal. They shovelled hundreds of millions of Canadian tax dollars to Conservative ridings after the 2008 recession, often displaying them on Conservative Party logo cheques. The PM's chief of staff paid for Senator Mike Duffy's legal fees, and there were four Conservative senators who had to be suspended without pay.

My question is this: Is it common sense for Canadians to re-elect a party with such a horrible record of corruption and misuse of taxpayer dollars? Is it common sense to just forget about that?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am sorry to say there is more nonsense in that question than I think I have time to wade through. Let me try to go in order and see how far I get. He said “contempt of Parliament”, right? This was a motion from the opposition that the opposition parties voted in favour of that criticized the government. This was not a finding by some objective body. This was opposition parties voting an opinion in the government, so that happened, but it was not a demonstration of anything other than the fact that other political parties in this place were not keen on what Conservatives were trying to do.

The Phoenix pay system was launched by this government and this government was responsible for the decision to push the button on that. Yes, Conservatives in government made spending decisions that benefited all parts of this country, regardless of who represented them. What became the major focal point for the opposition parties was apparently a scandal about how money was paid back to the taxpayer in the wrong way. Compare that to the scandals we are seeing under the Liberal government where hundreds of millions of dollars not being paid back is considered a normal day under the Liberals. There is absolutely no comparison—

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

We have to have two more questions.

The hon. member for Barrie—Innisfil.

[John Brassard, Conservative, Barrie—Innisfil, ON]

Madam Speaker, I do want to go back to Mark Carney, who absolutely loves the carbon tax. He is acting in the shadows right now of the Liberal government. We are hearing about contracts of $10 billion. We are hearing about other contracts that he is trying to get from the Liberal government, acting in the shadows, not being open, not being transparent. We have actually seen this before. Dominic Barton was a special adviser to the Prime Minister on finance in 2017. McKinsey ended up with $120 million in contracts.

How important is it that Mark Carney be held to account?

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, this is indeed the application of the kind of McKinsey model to Mark Carney. This is the model where we have very close relationships between elite insiders and the government. Those relationships may not be defined in traditional ways that trigger traditional conflict of interest mechanisms; nonetheless, they are close relationships that allow these insiders to have access to power and also to benefit personally and to have their company benefit. We saw this with Dominic Barton at McKinsey, and how Mr. Pickersgill, who was the leader of Canadian operations, was both supplying analysts to the government for work on the Advisory Council on Economic Growth and selling to the government, so he was able to drive up McKinsey's take from the government. It is the same model for the last nine years, benefiting well-connected insiders at the expense of the common people.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Madam Speaker, the member spoke about the House of Commons and the fact that we do represent Canadians in this place. What I find interesting is the double standard when it comes to the common-sense Conservatives, because they believe that we represent Canadians here, yet they oftentimes do a lot of name-calling of people who are not in this chamber and unable to defend themselves, for example, Mark Carney.

Today, I think, was the first time that they were able to use Dominic Barton's name without adding names to it. I noticed the member for Winnipeg North did reference somebody who participates in their caucus meetings, but without additional names. The Conservatives know that people who are not elected cannot be in here. They know it is the House of Commons, but time and time again, they add names.

Why are the common-sense Conservatives okay with name-calling when common citizens cannot be in here to defend themselves? Would the member call his party leader to account to say, “Let us actually remember who we represent here. Let us raise the bar in how we act.”

[Garnett Genuis, Conservative, Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, AB]

Madam Speaker, I make no apologies for engaging in debate about how powerful people who are not accountable influence government. However, if the member's concern is that Mark Carney is not able to be in the House to defend himself, I have a great idea: How about he run in a by-election? Given that he is effectively the finance minister anyway, he would be here on the floor to actually answer questions from the opposition.

[Bardish Chagger, Liberal, Waterloo, ON]

Madam Speaker, I rise on a point of order. I would like it noted that the Conservative member would rather do name-calling than actually remove name-calling.

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

That is debate.

The hon. member for Simcoe North has the floor.

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, it is an absolute pleasure to rise this evening and to see you in the chair. I hope that over the course of my speech, I will be able to elicit a smile or chuckle, because that is a little thing we have going.

Before I start, I will put government members on notice. If they are going to make accusations during questions and comments that the parliamentary privilege motion offends the Charter of Rights and Freedoms or that the Auditor General is very uncomfortable with the document production order, I would invite them to table the document or read specifically from whatever they purport to be quoting so we can determine whether they are stretching the truth.

If I look at the motion, it says, “the Law Clerk and Parliamentary Counsel shall provide forthwith any documents received by him, pursuant to this order, to the Royal Canadian Mounted Police for its independent determination of whether to investigate potential offences”. It is completely up to the RCMP whether it looks at the documents. It is completely up to the RCMP whether it decides to conduct an investigation.

Now that I have put government members on notice, I will get into my remarks, and I will ask the Chair for her indulgence. I will bring it home for members and put it all together, but to start, I will note that I had the great pleasure of being with a group of individuals at the Present Island beach club for what is called the muskie weekend. What do we do there? We share food, we share fellowship and we share fishing.

The individuals who were there, well-esteemed members of the community and great Canadians, had two challenges. One was about the capital gains tax, which is not the purpose of tonight's debate, so we will park that for now. The other was about corruption. A couple of members pulled me aside and asked me why it seemed that well-connected insiders have an inside track to government contracts. When regular, everyday Canadians are asking questions about corruption and about well-connected insiders having an inside track to government contracts, that pretty much tells us all we need to know.

I would note, from the letter the law clerk provided, that it is well within the right of the House to request documents. Page 2 of that letter reads, “I note that the Order is an exercise of the House of Commons' power to send for documents. This parliamentary privilege is rooted in the Preamble and section 18 of the Constitution Act, 1867, as well as section 4 of the Parliament of Canada Act.”

The Parliament of Canada and this chamber are able to ask for documents. They are able to ask for documents to be produced and are able to ask for documents to be made public. However, the Liberals do not share a great relationship with following House orders. We need only think about the Winnipeg lab documents, where they took the Speaker to court to prevent those documents from being made public. The documents have subsequently been made public, but the government was willing to take the Speaker of the House to court over them.

By the way, this motion was supported by a majority of members in the House. However, we can wonder why we would include the ability to send these documents to the RCMP should it wish to receive them. It is because the RCMP has identified multiple occasions where it has not been able to get documents from the government.

Do we need to remind government members about SNC-Lavalin? Do we need to remind government members about WE Charity? Do we need to remind government members about waiving parliamentary privilege to provide documents for the foreign interference scandal or, again, the Winnipeg lab documents, as I already mentioned?

There are Criminal Code provisions for breach of trust by public officials. It would be completely up to the RCMP whether it chooses to look at the documents and whether it chooses to allow those documents to inform an investigation if an investigation exists. We are not confusing “directing” with “making sure that the RCMP is informed”.

This is a government that has a challenge with the definition of the word “directing”, when we think about the Prime Minister directing an Attorney General to provide a break for a well-connected Liberal firm or the minister of public safety directing the head of the RCMP to improperly release documents with respect to the tragic shootings and killings in Nova Scotia.

This speaks to a broader issue of disrespect for Parliament. The government seems to treat this place like an inconvenience. Liberals seem to treat the House of Commons like an inconvenience and parliamentary committees as an inconvenience. Ministers routinely do not show up to committees when invited.

Let us just take a step back, regarding the respect for this place that the government does not have. During the pandemic, the government tried to shut this place down and give itself unlimited taxing and spending powers without the oversight of Parliament for two years. It prorogued Parliament in the middle of a scandal investigation of the WE Charity issue in order to prevent that investigation from being completed.

I already mentioned that it was willing to take a Speaker to court to prevent the release of the Winnipeg lab documents. How could we forget the Emergencies Act, which the government invoked? It provided no evidence to Parliament and had ministers going out and giving press conferences, giving misleading and false information to members of the press on the basis of which the Emergencies Act was invoked in the first place. This is a government that has no respect for the House, no respect for the chamber and no respect for the orders or motions that are passed in this place. The House is merely an inconvenience for the government.

If the government cared about institutions as it says it does, it would abide by motions passed in the House by a majority of members. It is no wonder that Canadians are losing faith in their institutions. The government does not even have faith in this chamber or this institution itself. Why should it expect that Canadians would continue to have faith in this institution?

If conflicts of interest were cookies, the government would have found its hand in the cookie jar way too many times: the Aga Khan conflict of interest; spouses of ministers or spouses of very senior staff lobbying improperly for their clients, especially during COVID; SDTC, the entire purpose of this debate tonight, where the AG found 186 conflicts of interest and called into question almost $400 million of that fund that was spent. The self-dealing at SDTC is completely unacceptable.

I have a theory about why the government has a problem understanding what conflicts of interest mean. I believe that Liberals believe that everyone, under all circumstances, will always act in the most altruistic fashion. That is, they believe that if someone's intentions are pure in their heart, they can do no wrong. I actually think that, instead, temptation overcomes those altruistic intentions. That is reality.

Conservatives believe that, even when altruism and pure intentions are present, we have to protect against the temptation for people to act improperly. It has nothing to do with whether there is an actual conflict of interest, even though the Auditor General identified 186 conflicts of interest. Rather, it has to do with whether there was a perception of a conflict of interest. There is no better example of this than when the Prime Minister tried to appoint former governor general David Johnston as a special rapporteur. Mr. Johnston is a great, eminent Canadian, a wonderful person and a good man. However, he was a very wrong choice for the role that the Prime Minister believed he could fill. Why was that? It was not because there was an actual conflict of interest, although there might have been, but because there was a perception of a conflict of interest.

When reasonable people ask why well-connected insiders are getting rich, it tells me all I need to know. A conflict of interest exists. It is not about whether someone's heart is in the right place, whether their motivation is pure or whether there is an actual conflict of interest; it is about whether there is a perception, whether a reasonable person could perceive there to be a conflict of interest. The other side has a lot of lawyers. I have a hard time understanding why members of the government, time and time again, fail to grasp a very basic legal concept about conflicts of interest, because they continually offend it. It is a simple legal test. Whether a conflict exists is a question of law. It is whether there is a perception of a conflict by a reasonable person. As I mentioned, regular Canadians are asking why it looks as though well-connected Liberal insiders have the inside track in getting rich off government contracts. They are reasonable people.

In the United States, there's something called the False Claims Act; under this act, whistle-blowers can get financial compensation for pointing out frauds on the taxpayer, when money is then recovered. We should seriously consider whether Canada needs its whistle-blower protection laws to be enhanced so that they would provide financial compensation. Given the frauds that we have seen exposed and the fact that the government did not support a very reasonable Bloc bill on enhancing whistle-blower protections, this is something we should look at. We can think about arrive scam. Maybe we would have found out about that and recovered government money sooner. Maybe we could have prevented more money from being wasted.

Let us go back to SDTC for a minute and talk about the actual conflicts of interest that existed. As I mentioned, the Auditor General found 186 conflicts of interest. An individual, Ms. Andrée-Lise Méthot, was a board member at SDTC. I do not enjoy naming individuals in the House, so I try not to on most occasions. To be fair to that individual, I have never met her. For all I know, she is a very wonderful person and took on that role to do a great thing for the country when she was asked to sit on the board of the SDTC.

However, the Auditor General found conflicts of interest where this individual was present and voting in favour of awarding money to companies in which this individual had a financial interest. It would appear that the temptation to enrich oneself overcame the initial pure intentions, and it gets worse. Even in the face of an investigation by the Auditor General and an internal investigation, this individual, Ms. Méthot, was given a promotion. She was appointed to the board of the Canada Infrastructure Bank.

Why would the government appoint an individual who was the subject of an investigation for self-dealing and conflicts of interest to another job? The facts were well known to everyone at the time of the appointment and, even if they were not well known to people in government at the time, those facts were made public eventually and everybody knew. The government did not have to wait for the end of the investigation to see the documents that show that this individual was present at board meetings where she approved, or partially approved, money going to companies in which she had a pecuniary or financial interest.

Getting these documents is a right of Parliament, the House and the chamber. It is a right of all of us as members in this place to request documents. We have established that it is a right of the House to request documents. They can be made available to the media. They can be made available to the RCMP. When those documents are provided to the House, maybe some members will post them online. If the RCMP wishes to ignore them, that would be up to its officers. If the RCMP officers believe they may not be able to rely on those documents in an investigation, that is their choice. If a member from the justice department, who is being consulted on a breach of trust, a breach of fiduciary duty or a breach of trust by a public official, which are Criminal Code acts, chooses not to rely on those documents, that is up to them.

Nowhere in the motion today, or in the original motion, does it suggest that the RCMP take any action or that the Auditor General take any action. It is up to them. Even though she has said she did not find any criminality, that is not what the Auditor General was looking at. The Auditor General was looking at whether there were conflicts of interest and, boy, did she find a lot of them. She found 186 of them, calling into question up to $400 million of the fund that may have been improperly paid through self-dealing or to ineligible recipients.

I would completely defer to law enforcement officers on how they choose to deal with the information should it be made available to them. That is unlike the government, which tried to strong-arm an Auditor General in a criminal investigation to help its friends or, whether it was directed or not, or whether it was wise for them, tried to improperly pressure the commissioner of the RCMP to release information about the firearms that were used in the absolutely disgusting tragedy in Nova Scotia while that investigation was under way because the government had a piece of firearms legislation, and it wanted to benefit politically by having that information made public.

I would welcome the parliamentary secretary to the government House leader's questions on any of these matters. If he wants, we can go back and forth for the full ten minutes.

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

Madam Speaker, I would be happy to go back and forth for the full 10 minutes and would give the member leave to do so.

Having said that, I do not think the member really understands what the Conservative Party is asking. The government understands what has taken place and the need to freeze funding, replace the board and have the two internal audits. We recognize that the Auditor General has good recommendations, which we support. We will ensure there is a consequence for those actions.

The issue at hand is the motion, which says the Conservative Party of Canada believes that it should gather information through the privileges of the House and then submit it directly to the RCMP. Many legal experts would challenge the Conservative Party on that idea. At the end of the day, it could have charter and constitutional impacts, and all the Conservatives will say is to name them. The Conservatives have lawyers within their own caucus who should have a sense of what they are doing.

The provincial auditor and the RCMP have felt uncomfortable with this. Why does the Conservative Party not feel uncomfortable with it?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I invited the member, before my speech started, to bring up a quote or fact he could rely on and he did none of that. He could not even name an expert who would back up his point. He just says there are experts who might, like maybe lawyers in the Conservative caucus. There are a lot of lawyers in the Liberal caucus, and they have been real quiet on what it means to be in a conflict of interest.

I welcome additional questions from the member. I always enjoy getting on my feet to answer them, no matter how unbelievably out of touch they are.

[Gabriel Ste-Marie, Bloc, Joliette, QC]

Madam Speaker, all the foundations, like the one in question, were created in the late 1990s. They were the brainchild of Marcel Massé, who was president of the Treasury Board under Jean Chrétien.

The government chose to impose austerity on the provinces, cutting transfers by 40% over three years. Ottawa was left with large surpluses. It looked bad on the balance sheets, so they chose to put those billions of dollars into arm's length foundations, creating all these problems we now know about.

Way back in 2005, the then auditor general of Canada, Sheila Fraser, published a damning report. It is now 2024. Is it not time to put an end to all these arm's length foundations, once and for all?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I thank my friend kindly.

I serve with him on the finance committee, and he does an excellent job on that committee. We have a great working relationship.

He raises a very interesting point. The myriad of separate funds, boards of directors and organizations that give money out invite conflicts of interest and corruption. We should reconsider having all of these organizations and institutions that have significant control over the public purse.

[Taylor Bachrach, NDP, Skeena—Bulkley Valley, BC]

Madam Speaker, I thank my colleague from Simcoe North for his remarks on an amendment to a motion that we are supporting, which is a good thing.

My question is at a higher level. The member did an excellent job of enumerating the Liberal government's many ethical breaches, and we have heard other colleagues in this House, both from the NDP and across the way, list the many ethical breaches of the former Conservative government.

For an average citizen watching this debate and reflecting on successive Liberal and Conservative governments that seem to have trouble acting ethically, what are they to take away from that? Is one of the messages that the protections against such ethical breaches are not strong enough? Is that one of the messages that people should take away from watching successive Liberal and Conservative governments not act in the public interest and break the ethical code that is supposed to govern this place?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, the question from my hon. colleague was a very good one, and I will quite simply say that if anyone breaks the law, there should be consequences. If anyone breaches the Conflict of Interest Act, there should be consequences. If anyone breaches the public trust under the Criminal Code, they should be charged.

It does not matter to me what party a person belongs to. It does not matter to me what position they currently hold, have held or might hold in the future. If there is the breaking of a law, the breaching of public trust or a breach of the Conflict of Interest Act, there should be consequences.

By the way, I will add that I support fully increasing the penalties for breaches of public trust or of the Conflict of Interest Act.

[Ziad Aboultaif, Conservative, Edmonton Manning, AB]

Madam Speaker, the fact that there have been so many breaches of conflict of interest leads to the corruption conversation here. It seems like corruption is becoming a culture in the Canadian government system on the federal level.

How dangerous can that be to the institution and the way we do things? How can we continue to govern with the trust of the people if this level of corruption is taking place in this country?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, we are entering a culture of corruption, maybe even a culture of kleptocracy. What we are overseeing here are well-connected Liberal insiders who have the inside track to government programs. We see self-dealing. The Auditor General could not have been more clear. There are 186 examples of conflict of interest.

[Kevin Lamoureux, Liberal, Winnipeg North, MB]

Madam Speaker, could the member explain to me what appears to be the lack of confidence the Conservative Party has in the RCMP institution?

Does he believe that the RCMP does not have the ability to do what it has been asked to do in terms of investigation of authorities and working with the independence of our judicial system so that the Conservatives feel obligated to go out and get information and direct it using their privileges as parliamentarians and give that information directly to the RCMP? Does he not have confidence in the RCMP?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, artificial intelligence is getting so good. That cannot be real, what this member just asked. Do we have confidence in the RCMP? Of course we do, but let us remember the record of the government: not waiving cabinet confidence with respect to the SNC-Lavalin and not waiving cabinet confidence with respect to the invocation of the Emergencies Act, which by and large ended up preventing the RCMP from getting documents.

That is the record of the government. We, of course, have great faith in the RCMP, but the government has frustrated the RCMP's ability to get documents to prevent itself from being investigated.

[Larry Maguire, Conservative, Brandon—Souris, MB]

Madam Speaker, I just want my colleague to expand on what we are talking about here, regarding the alleged failure to produce documents pertaining to Sustainable Development Technology Canada. This was all supposed to be about sustainability, and here we are with a government that is showing some of the largest corruption of any government in Canadian history. We are here to get to the bottom of accountability.

I asked about the size of this scandal, which seems to me to be the largest I have ever heard of in Canadian history. Could he elaborate on that?

[Adam Chambers, Conservative, Simcoe North, ON]

Madam Speaker, I think my kids might have stayed up to watch this, so I will just say goodnight to them, Davie and Cooper.

The Auditor General has called into question almost $400 million of payments out of this fund. That either went as a matter of conflict of interest and self-dealing, or to recipients who were ineligible to receive the funds in the first place. The sheer size of this boondoggle is quite massive, the likes of which we have never seen before.

[Kelly McCauley, Conservative, Edmonton West, AB]

Madam Speaker, I am very pleased to join the debate today on the current scandal. I am going to start with a quote from Andy Warhol: “I wake up every morning. I open my eyes and think: here we go again.” It is another Liberal scandal. It is another case of Liberals benefiting Liberal insiders, Liberals blocking the legally ordered production of documents and the Liberal government disrespecting Parliament.

Those watching at home ask, “Which scandal are we talking about?” This includes my colleague's son, who is probably one of two or three people still watching on CPAC. They want to know which scandal; there have been so many. Are we here talking about the SNC-Lavalin scandal, in which the government interfered with a justice case so that their preferred company, SNC-Lavalin, would escape being banned from bidding on government procurement projects?

Are we here talking about the WE Charity scandal, in which the government used taxpayer dollars to hire and pay off the Prime Minister's family? They bailed out the broken company of the creepy WE founders, who were famous Liberal Party promoters. The new Quebec Liberal lieutenant, the current Minister of Procurement, who was the Treasury Board minister at the time, broke and violated the Official Languages Act to ensure that a sole-sourced $950-million contract was given to WE Charity.

We can think about that. A man from the government, someone who was supposed to be representing Quebec interests, violated the Official Languages Act so that a unilingual company made up of friends of the Prime Minister got a sole-sourced contract.

Of course, we remember that the finance minister at the time, Bill Morneau, received a $47,000 gift from WE Charity to fly his family on a luxury vacation. This is the same WE Charity he was funnelling money to with his budgets and that also employed his daughter.

Is it the Prime Minister's vacation scandal? We ask, “Which one?” I should be more specific. Is it the billionaire island scandal, in which the Prime Minister received a free trip from a registered lobbyist? Is it perhaps the surfing holiday scandal? On the very first officially recognized Truth and Reconciliation Day, the Prime Minister headed off to Tofino to go surfing. Perhaps it is the most recent Christmas scandal, in which the Prime Minister went on vacation to Jamaica. He received a $9,000-a-night gift from a friend who is also, of course, a donor to the Trudeau Foundation. Luckily, this time, it was not a Trudeau Foundation donor linked to the PRC, at least not that we know of.

Is it perhaps the ArriveCAN scandal, in which the government gave millions to companies to do no work for an app that did not work? The app sent 10,000 Canadians into quarantine by mistake. When we had the government in the mighty OGGO committee, we actually heard that they did not even test the app upgrade that they paid millions for before releasing it and inflicting it upon Canadians.

I would like to continue with some of these scandals. How much time do I have for this speech? I only have 16 minutes, so I do not have enough time to cover the rest.