Debates of Oct. 2nd, 2024

Reference to Standing Committee on Procedure and House Affairs

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, today, we are debating the Liberal government again snubbing its nose at Parliament and at members of Parliament. A parliamentary committee rightfully requested documents on Sustainable Development Technology Canada, otherwise known as the $1-billion green slush fund.

What we know already smells terrible, and I will get more into this. The Liberals produced documents, but what they presented was all censored, all blacked out. Why is this? We have to believe it would be even more incriminating for the Liberals than what we know already.

The Auditor General found that 80% of the contracts she examined were awarded to people on the board. This equals $380 million. If we extrapolate that to the entire fund, it equals about $800 million, including the money in the contracts she did not examine.

The Liberals have been known to be very extravagant in their spending, but one thing they decided to tighten up was the Auditor General's budget. Why would that be? It is because this office holds government to account, and the Liberals are not too keen about this.

What happened? In 2019, the minister of industry appointed someone as chair of Sustainable Development Technology Canada, and this person's companies had received contracts, money from the government. The minister was warned not to do this, because it was improper. However, that does not seem to be of concern to the Liberals, and he went on to appoint the chair and other people on the board.

What did members of the board do? They awarded contracts to each other for hundreds of millions of dollars. One appointment made by the Prime Minister was that of Andrée-Lise Méthot, who owned Cycle Capital. This was very curious. She received $250 million in grants for her company. That is a quarter of a billion dollars, and about half of that money was awarded when she was on the board.

Someone very interesting worked for Ms. Méthot for many years as a lobbyist with Cycle Capital. This person lobbied the Prime Minister and the Liberals for the company 25 times before getting elected. Who might that be? It is the Minister of Environment and Climate Change.

We have heard in the House how the minister continues to have shares in this company. Do the redacted documents incriminate him and other Liberals? We do not know. Canadians have a right to be suspicious and to be concerned.

The Liberals, who are kept in power by the NDP and Bloc, have a long rap sheet, right from the top down. I am sure the Speaker has taken blood tests. I have, and most people have. When someone gets a blood test, they get a sample of what is in the system and they can then find out if there is a disease. This right here, from what we can see and have seen, is throughout the body. What we see with this scandal is symptomatic right across the board.

We saw that with the WE Charity. In June 2020, the Prime Minister announced that he had chosen the WE Charity to run the $912-million Canada student service grant. Why would he do this when there was already a system within government paid by taxpayers to run it? The fact of the matter is that the Prime Minister's immediate family benefited from hundreds of thousands of dollars in speaking fees. There was public uproar that led to the Liberals hastily cancelling the contract with the WE Charity.

Apples do not fall far from the tree. There is the Minister of Employment, Workforce Development and Official Languages, the member for Edmonton Centre, who has a company called Global Health Imports. He received $120 million in government contracts, including while he was a minister. Time does not allow me to talk about other former Liberal MPs, like Frank Baylis, who got hundreds of millions of dollars in sole source contracts. There is also the ArriveCAN scam. The problem goes all throughout the government.

We need the documents, and we need them today.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, time and time again we have seen scandal after scandal and more and more corruption, probably the most corrupt government in the history of our country.

I would like to ask our hon. colleague whether he has more examples than just what his six minutes afforded him to provide. I wonder whether he has seen more scandals that he would like to bring forward.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, rather than six minutes, I suppose I could be here for six hours. I think of the Winnipeg lab scandal, where, again, the House committee ordered papers to be released to show what was happening there because there was a scandal. The Liberals said no. They were not going to release the documents, so what did the Speaker do? He actually ordered them to produce the documents. What did the Liberals do? They took their own Speaker, a Liberal member, to court to block him from releasing those documents. Then they hurried to call an election.

That is one example; maybe I will get a chance to give another one.

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

Mr. Speaker, this foundation, like all the others, was created by the Liberal government at the time because all transfers to the provinces were cut back and they ended up with a surplus. To save face, the government put that money into arm's length foundations so that it would not appear on the government's balance sheet.

Was it not a bad practice from the outset to want to invest so much money without having any control over these foundations?

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I think the program had good objectives when it was established. The Auditor General conducted an investigation in 2017, when the person in charge of SDTC had been appointed by Mr. Harper. The Auditor General concluded that it was working very well at the time. Then the Liberals started meddling in this to see how they could personally benefit from taxpayers' money.

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

Mr. Speaker, I think it is important to recognize that what the Conservatives are asking for specifically is that information be gathered and then be provided directly to the RCMP. There are very serious issues related to our Constitution and our charter, to such a degree that the RCMP and the Auditor General have expressed extreme discomfort with regard to what the Conservative Party is attempting to do.

Does the member not at least care enough to address those points in his comments?

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I would say that the truth is that the Liberals are having the most discomfort with producing the documents. Let me give an example. There is carbon tax Carney, who was appointed as a special adviser to the finance minister and who wants to be the next Liberal leader. However, he directs an investment firm called Brookfield Asset Management and is trying to get into talks to access billions of dollars of taxpayer dollars and pension assets.

Is this more of the same? It is of great concern.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am wondering whether the hon. member will comment on the fact that nothing in what was being proposed contemplated the redaction of the documents, and that there actually seems to have been a concerted effort on the part of the Prime Minister's office and the Privy Council Office to conceal the information that was requested by Parliament.

[Marc Dalton, Conservative, Pitt Meadows—Maple Ridge, BC]

Mr. Speaker, it is a parliamentary privilege, a right of the committees, to be able to examine the documents, and we are being stymied as far as Parliament. We are very concerned with what we have seen, and there is much more beyond that. We want to see the documents produced as soon as possible.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I will be splitting my time with the member for Cariboo—Prince George.

I rise today to speak to a serious violation of the privileges of parliamentarians stemming from the government's refusal to comply with a Conservative motion passed on June 10 of this year. As the Speaker unequivocally stated, the House of Commons holds the undeniable right to compel production of documents necessary for fulfilling its duties. Exercising this right, we ordered the government, Sustainable Development Technology Canada and the Auditor General to submit specific documents within 30 days.

The documents, created or dated since January 1, 2017, include all correspondence among government officials regarding SDTC, contribution and funding agreements involving SDTC, financial records of companies where current or former directors had ownership or financial interests, all conflict of interest declarations, minutes from the board of directors and project review committee meetings, all correspondence between directors and management, and additional documents used by the Auditor General in preparing her report presented to the House on June 4.

Interestingly, the Liberals were the only party to vote against the motion. Now, over 30 days have passed since the adoption of the motion, and members of the House, along with Canadians, are still left questioning how the government's green slush fund improperly dispersed around $830 million in taxpayer dollars. The lack of compliance in providing requested documents completely undermines Parliament's ability to conduct a thorough oversight, especially regarding taxpayer money management and government programs.

Such shortcomings erode public trust and hinder effective governance, something the Liberals are far too comfortable with. In a democratic system, it is paramount that the government remain accountable to the people it serves. The people are not here to serve the government. The ruling should serve as a wake-up call for the Liberal government to respect, once and for all, parliamentary protocols and to ensure transparency when using taxpayer money.

I want to remind the House of the mandate letter written by the Prime Minister himself to Canadians in 2015, which expressed his deep commitment to our nation and gratitude to those who placed their trust in him. He stated, “I am committed to leading an open, honest government that is accountable to Canadians, lives up to the highest ethical standards, brings our country together, and applies the utmost care and prudence in the handling of public funds.” What an abject failure and what a joke on Canadians that was.

Fast-forward to today, and we see a stark contrast between those aspirational words and the actions of the government. If the Prime Minister were truly committed to the promises he made, he would stop evading accountability, listen to the concerns of the House and release all unredacted documents. Instead, the government is taking unprecedented steps to withhold information related to the green slush fund. All that the letter does is serve as a testament to his litany of broken promises.

The motion follows the AG's damning and explosive report on the SDTC, also known as the Liberals' green slush fund. The Auditor General took only a sampling of the funding and found that 82% of that sample was marred by conflict of interest totalling $330 million. Clearly there are secrets that the Liberals do not want Canadians to uncover. I wonder why.

The Auditor General also found that SDTC did not follow conflict of interest policies in 90 cases, spent nearly $76 million on projects connected to the Liberals' friends appointed to run SDTC, spent $59 million on projects that were not allowed to have been awarded any money, and spent $12 million on projects that were both a conflict of interest and ineligible for funding. In one instance, the Prime Minister's hand-picked SDTC chair siphoned off a whopping $217,000 to her own company.

The Prime Minister knew, and he refused to stop the Liberals' friends at SDTC from engaging in this blatant level of corruption. The AG made it clear that the blame for the scandal falls squarely on the Prime Minister's industry minister, who did not sufficiently monitor the contracts that were given to Liberal insiders. There is no such thing anymore, under nine years of the current government, as ministerial accountability.

The scandal is not merely about mismanagement; it also raises serious concerns about how taxpayer money is being funnelled to Liberal insiders. The findings indicate a systemic failure in oversight and governance within SDTC. The AG pointed out that significant funds were allocated without proper scrutiny, allowing conflicts of interest to flourish. The implications extend beyond just financial mismanagement; they highlight a culture within the Liberal government that seems to prioritize loyalty and connection with insiders over transparency and accountability to Canadians.

SDTC was intended to support innovative projects that would benefit Canadians, but instead appears to have been transformed into simply a tool for political patronage. The fact that 123 million dollars' worth of contracts were awarded inappropriately only compounds the concerns. How did the Liberals respond? They responded the only way they know how: mislead and deflect.

Just last week, the government House leader posted a video in response to our motion demanding the release of the documents and exposing the massive corruption we have called upon the RCMP to investigate. Instead of addressing the elephant in the room, which is the misuse of taxpayers' money, the member resorted to denial and deflection, absurdly claiming that by insisting on transparency and accountability, the handing over of the documents, we as Conservatives are somehow attacking Canadian charter rights. This is a blatant attempt to shift focus away from the Liberals' reckless spending and corruption.

To clarify for those at home who might be puzzled by the member's comments, let me make it clear: The motion is solely about demanding the release of documents; it is not related to Canadian charter rights. Since when has anyone on the Liberal benches shown any real concern for defending the charter rights of Canadians? Where was the supposed commitment when the Liberals invoked the Emergencies Act in 2022, only to be severely embarrassed by Justice Mosley in his federal court ruling that claimed there were serious violations of the charter—

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The hon. member for Beauport—Limoilou on a point of order.

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

Mr. Speaker, I am sorry to interrupt my hon. colleague's speech, but unfortunately, a phone is vibrating near the microphone, so the interpreters cannot do their job properly.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

The phone on the table can just be put on the seat.

Hopefully we will now have the translation.

The hon. member for Brantford—Brant has the floor.

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I was talking about Justice Mosley's decision, stating clear violations under section 8 and under section 2(b). The government claims that it is appealing this, perhaps all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada. That remains to be seen.

We have other scams. Let us not forget that this is not a one-off when it comes to scandals with the current government and, very similar in relation to withholding documents, the Winnipeg lab scandal is a classic example.

Parliament explicitly demanded unredacted documents related to the firing of two scientists at the National Microbiology Laboratory reportedly involving national security concerns and yet, again, the government refused to comply with orders of the House. The government even took the unprecedented step of suing its own Speaker to block the release in another blatant attempt to cover its tracks, silencing stories that could embarrass it. The government's constant dodging of transparency reeks of corruption, and Canadians are left wondering what other secrets it is hiding behind closed doors.

However, unlike the Winnipeg lab scandal, it does not appear that a federal election will be covering the government's tracks this time. This scandal surrounding SDTC is not just about lost funds. It represents a broader erosion of trust between the government and the people it serves. It is a stark reminder of the consequences when transparency is sacrificed for political expediency.

It is time for the government to stop the obfuscation and the cover-ups, and deliver the documents that this House has ordered. Conservatives will get answers. We will continue to fight for the rights of Canadians who deserve better than the blatantly incompetent and corrupt government. The ask is simple: Hand over the documents.

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

Mr. Speaker, the ask is very simple coming from the Conservative Party. It is to get the documents to the RCMP. The member's professional background, I would have thought, would have raised some flags about the Charter of Rights. Also, we have the RCMP and the Auditor General indicating that they are not comfortable, extremely not comfortable, with the tactic that is being used.

What the member does not make reference to is the internal audit that was done, the audit by the Auditor General and the questioning put forward in standing committees. Rather, in its preoccupation with hunger for power, the Conservative Party is prepared to do whatever it takes, even if it is overriding the charter. Is the member not concerned at all about the behaviour of the Conservative Party with respect to that?

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, the hunger that I proudly represent as part of this Conservative Party, the next governing party of this nation, is the hunger for transparency and accountability, a term that is completely lost on that member, the Prime Minister and his front bench because we have gone down this road time after time.

There is some misconception that somehow assisting a law enforcement agency with investigating criminality surrounding this scandal is a breach of charter rights. That is hogwash. The police seek resources to receive information all the time. Parliament, the supreme authority when it comes to releasing documents, has that power. We are simply assisting the RCMP officers to do their job. We are not directing them to do their job, as some might argue. We are merely assisting them.

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

Mr. Speaker, I have a question for my colleague.

We know that these foundations were created by the Chrétien government in the late 1990s. When the government made major cuts to provincial transfers, it ended up with significant surpluses, which it hid in arm's-length foundations.

In 2005, former auditor general of Canada Sheila Fraser published a scathing report, one chapter of which was entitled “Accountability of Foundations”. She found that the federal government had transferred $9 billion to 15 foundations from 1998 to 2002 alone. That is equivalent to $17 billion today. She also found that the government had no control over $7 billion of that $9 billion.

That report was published in 2005. It is now 2024. Has this not been going on for long enough?

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, I could not agree more. Perhaps the member and his entire caucus will think twice about continuing to show confidence in this corrupt government. How many more scandals do we have to be exposed to as parliamentarians and Canadians? Let us not forget the very damning commentary that was captured on a secret tape between the whistle-blower who exposed this corruption and, I believe, criminality, and the assistant deputy minister for industry, who claimed that this had the makings of yet another sponsorship-like scandal that brought down the Chrétien and Martin government.

I would hope that all opposition MPs who are listening to my comments and have heard those of the assistant deputy minister will reflect upon that the next time a confidence motion is presented to this House to end this corrupt government once and for all.

[Peter Julian, NDP, New Westminster—Burnaby, BC]

Mr. Speaker, we are supporting the privilege motion. We do not believe in supporting Liberal scandals, any more than we believe in supporting Conservative scandals.

It is a bit rich for any Conservative to rise in this House and talk about transparency. When the Harper regime was in power, the Conservatives blocked many investigations into these scandals: the anti-tourism funding of $3.1 billion with no paper trail; the Phoenix pay system at a cost of $2.2 billion; F-35 procurement, which cost billions; G8 misspending at a cost of $1 billion; and the ETS scandal that involved $400 million. Conservatives blocked each one of those investigations.

How can they talk now about transparency when they were so deplorable when they were in government?

[Larry Brock, Conservative, Brantford—Brant, ON]

Mr. Speaker, if the member is concerned about transparency and accountability, he will vote to bring down the government.

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, I thank my colleagues for the rousing round of support.

What brought us here today is another day with yet another scandal by the government. It was nine years ago, and it seems like a long time ago, when the member for Papineau was campaigning to be the next Prime Minister of our country. He told Canadians that, under his governance, Canadians would see the most open and transparent government in the history of our country. He said that sunshine would be the best disinfectant. I believe he said sunny ways would be brought back to this country.

What have we seen in the last nine years? We have seen “elbowgate”, the cash-for-access scandal, Aga Khan, cultural appropriation, “gropegate” and sole-source contracts. This is like K-TEL best hits. There was also the WE scandal and clam scam. I will remind Canadians who are paying attention, and all those who are in the gallery today, what the clam scam was.

The former fisheries minister, now the Minister of Public Safety, and the Prime Minister's most trusted confidant, awarded a contract to a group being managed by a cousin or a brother-in-law of that minister. The company was also run by a former Liberal minister and the brother of a sitting Liberal member of Parliament. That essentially took almost 500 jobs from the town of Grand Banks in Newfoundland and awarded it to another group. Luckily, we exposed it and we were able to get those jobs back for the town of Grand Banks. I still get letters of support and thanks because we were the only ones who stood up for that town.

Time and again, we have seen the Prime Minister and his ministers evade accountability. It is always somebody else's problem. It is always somebody else's fault. It is scandal after scandal, corruption after corruption. There was the Winnipeg labs scandal, GC Strategies, 72 secret orders in council, and skipping the very first Truth and Reconciliation Day to go surfing in Tofino. That is what our Prime Minister did.

The Prime Minister, when he was the member for Papineau campaigning to be the next Prime Minister, put his hand on his heart and said that reconciliation and relationships with our indigenous people was the most important relationship for the government. What have we seen since that time? I remember the Prime Minister standing up and thanking indigenous protesters for their donation when all they were asking for was clean drinking water in their communities.

There were $6,000-a-night hotel rooms in London for the Queen's funeral. We saw some of our worst criminals, Paul Bernardo and Luka Magnotta, receive prison transfers in the darkness of night. They were transferred from our most secure prisons to our medium-security prisons. Most recently, the government bought a $9-million condo for the Prime Minister's friend in New York City.

We should never forget the other Randy. A company owned and run by one of the ministers here, who happens to have the same first name as Randy, and his partner in that two-person company, received millions of dollars of federal funding, which all kind of disappeared and there was lots of kerfuffle around it. There were discussions between the two partners. The one partner who was called before committee to testify said it was another Randy, but he could not remember the name of that Randy or was not going to provide the other Randy's last name.

Then there are the lavish vacations with wealthy donors. The government has repeatedly violated public trust and lost the moral authority to govern.

Now I will go into why we are here today.

All those who sit in this House are elected by the people, by Canadians. All 338 members are elected to be the voice of the Canadians who elected us. This is the House of Commons. It's the people's House. When the House mandates that something be done, we would think the Prime Minister and ministers would follow those orders.

Sustainable Development Technology Canada is a federally funded not-for-profit that approves and disburses millions of dollars in funds annually to clean technology companies. SDTC was established in 2001 by the Government of Canada through the Canada Foundation for Sustainable Development Technology Act to fund the development and demonstration of new technologies that promote sustainable development. It is an arm's-length, not-for-profit organization that was created to support projects that develop and demonstrate new technologies that address issues related to climate change, air quality, clean water and clean soil.

It should be noted that in 2017, SDTC received a clean bill of health. All the findings at that point showed that everything was above board. Then along came the Prime Minister and his ministers. They hand-picked the board members and the chair, who then proceeded to spend almost a billion dollars of taxpayer funds. There were 186 times that the Auditor General found conflicts of interest, meaning the board of directors and the chair hand-picked where funding was going. Some of that funding went to their very own companies.

This House ordered an investigation and that the papers be delivered so the RCMP could have a look to see if indeed there was some criminality involved. That was an order from the Speaker. That was an order from this House. The Prime Minister ordered that those papers would be delivered, but they would be heavily redacted so that no investigation could be done. It begs the question: What more are the Liberals hiding?

Up to that point, SDTC continued to operate, but all of a sudden, its annual reports have ceased and it is refusing to answer questions. Over $330 million of taxpayers' money were directed to companies where the very board members who approved the funding had clear conflicts of interest. Additionally, the Auditor General found that the board authorized another $59 million in projects that were beyond the foundation's legal mandate.

The Prime Minister's hand-picked board members, including the chair, found themselves in positions where they could directly benefit their own companies. We mentioned that. They funnelled taxpayers' dollars, unaccounted for and unchecked, to their own companies. Nine directors were found by the Auditor General to be responsible for the 186 conflicts of interest. It is unbelievable.

The Conservatives want to get to the bottom of this. We want to hold the government accountable, and it is only the Conservatives who are doing this. The Canadian people deserve to know how their money has been misused. The NDP-Liberal government must finally be held accountable for the actions of its hand-picked appointees, and the Conservatives will be the ones to do it.

[The Deputy Speaker, Chris d'Entremont]

It is my duty pursuant to Standing Order 38 to inform the House that the questions to be raised tonight at the time of adjournment are as follows: the hon. member for Sherwood Park—Fort Saskatchewan, Public Services and Procurement; the hon. member for Langley—Aldergrove, Mental Health and Addictions; and the hon. member for Dufferin—Caledon, Carbon Pricing.

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

Mr. Speaker, it is important to be very clear that the Conservative Party is blurring the issue of judicial independence. In fact, in the last question I asked, the member for Brantford—Brant said that the Conservatives are assisting the RCMP. That is how they justify summoning this information and then giving it directly to the RCMP. One could say that we are on a slippery slope. Are we next going to assist the RCMP by suggesting they arrest someone, or assist the justice system by saying we should put someone in jail?

What a slippery slope the Conservative Party is on with this affront to the Canadian Charter of Rights. The only parliamentarian I am aware of who went to jail was Conservative Dean Del Mastro, the parliamentary secretary to Stephen Harper. Is that where they are getting their constitutional directions from?

[Todd Doherty, Conservative, Cariboo—Prince George, BC]

Mr. Speaker, there were 186 conflicts of interest. The member wants to stand up and point fingers, but just as the Liberals do all the time, they say it was not them or that the Conservatives are worse. They are not going to take any blame. That is all they say: Do not look here; there is nothing to see here. There were 186 conflicts of interest, with over $390 million in taxpayer funds.

[Alexis Brunelle-Duceppe, Bloc, Lac-Saint-Jean, QC]

Mr. Speaker, of course the Bloc Québécois supports the principle of the motion. What bothers us is the wording.

The Conservative motion does actually identify a serious problem, namely the mismanagement of Sustainable Development Technology Canada. However, the motion is problematic in its current form. The first item, calling for all documents to be tabled within 14 days, is completely unrealistic. I will explain why.

When the government tables documents in Parliament, it is required to do so in both English and French. Translation times alone are longer than the 14 days set out in the motion. By including this deadline in the motion, are the Conservatives not trying to put the government in a situation of contempt and provoke a political crisis?

I have to wonder what the real purpose of this motion is, because the Conservatives could have worded it differently and, in principle, it would have been reasonable. However, by demanding that all these documents be translated in 14 days, they are definitely ignoring or flouting the Official Languages Act. Coming from the Conservatives, that would not surprise me. I would like to know what is going on.